Good close but eh. I didn't comment at that AfD because I couldn't come up with a guideline-based reason for keeping but I think it's a useful navigational aid. It's been around for 15+ years, and there's no upkeep (it's just transcluded templates). It's not everyday
a reader complains about an article that was deleted. That list probably got a fair amount of views. Not sure it's too different from the lists in
Category:Lists of current team rosters. I know none of this is really a guideline-based reason to keep it but I thought I'd leave this comment. Also, technically you could just transclude the templates yourself in projectspace but that's not going to help readers.
~WikiOriginal-9~ (
talk) 20:47, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Restore and move to project space as requested. The closer correctly noted a consensus that this page doesn't meet inclusion guidelines, but if it is useful to some editors there is no reason to prevent it's existing in project space. In general, "it's useful" is a poor reason to keep a list in mainspace but an excellent one to keep a subpage of a wikiproject.
Eluchil404 (
talk) 21:31, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
No issue. Weird, that
User:Star Mississippi hesitates to move it into a WikiProject. Deleted from mainspace per NOTDIRECTORY is absolutely no issue for the list in a WikiProject.
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 21:48, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Restore as requested. I actually don't think
WP:NOTDIRECTORY applies here, this was a template transclusion article and served a valid navigational purpose and provided context beyond mere simple listings, but this isn't the AfD, and this sort of page could be useful to the project.
SportingFlyerT·C 22:20, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Not much to add here as I said most of what I wanted to at BeanieFan's talk (and thank you for opening this as I hadn't had the chance). My hesitation in restoring this vs other draftifications I have and will continue to be willing to do was that I felt it could be perceived as a supervote, but it was also due in part to the AN requester's userpage re-creation having been speedied. I do think that would have been less likely to happen if it had been Beanie or another established editor doing so. If consensus here is that this should be restored, please do so with an early close as I am not at all against that happening and 100% against bureaucracy. StarMississippi 01:33, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Allow projectification (That's a word because we know what it means and language is descriptive.)
Robert McClenon (
talk) 04:49, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Allow move to project space per the above request. Beaniefan and others at Wikiproject NFL have historically done well at maintaining articles on NFL players and coaches (particularly lesser known ones) and adding this list to the project is a useful tool to allow that. I endorse the close as unanimous consensus to delete, but will not "bold" that, since the deletion itself is not being challenged. FrankAnchor 14:49, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Consensus has been against maintaining similar constantly-out-of-date lists like "oldest" anything, but I see no reason why that can't exist outside of mainspace. It may not be what we want in a list article, but Wikiprojects or interested editors can keep a far wider range of things outside of mainspace, and that's unquestionably a good thing.
Jclemens (
talk) 20:37, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Jclemens: FWIW, the list requires no maintenance, as it is a list of templates.
BeanieFan11 (
talk) 20:48, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Interesting. And the templates themselves require no maintenance?
Jclemens (
talk) 20:59, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Considering they're templates on the pages of the most watched sports league in the United States, there's absolutely no problem with keeping them up to date. The oldest lists are weird.
SportingFlyerT·C 22:22, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Restore as requested by the OP.
Lightburst (
talk) 22:14, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
The above is an archive of the
deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
Bouriema Kimba – "Delete" closure endorsed. The article can be userfied or draftified on request by people who want to work on it, and can be recreated if sufficient sources about the person are found to establish notability (which may be easier now that it has been discovered that his name may have been misspelled). Sandstein 07:46, 9 February 2024 (UTC)reply
The following is an archived debate of the
deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
I believe the closure of this discussion to be incorrect. To start, Kimba was a multi-time Olympian for
Niger, setting national records in the nation's top sport (running) and later becoming the national athletics coach. He seems to have been regarded as one of the greatest athletes in Niger's history and one of the greatest coaches in Niger's history; he died in 2013.
Habst noted that he passed
WP:NSPORT as a multi-time national champion and record-setter, and I noted that Olympedia gave a quick biography of him (when for non-English countries, they only do that to exceptionally notable athletes; he is the only Nigerien person they profile). The discussion was pretty evenly split at four "deletes" and three "keeps"; each of the four deletes were more early on and were in effect "fails GNG" (Oaktree - nothing on google, (but of course, there would be no coverage on google); Geschichte fails gng, as well as Joelle and Let'srun similar). Now, to the argument towards keeping, that each of us "keep" voters advanced: Kimba was a very significant athlete and coach in Niger, including being one of their only Olympians, and we have...absolutely 0.00% access to the Nigerien newspapers of the time...I noted in my
WP:IAR vote that it is simply incomprehensible to assume that a nation's newspapers would not cover perhaps their top athletic figure, especially one with a tragic death (there are a number of Nigerien newspapers of the time as noted in the discussion, none of which we can access). In reply to Joelle calling it "baseless" to believe that coverage exists (which NSPORT actually says is likely to exist here). Habst noted that
We do know that SIGCOV exists for Kimba, here are the bases for this claim:
We know that Kimba was a national champion at least two times, and was one of the most successful sprinters in Nigerien history including holding the Nigerien national record.
