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Hello, if you look atr my deleted contributions, you will see that there are a lot of them. I do a lot of patrolling on Special:Newpages and tag articles for speedy deletion. And it's getting frustrating. Yesterday, CAT:CSD had 105 articles in it. People constantly create spam and nn subjects. And looking at CAT:CCSD, the majority of the users who create CSD articles are clueless. And I have to come to the conclusion that MediaWiki:Newarticletext is too weak. What people do is either not notice it or figure it isn't important. I have a suggestion to make it bolder. I think this should grab attention, it's based off the one from Meta.
With this, people will notice it right off the bat, and they'll know it's important. I'd like to suggest we make this the knew MediaWiki:Newarticletext. Any opinions? Thanks. JetLover ( talk) ( Report a mistake) 00:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Go for it. I'd retain something in there about Wikipedia being an encyclopedia and that what we expect in a nutshell is an article in an encyclopedic tone on an encyclopedic subject. We should try to lessen the learning curve for creating new articles.
In particular: remove the lookup for the CSDs, replacing it with a CSD for dummies like below. The most frequently arising CSDs are common sense - paper encyclopedias don't contain social networking profiles and/or adverts so neither should we (A7, G11), don't create articles so short nobody can tell what they are about (A1, A3), don't create nonsense (G1, G2, G3), don't plagiarize (G12 - yes I know copyvio != plagiarism but it might be easier to explain copyright infringement this way) and don't attack people (G10). I'd also try to remove the notability bit (try to construct this in terms of enough sources to write a comprehensive encyclopedia article). MER-C 12:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
This is too unfriendly, and it's trying to solve a problem that is too ambitious for that portion of the UI. What I like is the big warning icon; what I don't like is the gauntlet of questions. What this should instead say is something like, "Is this your first article? Please read WP:YOURFIRSTARTICLE" or somesuch, where the point can be addressed more eloquently. --- tqbf 19:41, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Another suggestion: the words "thank you" should precede warnings. --- tqbf 20:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I think this is a great idea. One thing that strikes me as crucially missing is that there is no specific mention of our core content polices (WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR). I went ahead and drafted a proposed change, with the core content policies up front. I have also incorporated a number of the suggestions here—moved the tutorial/my first article up and CSD information down, added text on copyvios, BLP and attack pages, and some other tweaks such as changing "your" to "an" in the first line (don't want to start people off with a WP:OWN understanding) and spelled out all the shortcuts in the pipes. Also please not the change to the line referring users to the help desk. I am a regular there and we get a large number of misplaced posts better suited for the reference desk. I shudder to think of the result if it is left in its current generic form "...questions can be asked at the help desk". The proposed changes appear below.-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 02:18, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, which means all information added: 1) must be verifiable through existing, published, reliable sources; 2) must be written from a neutral point of view; and 3) must not add any original research, in the form unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories.
I support the above design. JetLover ( talk) ( Report a mistake) 03:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, which means all information added: 1) must be verifiable through existing, published, reliable sources; 2) must be written from a neutral point of view; and 3) must not add any original research, in the form unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories.
|
It's a really good idea, but many people won't really care. It needs a bold sign that says the non-notable things, etc. will be deleted. Reywas92 Talk 18:45, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
The simple act of providing references solves most problems:
Just having references (to reliable sources) pretty much demonstrates that the subject is notable. So I simplify the warning to just this:
|
By keeping it short and sweet we improve the chances that people will actually read it. We tell them specifically what they have to do as opposed to telling them what not to do. And we tell them in a concrete way: "provide references" instead of the somewhat nebulous "don't write about non-notable subjects". Sbowers3 ( talk) 13:26, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Before making your Wikipedia article:
|
Last week I proposed adding a new speedy criterion coverning new articles about living persons with no reliable source. See WT:CSD#BLP with no sources. My reading of WP:BLP is that we should be strict about sourcing such articles. They make us a significant part of the CSD traffic, I'd say 20-30%. Others disagreed and said I was taking WP:BLP too literally and suggested I make the proposal at Village Pump. Since it seems relevant to this topic, I've added it here. I'm not suggesting that each new article about a living person have inline cites for every fact, but that at least one non-self -published source be required to establish some notability. Having a clear rule and speedy deletion category would discourage some authors who can't meet the requirement and reduce the time needed to evaluate those articles that are submitted. -- agr ( talk) 02:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I would like to propose that athletes participating in the Olympics or somesuch are not exempt from the aforementioned policies. While patrolling CAT:CSD, I deleted James Barker (athlete) as a non-notable biography. It was later restored by User:Canadian Paul because of this exemption. I then re-deleted the article for reasons stated in the deletion summary ( here). I think that people who were in one event in one Olympics (for example), did not medal, are not covered in reliable sources and have only one claim to notability (that sporting event) should be deleted under CSD A7. Please comment, I think that this precedent is ridiculous. Regards, Keilana talk (recall) 02:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
As for the issue at hand, having competed in the Olympics, even if you stubbed your toe in the starting gate, is a claim of importance. That satisfied WP:CSD#A7, which just requires that claim. Presumably even in 1912 you didn't just walk in off the street and get into the Olympic race... it was the top level of competition and you got there. But once such an article gets to AFD, I believe inclusion policy is flexible enough that we wouldn't keep such an article if it couldn't be properly sourced. -- W.marsh 03:08, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Keilana has written on a talk page [1] that he'd like to 'nuke' any number of articles similar to this. Perhaps before he does so he could follow the AfD of Mr Barker and wonder if his idea to change the notability rule for sportsmen really does have community support? Nick mallory ( talk) 04:27, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I promised Keilana that I would comment here, so here I am. The debate at the Barker AfD is going to spill over here, because this question is bigger than just the single article. I'm going to flat out say that it's a problem. There are literally thousands of articles such as this on Wikipedia. There are people who have gone to great links to create articles on every skier, bobsledder and so on who ever competed at an international level. Let's take Frederick Milton. Good old Mr. Milton was a member of the British water polo team in 1936 which finished eighth. As a representative from the English speaking part of the world, we can presume that there is no language bias when searched for sources to ascertain his notability. Let's pretend that Wikipedia dropped the athlete clause right now. Would this person pass? The general criteria is as follows:
A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.
First, a Google search. Depending on your parameters to narrow down the field of "Frederick Milton"s, you get a fair amount of results noting his position in the team, his participation in the Olympics and the fact that he finished eighth. This more than takes care of the "reliable sources" requirement. We know he was an Olympian, we know he was on the team. There are also plenty of sources that are independent of the Olympic commission or the British Olympic Committee. So independent is taken care of as well. No substantial coverage, however, can be found. Since this person's prime was in 1936, it might not be fair to search just the Internet. So I tried a [www.jstor.org JSTOR] academic journal search. Their journals go back to the 1800s, so it should take care of the time bias, as well as a United States vs. Britain bias. Still, no substantial coverage. The same results come from a full catalog search at the libraries of the University of Texas. We would therefore conclude that, what we see presently in the Frederick Milton article is all that there is to write about him (short of violating WP:OR and interviewing him or his descendants) and, without the athlete clause, would probably merge the article into a list of "competitors" or something similar at the Olympics.
Obviously not all cases are as straight forward - many present language barriers, many have similar coverage but also won an actual medal. But I cannot stress enough that we now have literally thousands of articles that cannot be anything more than what Frederick Milton has got. People will notice that I have created maybe a dozen of these articles myself. In most cases, it was done to end confusion, since when there are thousands of people competing in the Olympics over the years, some were bound to have the same name. If you take out all the fancy stuff I put around it, most of them come down to this formula:
X (born – died) was a (country adjective) (wikilinked sport player) who competed in the Olympic games in (wikilinked year of Olympic games). (He was a member of/He participated in) (sport) (that won a (colour) medal/but did not win a medal) in (wikilinked hosting city).(citation to databaseOlympics)
Try as I might, I rarely find anything more than that. I can provide a list of any reasonable number of articles like this: it's only a quick journey into Category:Possibly living people to find them. Sometimes the coverage is so inconsequential that the original rolls only recorded their first name ( Lecomte) or none at all (from Archery at the 1900 Summer Olympics: Only France, Belgium, and the Netherlands sent archers. None of the Dutch archers are known by name and none won any medals ) By the clause that we have now, Unknown Dutch Archer 1, Unknown Dutch Archer 2 etc. deserve their own articles. We can prove that there were a certain number of Dutch archers, we just don't have names.