We know that Kimba twice competed at the Olympic Games and was once the only sprinter representing Niger, in the marquee event of the marquee sport of one of the most notable sporting competitions in the world.
We know that there are several daily newspapers in Niger, some of which are listed at
Mass media in Niger. Looking at the list on that page, it seems like not even one of them was searched in this deletion discussion so far...We know that Kimba led an extremely active post-Olympic career, including becoming the national sprint coach of Niger and being the president of the Association Nigerienne des Olympiens. This is unusual even among Olympians – most of them only have limited involvement with the sport after retirement.
We know that Kimba was still recognized years after his death, to the point where he received a posthumous trophy from the L'Association des Anciens Athlètes du Niger in 2014.
We know that Kimba died in 2013, and that his exact date and manner (road accident) of death are known. The tradition of newspapers is to publish such information in obituaries for notable people; it is all but certain that such information would have been covered in one of the above media sources.
Based on those points, we know that significant coverage exists – it's simply a matter of finding it now, and WP:BASIC allows us to keep the article with that knowledge in hand.
Habst's comment was not rebutted, and neither was my vote which provided in-depth reasoning as to why it should be kept, after which the only comment was another user voting keep in agreement with us. In giving due weight to each vote, I do not believe that the "delete" argument is sufficiently strong to overcome the "keep" argument, especially given the closeness in numbers, and suggest this be overturned to no consensus.
BeanieFan11 (
talk) 20:18, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Endorse. GNG requires concrete sources of a certain quality, and the SNGs such as NSPORT require that such sources exist in the abstract, i.e. that it can be reasonably assumed that they exist, and instruct when such assumptions are reasonable. But when in an AfD such an assumption is probed, and during the full discussion period, no such sources can actually be concretized (not even one), despite sincere attempts to identify them, the assumption is pierced, and it can no longer be considered that the subject is notable. When the newspaper articles are dug up, just recreate with suitable sourcing.—
Alalch E. 21:08, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
The thing is, no one looked at relevant sources. Not a single 1990s Nigerien newspaper was searched. Not one. Zero. When none of the relevant sources are searched, it only makes sense that the presumption that such coverage exists should stand.
BeanieFan11 (
talk) 21:16, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
We also did find sources on Kimba - while the blog was debatable,
Olympedia is a reliable source that gives over 50 words of coverage.
WP:100WORDS states that Fifty such words would likely be significant, and it especially should be considering how insanely difficult it is to find sources on these kinds of topics. Though this is not the place to rehash the discussion; this is on whether four "delete" votes with little reasoning aside from "fails GNG from google search" can not only equal, but overcome three "keep" votes with very in-depth and strong reasoning as to why coverage exists.
BeanieFan11 (
talk) 21:20, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
You don’t seem to have read that the reliable source needs to be a
secondary source. The source needs its author to add comment of some kind. At the very least, look for adjectives. Otherwise, it’s just facts, and facts don’t meet the GNG.
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 21:57, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Facts don't meet the GNG Huh? Its the coverage of a subject that counts. Also, Olympedia is published by the preeminent Olympic historians years after Kimba died, I don't see how that isn't secondary?
BeanieFan11 (
talk) 22:00, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
I still don't see how your statement is true; if the only way one could get notable was author's commentary (and not coverage of actual significance), then there would be a very severe lack of articles on historical figures! Would you mind providing relevant Wiki-policy stating that coverage without opinionated commentary cannot be considered for notability?
BeanieFan11 (
talk) 20:58, 4 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Wikipedia-notability means that others, in reliable sources have demonstrated the topic to be of interest by covering it. “Covering” implies, although not so obviously, that these others have generated creative content on the topic. Generated creative content is necessarily transformative of the basic facts. The basic facts are always, in the field of
historiology, to which enclopjedias belong,
primary source material. Collecting facts without commentary conflicts with
WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Including unsourced commentary conflicts with
WP:NOR. There has to be sourced commentary, beyond sourced facts. The commentary doesn’t have to be “opinionated”, but it has to have evidence of opinion from the author.
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 23:26, 4 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Endorse.
User:BeanieFan11’s !vote was worthless. Many words claiming we know he is the greatest, with no suitable sources, is a worthless !vote. If no reliable source has covered this person, Wikipedia must not be the first. Wikipedia is not an original publisher. If you can find GNG meeting sources, start a draft. —
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 21:54, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
@
SmokeyJoe: FWIW, Habst's vote explains why he was the greatest - one of the only Olympians for the country (of 20+ million), multi-time national champ, national record-holder, and Olympedia states that he was one of the best as well.
BeanieFan11 (
talk) 21:58, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
We don’t care if he was the greatest. We only care if there’s a source that says he was the greatest. Habst didn’t supply links or proper citations. He alluded, but didn’t substantiate. That’s a reason to Draftify.
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 09:11, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
@
SmokeyJoe, thank you for commenting. All of my statements in the AfD were substantiated with sources, properly cited with links to
WP:RS. The links were all in the article.
And here is a source for the rest of the information about his coaching career:
"Boureima Kimba". Sports-Reference. Archived from
the original on 2020-04-17.
This is excluding the dozens (hundreds?) of newspaper citations that list him as competing in both the 1992 and 1996 Olympics in the marquee event of the Olympics (sprinting). What do you think about these sources? --
Habst (
talk) 17:55, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
User:Habst. The first doesn’t load for me. The second doesn’t discuss the subject. The third is something but is too brief.
In terms of
WP:THREE, thanks for limiting to three sources that you ask me to review. I suggest continuing this in draftspace. It isn’t always easy to explain why a source isn’t good enough. For difficult to access sources, I might ask you to quote the pertinent coverage.
I note that I ask for quality
secondary sources, and you respond by linking
WP:RS, which is not the same thing.
I would like to see this historical deceased athlete covered, and I think the only route to that is via draftification and finding two or three qualifying sources. Follow the advice at
WP:THREE, after the close of this DRV.
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 21:01, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Comment—potentially misspelled name: Unrelated to everything discussed above, a thing worth noting: Bouriema Kimba could be a misspelling. Boureima Kimba could be the correct spelling. See
ProQuest108919574 and
ProQuest109657241. Newspapers.com has him as Boureima too.—
Alalch E. 22:08, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Endorse. Seraphimblade's reading of consensus was correct. WP:IAR is not a valid notability argument, nor is the PERX that referenced it.
BeanieFan11 makes a valid argument about the scarcity of sources in places like Niger. However, their presumption that such coverage exists is contrary to
WP:BURDEN. In the end, especially with biographies, saying that sources must exist is not enough, unless we can cite them.
Owen×☎ 22:26, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Sigh. We've got a mis-spelled name on a two-time Olympian, with coverage of his tragic death on a blogspot site which is probably a blogspot site not because it's a blog but because it's Nigerien media, and by my count four dead links to former web pages about him, though three only look like databases - the fourth being the link in the German wikipedia article for him. None of the Nigerien newspapers I've found are searchable or even load. I think there's clearly enough hints that there have been significant coverage for there to be an article and while I can't fault the result I'm kind of frustrated the discussion was very much a hard no without discussing just how grey this discussion was, because it's not clear to me if anyone tried to look for sources.
SportingFlyerT·C 22:34, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
I understand your point, SportingFlyer, but what would you have the closing admin do in such a case? Go, "Consensus is to delete, but that's because you're not trying hard enough to find sources, so I'll ignore it"? The AfD went through two relists, with eight participants, including some very experienced editors relying on policy and guidelines, putting in time to look at it. I agree with you that this is an unfortunate outcome, but it was the only possible outcome given the consensus in this case.
Owen×☎ 23:10, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
I have no problem with the close, but I don't think that's the issue here.
SportingFlyerT·C 08:02, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Weak Endorse as a valid conclusion by the closer when a majority of editors said that the sources did not establish
notability. But:
Allow Draftification - Since the deletion was for
notability reasons, there is no reason not to put the article into draft space so that the appellant or other editors can find the sources that we are confident exist.