The clause has got to change, or else we're going to have thousands more articles that say nothing more than what can be put on a list. I think the clause should be modified to say that, without substantial coverage, Olympic athletes should be placed on a list of competitors rather than given their own article. If there's no sources for an article, then the person should not have one. I'm open to hearing arguments on whether or not this should apply to only non-medalists or all Olympians, but I do point out that even many medalists were not considered notable enough to be given substantial coverage in their day. I'd love to write an article on Mr. Frederick Milton, but at the end of the day, I can't change history. So I say, let's give Lecomte, the Dutch Archers and Frederick Milton a place where they belong. Let's laud their achievements (or lack thereof) on a list. The best part (at least in my mind) about this proposal is that there's no slippery slope; it's a (relatively) objective test. We're not drawing the line at placement or performance or anything like that, simply at the sources and the WP:N guideline. Furthermore, we do not discard, but listify those that do not make the cut.
I know I'm missing some things that I wanted to say, but I wanted to lay a foundation. Please, point out the holes it so I can fill them up with my bucket of mortar. I may not have gotten it all out now, but I've got it all ready to go. Cheers, CP 05:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Oceanh ( talk) 02:43, 2 January 2008 (UTC).
An interesting debate - a few thoughts. Our existing rules take care of notability and reliable sources - and that need not be internet based. Assuming that someone does have enough WP:RS to make an article, the question is should one be created? Really, its never a question of definative YES or NO, but always a question of balance of reasons of notability - its in the grey "could he/she/it" where we need clear rules and better consensus. One thing many editors forget is the useful role of lists in Wikipedia - rather than create an article or delete someone else's work, adding the information to a list means its recorded, tabulated and in context. For our example 1936 rower, a list entry would be more than adequate - what more could we say about him, and he'd be more "in context" with his colleagues than as a singular article amongst many. I think on balance the existing rules and points of clarity address the issue, and tighter definition could create problems - what happens if he came eight, but was locally so significant they created a library in his name: see, it changes the balance of his importance. I am currently writing individual articles on the top10 shots from the Allied side of the Battle of Britain - and yet, most of these gentlemen who were media personalities at the time didn't have articles before - and yet others who were significant locally did. Perhaps one point of definition could be created, and again I'll take our rower as the example - he's only notable because he took part as part of a team of rowers in one boat. So, rather than eight individual articles, there could be a rule focus more on why he's notable in the field of athletics/olympics (ie - as part of a team), rather than the individual. That should create a better coverage over fewer articles, and more list entries. OK, so there are a few who turn up twice - but they then should easily pass WP:Notability. But most turn up once - and it would at least remove those "standard/looky-likey" articles from the system. Thoughts? Rgds, - Trident13 ( talk) 18:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Trying to address a similar issue for fictional notability, to me, this comes down to common sense application. Yes, Olympic athletes may be notable, but there is likely a better chance to demonstrate notability to group such athletes into a single article, say, "Americans Participating in the 2004 Summer Olympic Games". You can use a table to give each persons name, age, hometown, sport(s) and placement, and then you can add more information about how America's representatives were sponsored. Athletes that are more notable due to other facts should still be listed but can be wikilinked to a more verbose page. -- MASEM 18:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Way back near the beginning of this thread, Canadian Paul put her/his finger on a very important point worth considering: "articles that say nothing more than what can be put on a list." This problem extends to other areas than Olympic contestants. One example is any one of the kings of the 14th and 15th dynasties of ancient Egypt, where what is know about most of these is only his name -- & in a few cases, we do not know even this much. Details like what happened during his reign, dates of his birth & death -- even more than a vague sense of when he actually lived -- are not known, & have so far failed to even attract published commentary or speculation from the experts in the field. And there are countless more cases where one could say that although information on a subject can be verified, the subject itself is not notable. Now we can simply dismiss this with a reference to the principle that "Wikipedia is not paper". However, as we continue to add new articles to Wikipedia, this problem of creating articles which fall into this grey area, articles that conceivably may never grow beyond a sentence or two, this will continue to return to trouble us. -- llywrch ( talk) 19:05, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
The AfD for James Barker (which started all of this) closed as a redirect to 1912 Summer Olympics. While I think that it could be better redirected somewhere else, Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics or Great Britain and Ireland at the 1912 Summer Olympics for example, I think it is similar to my suggestion - what User:LinaMishima referred to as "preferring lists until the wealth of strong knowledge supports an individual article", which I think is a nice summary. It needs a better redirect destination and a subsequent clean up to make sure nothing redundant wikilinks to it, but it's something to consider. I do disagree with the statement, however, that "What we find with the olympic athletes is that this list route is already in use, so the entire debate is moot". I came across hundreds, if not thousands, while doing research for this list; many can be found in Category:Possibly living people as well. Cheers, CP 05:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.