Robert McClenon (
talk) 04:46, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Weak endorse - While I fundamentally disagree with Owenx's claim that IAR is not a valid notability argument (IAR can be used to argue that any policy/guideline, including notability, shouldn't be rigidly applied because it explains the rules are not always perfect) and I find Beanie's IAR keep vote to be valid (and the perx underneath it), I still find consensus to delete. The only other "keep" vote cites presumed notability via NTRACK only. The failure to find SIGCOV to meet GNG takes precedence. I have no objection to restoring as a draft per Robert McClenon. FrankAnchor 16:35, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
IAR can hardly be a valid notability argument. Notability loses meaning when you apply too much IAR to it, because it's a wholly artificial construct that only has meaning as a "creature of PAG", and means nothing when its meaning is improvised ad hoc, becoming just an empty husk of a word. It can't revert to the natural meaning of eminent, prominent, famous, renowned, because those are completely divorced from any practical application on the project. IAR can be applied to the deletion policy in the following way: "This article about a non-notable subject should be kept in spite of its lack of notability". That's a meaningful IAR-derived statement. —
Alalch E. 19:58, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
So, yes there could have been argument along the lines of keeping in spite of lack of notability, meaning ignoring the rule that articles on non-notable subjects are deleted, because keeping the specific article is good for the encyclopedia for reasons XYZ. Then a consensus might form around how it's good for the encyclopedia. But an argument that the subject should perpetually be assumed to be notable and when someone visits the Niger national archive and finds the printed articles there, the subject will be confirmed as notable (which will have been the same as the subject being assumed as notable for all practical intents and purposes, because he was unassailably assumed as notable, so why even bother), and doesn't explain how it's great for Wikipedia that this subject lacking coverage should be somehow encyclopedically covered after all (and how its even possible), and no consensus around that viewpoint forms, that's different. That's not IAR. That's alluding to notability without substance. —
Alalch E. 20:16, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
I think that's where the problem here lies - if you look closely, there's evidence of substance, even if the Nigerien article cited in German Wikipedia is no longer online, and even though the blogspot was instantly rejected as unreliable. Even the BEFORE search here was flawed - using the name as printed is incorrect, and both search engines I just tried don't recognize it was flipped. There's more here than just the "well there's probably coverage." We know there's coverage, it's just inaccessible, but the coverage that's out there allows for a valid stub. I think that's the nature of my frustration here.
SportingFlyerT·C 20:32, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Overturn to no consensus Notability can be disregarded on any encyclopedic basis, e.g. systematic difficulty obtaining sources in the subject's country. !votes that treat N as a policy should have therefore been accorded less weight, because it isn't. "Fails GNG, we must delete it" is erroneous: notability isn't required unlike V, NPOV, NOR, etc., and keeping representation of notable Africans in a systemically under-reported context is a reasonably pillar-compliant reason to ignore N in this context.
Jclemens (
talk) 20:41, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Failing notability doesn’t necessarily mean delete, true, but someone has to suggest a plausible merge target. My best find is Nigeria at the OlympicsNiger at the Olympics, where he doesn’t fit but could be made to fit if that page covered the subject of its title, rather than just medal winners. No one at AfD argued like that, so the next best thing is to Draftify.
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 21:03, 4 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Thanks. My apologies. Fixed.
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 23:28, 4 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Failing notability doesn't mean anything of the sort. Since N is a guideline, not policy, a local consensus can decide that there's a good reason to not apply it in a specific case. Now, in practice, that's going to be rarer than hen's teeth and an ATD outcome is going to be far and away more common... but notability is still an overridable, if strong, consideration.
Jclemens (
talk) 06:34, 5 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Endorse. I think that the keep side is weaker than the delete side. The keep votes included one keep vote citing a 4-sentence blog article for SPORTBASIC, another largely based upon IAR and another that qualifies the vote as a "very weak keep". I don't see how that is stronger than the delete votes, but even if the keep side is given equal weight, the numerical majority of 5 delete to 3 keeps is enough for a consensus IMO. As such I think the closer made an entirely reasonable decision here. VickKiang(talk) 08:04, 4 February 2024 (UTC)reply
I have no objection to userfying/drafting as well, provided of course that it would only be moved to mainspace if new and better coverage is found. VickKiang(talk) 00:15, 5 February 2024 (UTC)reply
While I endorse the close as a correct reading of consensus, this outcome here makes sense. To me the AfD reads as "not notable based on the sources to which we have access" rather than "impossible for him to meet notability" so draft or userfication makes sense. StarMississippi 00:46, 5 February 2024 (UTC)reply
What if we just voided the AfD and started over on the basis of the misspelling alone?
SportingFlyerT·C 21:57, 5 February 2024 (UTC)reply
This seems like a better alternative than draft- or userification to me.
Jclemens (
talk) 04:07, 6 February 2024 (UTC)reply
The above is an archive of the
deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
Good close but eh. I didn't comment at that AfD because I couldn't come up with a guideline-based reason for keeping but I think it's a useful navigational aid. It's been around for 15+ years, and there's no upkeep (it's just transcluded templates). It's not everyday
a reader complains about an article that was deleted. That list probably got a fair amount of views. Not sure it's too different from the lists in
Category:Lists of current team rosters. I know none of this is really a guideline-based reason to keep it but I thought I'd leave this comment. Also, technically you could just transclude the templates yourself in projectspace but that's not going to help readers.
~WikiOriginal-9~ (
talk) 20:47, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Restore and move to project space as requested. The closer correctly noted a consensus that this page doesn't meet inclusion guidelines, but if it is useful to some editors there is no reason to prevent it's existing in project space. In general, "it's useful" is a poor reason to keep a list in mainspace but an excellent one to keep a subpage of a wikiproject.
Eluchil404 (
talk) 21:31, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
No issue. Weird, that
User:Star Mississippi hesitates to move it into a WikiProject. Deleted from mainspace per NOTDIRECTORY is absolutely no issue for the list in a WikiProject.
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 21:48, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Restore as requested. I actually don't think
WP:NOTDIRECTORY applies here, this was a template transclusion article and served a valid navigational purpose and provided context beyond mere simple listings, but this isn't the AfD, and this sort of page could be useful to the project.
SportingFlyerT·C 22:20, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Not much to add here as I said most of what I wanted to at BeanieFan's talk (and thank you for opening this as I hadn't had the chance). My hesitation in restoring this vs other draftifications I have and will continue to be willing to do was that I felt it could be perceived as a supervote, but it was also due in part to the AN requester's userpage re-creation having been speedied. I do think that would have been less likely to happen if it had been Beanie or another established editor doing so. If consensus here is that this should be restored, please do so with an early close as I am not at all against that happening and 100% against bureaucracy. StarMississippi 01:33, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Allow projectification (That's a word because we know what it means and language is descriptive.)
Robert McClenon (
talk) 04:49, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Allow move to project space per the above request. Beaniefan and others at Wikiproject NFL have historically done well at maintaining articles on NFL players and coaches (particularly lesser known ones) and adding this list to the project is a useful tool to allow that. I endorse the close as unanimous consensus to delete, but will not "bold" that, since the deletion itself is not being challenged. FrankAnchor 14:49, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Consensus has been against maintaining similar constantly-out-of-date lists like "oldest" anything, but I see no reason why that can't exist outside of mainspace. It may not be what we want in a list article, but Wikiprojects or interested editors can keep a far wider range of things outside of mainspace, and that's unquestionably a good thing.
Jclemens (
talk) 20:37, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
@
Jclemens: FWIW, the list requires no maintenance, as it is a list of templates.
BeanieFan11 (
talk) 20:48, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Interesting. And the templates themselves require no maintenance?
Jclemens (
talk) 20:59, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Considering they're templates on the pages of the most watched sports league in the United States, there's absolutely no problem with keeping them up to date. The oldest lists are weird.
SportingFlyerT·C 22:22, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Restore as requested by the OP.
Lightburst (
talk) 22:14, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
The above is an archive of the
deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
Bouriema Kimba – "Delete" closure endorsed. The article can be userfied or draftified on request by people who want to work on it, and can be recreated if sufficient sources about the person are found to establish notability (which may be easier now that it has been discovered that his name may have been misspelled). Sandstein 07:46, 9 February 2024 (UTC)reply
The following is an archived debate of the
deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
I believe the closure of this discussion to be incorrect. To start, Kimba was a multi-time Olympian for
Niger, setting national records in the nation's top sport (running) and later becoming the national athletics coach. He seems to have been regarded as one of the greatest athletes in Niger's history and one of the greatest coaches in Niger's history; he died in 2013.
Habst noted that he passed
WP:NSPORT as a multi-time national champion and record-setter, and I noted that Olympedia gave a quick biography of him (when for non-English countries, they only do that to exceptionally notable athletes; he is the only Nigerien person they profile). The discussion was pretty evenly split at four "deletes" and three "keeps"; each of the four deletes were more early on and were in effect "fails GNG" (Oaktree - nothing on google, (but of course, there would be no coverage on google); Geschichte fails gng, as well as Joelle and Let'srun similar). Now, to the argument towards keeping, that each of us "keep" voters advanced: Kimba was a very significant athlete and coach in Niger, including being one of their only Olympians, and we have...absolutely 0.00% access to the Nigerien newspapers of the time...I noted in my
WP:IAR vote that it is simply incomprehensible to assume that a nation's newspapers would not cover perhaps their top athletic figure, especially one with a tragic death (there are a number of Nigerien newspapers of the time as noted in the discussion, none of which we can access). In reply to Joelle calling it "baseless" to believe that coverage exists (which NSPORT actually says is likely to exist here). Habst noted that
We do know that SIGCOV exists for Kimba, here are the bases for this claim:
We know that Kimba was a national champion at least two times, and was one of the most successful sprinters in Nigerien history including holding the Nigerien national record.