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Hello, if you look atr my deleted contributions, you will see that there are a lot of them. I do a lot of patrolling on Special:Newpages and tag articles for speedy deletion. And it's getting frustrating. Yesterday, CAT:CSD had 105 articles in it. People constantly create spam and nn subjects. And looking at CAT:CCSD, the majority of the users who create CSD articles are clueless. And I have to come to the conclusion that MediaWiki:Newarticletext is too weak. What people do is either not notice it or figure it isn't important. I have a suggestion to make it bolder. I think this should grab attention, it's based off the one from Meta.
With this, people will notice it right off the bat, and they'll know it's important. I'd like to suggest we make this the knew MediaWiki:Newarticletext. Any opinions? Thanks. JetLover ( talk) ( Report a mistake) 00:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Go for it. I'd retain something in there about Wikipedia being an encyclopedia and that what we expect in a nutshell is an article in an encyclopedic tone on an encyclopedic subject. We should try to lessen the learning curve for creating new articles.
In particular: remove the lookup for the CSDs, replacing it with a CSD for dummies like below. The most frequently arising CSDs are common sense - paper encyclopedias don't contain social networking profiles and/or adverts so neither should we (A7, G11), don't create articles so short nobody can tell what they are about (A1, A3), don't create nonsense (G1, G2, G3), don't plagiarize (G12 - yes I know copyvio != plagiarism but it might be easier to explain copyright infringement this way) and don't attack people (G10). I'd also try to remove the notability bit (try to construct this in terms of enough sources to write a comprehensive encyclopedia article). MER-C 12:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
This is too unfriendly, and it's trying to solve a problem that is too ambitious for that portion of the UI. What I like is the big warning icon; what I don't like is the gauntlet of questions. What this should instead say is something like, "Is this your first article? Please read WP:YOURFIRSTARTICLE" or somesuch, where the point can be addressed more eloquently. --- tqbf 19:41, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Another suggestion: the words "thank you" should precede warnings. --- tqbf 20:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I think this is a great idea. One thing that strikes me as crucially missing is that there is no specific mention of our core content polices (WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR). I went ahead and drafted a proposed change, with the core content policies up front. I have also incorporated a number of the suggestions here—moved the tutorial/my first article up and CSD information down, added text on copyvios, BLP and attack pages, and some other tweaks such as changing "your" to "an" in the first line (don't want to start people off with a WP:OWN understanding) and spelled out all the shortcuts in the pipes. Also please not the change to the line referring users to the help desk. I am a regular there and we get a large number of misplaced posts better suited for the reference desk. I shudder to think of the result if it is left in its current generic form "...questions can be asked at the help desk". The proposed changes appear below.-- Fuhghettaboutit ( talk) 02:18, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, which means all information added: 1) must be verifiable through existing, published, reliable sources; 2) must be written from a neutral point of view; and 3) must not add any original research, in the form unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories.
I support the above design. JetLover ( talk) ( Report a mistake) 03:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, which means all information added: 1) must be verifiable through existing, published, reliable sources; 2) must be written from a neutral point of view; and 3) must not add any original research, in the form unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories.
|
It's a really good idea, but many people won't really care. It needs a bold sign that says the non-notable things, etc. will be deleted. Reywas92 Talk 18:45, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
The simple act of providing references solves most problems:
Just having references (to reliable sources) pretty much demonstrates that the subject is notable. So I simplify the warning to just this:
|
By keeping it short and sweet we improve the chances that people will actually read it. We tell them specifically what they have to do as opposed to telling them what not to do. And we tell them in a concrete way: "provide references" instead of the somewhat nebulous "don't write about non-notable subjects". Sbowers3 ( talk) 13:26, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Before making your Wikipedia article:
|