We know that Kimba twice competed at the Olympic Games and was once the only sprinter representing Niger, in the marquee event of the marquee sport of one of the most notable sporting competitions in the world.
We know that there are several daily newspapers in Niger, some of which are listed at
Mass media in Niger. Looking at the list on that page, it seems like not even one of them was searched in this deletion discussion so far...We know that Kimba led an extremely active post-Olympic career, including becoming the national sprint coach of Niger and being the president of the Association Nigerienne des Olympiens. This is unusual even among Olympians – most of them only have limited involvement with the sport after retirement.
We know that Kimba was still recognized years after his death, to the point where he received a posthumous trophy from the L'Association des Anciens Athlètes du Niger in 2014.
We know that Kimba died in 2013, and that his exact date and manner (road accident) of death are known. The tradition of newspapers is to publish such information in obituaries for notable people; it is all but certain that such information would have been covered in one of the above media sources.
Based on those points, we know that significant coverage exists – it's simply a matter of finding it now, and WP:BASIC allows us to keep the article with that knowledge in hand.
Habst's comment was not rebutted, and neither was my vote which provided in-depth reasoning as to why it should be kept, after which the only comment was another user voting keep in agreement with us. In giving due weight to each vote, I do not believe that the "delete" argument is sufficiently strong to overcome the "keep" argument, especially given the closeness in numbers, and suggest this be overturned to no consensus.
BeanieFan11 (
talk) 20:18, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Endorse. GNG requires concrete sources of a certain quality, and the SNGs such as NSPORT require that such sources exist in the abstract, i.e. that it can be reasonably assumed that they exist, and instruct when such assumptions are reasonable. But when in an AfD such an assumption is probed, and during the full discussion period, no such sources can actually be concretized (not even one), despite sincere attempts to identify them, the assumption is pierced, and it can no longer be considered that the subject is notable. When the newspaper articles are dug up, just recreate with suitable sourcing.—
Alalch E. 21:08, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
The thing is, no one looked at relevant sources. Not a single 1990s Nigerien newspaper was searched. Not one. Zero. When none of the relevant sources are searched, it only makes sense that the presumption that such coverage exists should stand.
BeanieFan11 (
talk) 21:16, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
We also did find sources on Kimba - while the blog was debatable,
Olympedia is a reliable source that gives over 50 words of coverage.
WP:100WORDS states that Fifty such words would likely be significant, and it especially should be considering how insanely difficult it is to find sources on these kinds of topics. Though this is not the place to rehash the discussion; this is on whether four "delete" votes with little reasoning aside from "fails GNG from google search" can not only equal, but overcome three "keep" votes with very in-depth and strong reasoning as to why coverage exists.
BeanieFan11 (
talk) 21:20, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
You don’t seem to have read that the reliable source needs to be a
secondary source. The source needs its author to add comment of some kind. At the very least, look for adjectives. Otherwise, it’s just facts, and facts don’t meet the GNG.
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 21:57, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Facts don't meet the GNG Huh? Its the coverage of a subject that counts. Also, Olympedia is published by the preeminent Olympic historians years after Kimba died, I don't see how that isn't secondary?
BeanieFan11 (
talk) 22:00, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
I still don't see how your statement is true; if the only way one could get notable was author's commentary (and not coverage of actual significance), then there would be a very severe lack of articles on historical figures! Would you mind providing relevant Wiki-policy stating that coverage without opinionated commentary cannot be considered for notability?
BeanieFan11 (
talk) 20:58, 4 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Wikipedia-notability means that others, in reliable sources have demonstrated the topic to be of interest by covering it. “Covering” implies, although not so obviously, that these others have generated creative content on the topic. Generated creative content is necessarily transformative of the basic facts. The basic facts are always, in the field of
historiology, to which enclopjedias belong,
primary source material. Collecting facts without commentary conflicts with
WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Including unsourced commentary conflicts with
WP:NOR. There has to be sourced commentary, beyond sourced facts. The commentary doesn’t have to be “opinionated”, but it has to have evidence of opinion from the author.