Last week I proposed adding a new speedy criterion coverning new articles about living persons with no reliable source. See WT:CSD#BLP with no sources. My reading of WP:BLP is that we should be strict about sourcing such articles. They make us a significant part of the CSD traffic, I'd say 20-30%. Others disagreed and said I was taking WP:BLP too literally and suggested I make the proposal at Village Pump. Since it seems relevant to this topic, I've added it here. I'm not suggesting that each new article about a living person have inline cites for every fact, but that at least one non-self -published source be required to establish some notability. Having a clear rule and speedy deletion category would discourage some authors who can't meet the requirement and reduce the time needed to evaluate those articles that are submitted. -- agr ( talk) 02:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I would like to propose that athletes participating in the Olympics or somesuch are not exempt from the aforementioned policies. While patrolling CAT:CSD, I deleted James Barker (athlete) as a non-notable biography. It was later restored by User:Canadian Paul because of this exemption. I then re-deleted the article for reasons stated in the deletion summary ( here). I think that people who were in one event in one Olympics (for example), did not medal, are not covered in reliable sources and have only one claim to notability (that sporting event) should be deleted under CSD A7. Please comment, I think that this precedent is ridiculous. Regards, Keilana talk (recall) 02:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
As for the issue at hand, having competed in the Olympics, even if you stubbed your toe in the starting gate, is a claim of importance. That satisfied WP:CSD#A7, which just requires that claim. Presumably even in 1912 you didn't just walk in off the street and get into the Olympic race... it was the top level of competition and you got there. But once such an article gets to AFD, I believe inclusion policy is flexible enough that we wouldn't keep such an article if it couldn't be properly sourced. -- W.marsh 03:08, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Keilana has written on a talk page [1] that he'd like to 'nuke' any number of articles similar to this. Perhaps before he does so he could follow the AfD of Mr Barker and wonder if his idea to change the notability rule for sportsmen really does have community support? Nick mallory ( talk) 04:27, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I promised Keilana that I would comment here, so here I am. The debate at the Barker AfD is going to spill over here, because this question is bigger than just the single article. I'm going to flat out say that it's a problem. There are literally thousands of articles such as this on Wikipedia. There are people who have gone to great links to create articles on every skier, bobsledder and so on who ever competed at an international level. Let's take Frederick Milton. Good old Mr. Milton was a member of the British water polo team in 1936 which finished eighth. As a representative from the English speaking part of the world, we can presume that there is no language bias when searched for sources to ascertain his notability. Let's pretend that Wikipedia dropped the athlete clause right now. Would this person pass? The general criteria is as follows:
A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.
First, a Google search. Depending on your parameters to narrow down the field of "Frederick Milton"s, you get a fair amount of results noting his position in the team, his participation in the Olympics and the fact that he finished eighth. This more than takes care of the "reliable sources" requirement. We know he was an Olympian, we know he was on the team. There are also plenty of sources that are independent of the Olympic commission or the British Olympic Committee. So independent is taken care of as well. No substantial coverage, however, can be found. Since this person's prime was in 1936, it might not be fair to search just the Internet. So I tried a [www.jstor.org JSTOR] academic journal search. Their journals go back to the 1800s, so it should take care of the time bias, as well as a United States vs. Britain bias. Still, no substantial coverage. The same results come from a full catalog search at the libraries of the University of Texas. We would therefore conclude that, what we see presently in the Frederick Milton article is all that there is to write about him (short of violating WP:OR and interviewing him or his descendants) and, without the athlete clause, would probably merge the article into a list of "competitors" or something similar at the Olympics.
Obviously not all cases are as straight forward - many present language barriers, many have similar coverage but also won an actual medal. But I cannot stress enough that we now have literally thousands of articles that cannot be anything more than what Frederick Milton has got. People will notice that I have created maybe a dozen of these articles myself. In most cases, it was done to end confusion, since when there are thousands of people competing in the Olympics over the years, some were bound to have the same name. If you take out all the fancy stuff I put around it, most of them come down to this formula:
X (born – died) was a (country adjective) (wikilinked sport player) who competed in the Olympic games in (wikilinked year of Olympic games). (He was a member of/He participated in) (sport) (that won a (colour) medal/but did not win a medal) in (wikilinked hosting city).(citation to databaseOlympics)
Try as I might, I rarely find anything more than that. I can provide a list of any reasonable number of articles like this: it's only a quick journey into Category:Possibly living people to find them. Sometimes the coverage is so inconsequential that the original rolls only recorded their first name ( Lecomte) or none at all (from Archery at the 1900 Summer Olympics: Only France, Belgium, and the Netherlands sent archers. None of the Dutch archers are known by name and none won any medals ) By the clause that we have now, Unknown Dutch Archer 1, Unknown Dutch Archer 2 etc. deserve their own articles. We can prove that there were a certain number of Dutch archers, we just don't have names.
The clause has got to change, or else we're going to have thousands more articles that say nothing more than what can be put on a list. I think the clause should be modified to say that, without substantial coverage, Olympic athletes should be placed on a list of competitors rather than given their own article. If there's no sources for an article, then the person should not have one. I'm open to hearing arguments on whether or not this should apply to only non-medalists or all Olympians, but I do point out that even many medalists were not considered notable enough to be given substantial coverage in their day. I'd love to write an article on Mr. Frederick Milton, but at the end of the day, I can't change history. So I say, let's give Lecomte, the Dutch Archers and Frederick Milton a place where they belong. Let's laud their achievements (or lack thereof) on a list. The best part (at least in my mind) about this proposal is that there's no slippery slope; it's a (relatively) objective test. We're not drawing the line at placement or performance or anything like that, simply at the sources and the WP:N guideline. Furthermore, we do not discard, but listify those that do not make the cut.
I know I'm missing some things that I wanted to say, but I wanted to lay a foundation. Please, point out the holes it so I can fill them up with my bucket of mortar. I may not have gotten it all out now, but I've got it all ready to go. Cheers, CP 05:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Oceanh ( talk) 02:43, 2 January 2008 (UTC).
An interesting debate - a few thoughts. Our existing rules take care of notability and reliable sources - and that need not be internet based. Assuming that someone does have enough WP:RS to make an article, the question is should one be created? Really, its never a question of definative YES or NO, but always a question of balance of reasons of notability - its in the grey "could he/she/it" where we need clear rules and better consensus. One thing many editors forget is the useful role of lists in Wikipedia - rather than create an article or delete someone else's work, adding the information to a list means its recorded, tabulated and in context. For our example 1936 rower, a list entry would be more than adequate - what more could we say about him, and he'd be more "in context" with his colleagues than as a singular article amongst many. I think on balance the existing rules and points of clarity address the issue, and tighter definition could create problems - what happens if he came eight, but was locally so significant they created a library in his name: see, it changes the balance of his importance. I am currently writing individual articles on the top10 shots from the Allied side of the Battle of Britain - and yet, most of these gentlemen who were media personalities at the time didn't have articles before - and yet others who were significant locally did. Perhaps one point of definition could be created, and again I'll take our rower as the example - he's only notable because he took part as part of a team of rowers in one boat. So, rather than eight individual articles, there could be a rule focus more on why he's notable in the field of athletics/olympics (ie - as part of a team), rather than the individual. That should create a better coverage over fewer articles, and more list entries. OK, so there are a few who turn up twice - but they then should easily pass WP:Notability. But most turn up once - and it would at least remove those "standard/looky-likey" articles from the system. Thoughts? Rgds, - Trident13 ( talk) 18:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Trying to address a similar issue for fictional notability, to me, this comes down to common sense application. Yes, Olympic athletes may be notable, but there is likely a better chance to demonstrate notability to group such athletes into a single article, say, "Americans Participating in the 2004 Summer Olympic Games". You can use a table to give each persons name, age, hometown, sport(s) and placement, and then you can add more information about how America's representatives were sponsored. Athletes that are more notable due to other facts should still be listed but can be wikilinked to a more verbose page. -- MASEM 18:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Way back near the beginning of this thread, Canadian Paul put her/his finger on a very important point worth considering: "articles that say nothing more than what can be put on a list." This problem extends to other areas than Olympic contestants. One example is any one of the kings of the 14th and 15th dynasties of ancient Egypt, where what is know about most of these is only his name -- & in a few cases, we do not know even this much. Details like what happened during his reign, dates of his birth & death -- even more than a vague sense of when he actually lived -- are not known, & have so far failed to even attract published commentary or speculation from the experts in the field. And there are countless more cases where one could say that although information on a subject can be verified, the subject itself is not notable. Now we can simply dismiss this with a reference to the principle that "Wikipedia is not paper". However, as we continue to add new articles to Wikipedia, this problem of creating articles which fall into this grey area, articles that conceivably may never grow beyond a sentence or two, this will continue to return to trouble us. -- llywrch ( talk) 19:05, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
The AfD for James Barker (which started all of this) closed as a redirect to 1912 Summer Olympics. While I think that it could be better redirected somewhere else, Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics or Great Britain and Ireland at the 1912 Summer Olympics for example, I think it is similar to my suggestion - what User:LinaMishima referred to as "preferring lists until the wealth of strong knowledge supports an individual article", which I think is a nice summary. It needs a better redirect destination and a subsequent clean up to make sure nothing redundant wikilinks to it, but it's something to consider. I do disagree with the statement, however, that "What we find with the olympic athletes is that this list route is already in use, so the entire debate is moot". I came across hundreds, if not thousands, while doing research for this list; many can be found in Category:Possibly living people as well. Cheers, CP 05:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)