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 23:26, 4 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Endorse.
User:BeanieFan11’s !vote was worthless. Many words claiming we know he is the greatest, with no suitable sources, is a worthless !vote. If no reliable source has covered this person, Wikipedia must not be the first. Wikipedia is not an original publisher. If you can find GNG meeting sources, start a draft. —
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 21:54, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
@
SmokeyJoe: FWIW, Habst's vote explains why he was the greatest - one of the only Olympians for the country (of 20+ million), multi-time national champ, national record-holder, and Olympedia states that he was one of the best as well.
BeanieFan11 (
talk) 21:58, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
We don’t care if he was the greatest. We only care if there’s a source that says he was the greatest. Habst didn’t supply links or proper citations. He alluded, but didn’t substantiate. That’s a reason to Draftify.
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 09:11, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
@
SmokeyJoe, thank you for commenting. All of my statements in the AfD were substantiated with sources, properly cited with links to
WP:RS. The links were all in the article.
And here is a source for the rest of the information about his coaching career:
"Boureima Kimba". Sports-Reference. Archived from
the original on 2020-04-17.
This is excluding the dozens (hundreds?) of newspaper citations that list him as competing in both the 1992 and 1996 Olympics in the marquee event of the Olympics (sprinting). What do you think about these sources? --
Habst (
talk) 17:55, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
User:Habst. The first doesn’t load for me. The second doesn’t discuss the subject. The third is something but is too brief.
In terms of
WP:THREE, thanks for limiting to three sources that you ask me to review. I suggest continuing this in draftspace. It isn’t always easy to explain why a source isn’t good enough. For difficult to access sources, I might ask you to quote the pertinent coverage.
I note that I ask for quality
secondary sources, and you respond by linking
WP:RS, which is not the same thing.
I would like to see this historical deceased athlete covered, and I think the only route to that is via draftification and finding two or three qualifying sources. Follow the advice at
WP:THREE, after the close of this DRV.
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 21:01, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Comment—potentially misspelled name: Unrelated to everything discussed above, a thing worth noting: Bouriema Kimba could be a misspelling. Boureima Kimba could be the correct spelling. See
ProQuest108919574 and
ProQuest109657241. Newspapers.com has him as Boureima too.—
Alalch E. 22:08, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Endorse. Seraphimblade's reading of consensus was correct. WP:IAR is not a valid notability argument, nor is the PERX that referenced it.
BeanieFan11 makes a valid argument about the scarcity of sources in places like Niger. However, their presumption that such coverage exists is contrary to
WP:BURDEN. In the end, especially with biographies, saying that sources must exist is not enough, unless we can cite them.
Owen×☎ 22:26, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Sigh. We've got a mis-spelled name on a two-time Olympian, with coverage of his tragic death on a blogspot site which is probably a blogspot site not because it's a blog but because it's Nigerien media, and by my count four dead links to former web pages about him, though three only look like databases - the fourth being the link in the German wikipedia article for him. None of the Nigerien newspapers I've found are searchable or even load. I think there's clearly enough hints that there have been significant coverage for there to be an article and while I can't fault the result I'm kind of frustrated the discussion was very much a hard no without discussing just how grey this discussion was, because it's not clear to me if anyone tried to look for sources.
SportingFlyerT·C 22:34, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
I understand your point, SportingFlyer, but what would you have the closing admin do in such a case? Go, "Consensus is to delete, but that's because you're not trying hard enough to find sources, so I'll ignore it"? The AfD went through two relists, with eight participants, including some very experienced editors relying on policy and guidelines, putting in time to look at it. I agree with you that this is an unfortunate outcome, but it was the only possible outcome given the consensus in this case.
Owen×☎ 23:10, 1 February 2024 (UTC)reply
I have no problem with the close, but I don't think that's the issue here.
SportingFlyerT·C 08:02, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Weak Endorse as a valid conclusion by the closer when a majority of editors said that the sources did not establish
notability. But:
Allow Draftification - Since the deletion was for
notability reasons, there is no reason not to put the article into draft space so that the appellant or other editors can find the sources that we are confident exist.
Robert McClenon (
talk) 04:46, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Weak endorse - While I fundamentally disagree with Owenx's claim that IAR is not a valid notability argument (IAR can be used to argue that any policy/guideline, including notability, shouldn't be rigidly applied because it explains the rules are not always perfect) and I find Beanie's IAR keep vote to be valid (and the perx underneath it), I still find consensus to delete. The only other "keep" vote cites presumed notability via NTRACK only. The failure to find SIGCOV to meet GNG takes precedence. I have no objection to restoring as a draft per Robert McClenon. FrankAnchor 16:35, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
IAR can hardly be a valid notability argument. Notability loses meaning when you apply too much IAR to it, because it's a wholly artificial construct that only has meaning as a "creature of PAG", and means nothing when its meaning is improvised ad hoc, becoming just an empty husk of a word. It can't revert to the natural meaning of eminent, prominent, famous, renowned, because those are completely divorced from any practical application on the project. IAR can be applied to the deletion policy in the following way: "This article about a non-notable subject should be kept in spite of its lack of notability". That's a meaningful IAR-derived statement. —
Alalch E. 19:58, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
So, yes there could have been argument along the lines of keeping in spite of lack of notability, meaning ignoring the rule that articles on non-notable subjects are deleted, because keeping the specific article is good for the encyclopedia for reasons XYZ. Then a consensus might form around how it's good for the encyclopedia. But an argument that the subject should perpetually be assumed to be notable and when someone visits the Niger national archive and finds the printed articles there, the subject will be confirmed as notable (which will have been the same as the subject being assumed as notable for all practical intents and purposes, because he was unassailably assumed as notable, so why even bother), and doesn't explain how it's great for Wikipedia that this subject lacking coverage should be somehow encyclopedically covered after all (and how its even possible), and no consensus around that viewpoint forms, that's different. That's not IAR. That's alluding to notability without substance. —
Alalch E. 20:16, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
I think that's where the problem here lies - if you look closely, there's evidence of substance, even if the Nigerien article cited in German Wikipedia is no longer online, and even though the blogspot was instantly rejected as unreliable. Even the BEFORE search here was flawed - using the name as printed is incorrect, and both search engines I just tried don't recognize it was flipped. There's more here than just the "well there's probably coverage." We know there's coverage, it's just inaccessible, but the coverage that's out there allows for a valid stub. I think that's the nature of my frustration here.
SportingFlyerT·C 20:32, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Overturn to no consensus Notability can be disregarded on any encyclopedic basis, e.g. systematic difficulty obtaining sources in the subject's country. !votes that treat N as a policy should have therefore been accorded less weight, because it isn't. "Fails GNG, we must delete it" is erroneous: notability isn't required unlike V, NPOV, NOR, etc., and keeping representation of notable Africans in a systemically under-reported context is a reasonably pillar-compliant reason to ignore N in this context.
Jclemens (
talk) 20:41, 2 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Failing notability doesn’t necessarily mean delete, true, but someone has to suggest a plausible merge target. My best find is Nigeria at the OlympicsNiger at the Olympics, where he doesn’t fit but could be made to fit if that page covered the subject of its title, rather than just medal winners. No one at AfD argued like that, so the next best thing is to Draftify.
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 21:03, 4 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Thanks. My apologies. Fixed.
SmokeyJoe (
talk) 23:28, 4 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Failing notability doesn't mean anything of the sort. Since N is a guideline, not policy, a local consensus can decide that there's a good reason to not apply it in a specific case. Now, in practice, that's going to be rarer than hen's teeth and an ATD outcome is going to be far and away more common... but notability is still an overridable, if strong, consideration.
Jclemens (
talk) 06:34, 5 February 2024 (UTC)reply
Endorse. I think that the keep side is weaker than the delete side. The keep votes included one keep vote citing a 4-sentence blog article for SPORTBASIC, another largely based upon IAR and another that qualifies the vote as a "very weak keep". I don't see how that is stronger than the delete votes, but even if the keep side is given equal weight, the numerical majority of 5 delete to 3 keeps is enough for a consensus IMO. As such I think the closer made an entirely reasonable decision here. VickKiang(talk) 08:04, 4 February 2024 (UTC)reply
I have no objection to userfying/drafting as well, provided of course that it would only be moved to mainspace if new and better coverage is found. VickKiang(talk) 00:15, 5 February 2024 (UTC)reply
While I endorse the close as a correct reading of consensus, this outcome here makes sense. To me the AfD reads as "not notable based on the sources to which we have access" rather than "impossible for him to meet notability" so draft or userfication makes sense. StarMississippi 00:46, 5 February 2024 (UTC)reply
What if we just voided the AfD and started over on the basis of the misspelling alone?
SportingFlyerT·C 21:57, 5 February 2024 (UTC)reply
This seems like a better alternative than draft- or userification to me.
Jclemens (
talk) 04:07, 6 February 2024 (UTC)reply
The above is an archive of the
deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.