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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alex Nimo (3rd nomination)

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Consensus is that this player does not meet WP:ATHLETE, but does meet the general case of WP:BIO. As WP:ATHLETE is a special case of WP:BIO and does not supersede it, the subject is therefore notable. Likewise, WP:FOOTY/N is a special case of WP:ATHLETE, and does not supersede WP:BIO. lifebaka++ 01:38, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alex Nimo

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Alex Nimo (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This is the 3rd nomination, not 2nd. Player does not sufficiently satisfy WP:ATHLETE in that they have not played a game for a fully professional league, noting that soccer is a professional sport. In addition, player does not sufficiently satisfy the notability criteria guidelines as outlined by WP:FOOTY in that they do not play for a professional team, have played in a competitive fixture, or have senior international caps/Olympics caps. Relisted due to verdict of last AfD, which is listed here. First AfD was no consensus with other bundled players, listed here. GauchoDude (talk) 22:50, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm struggling to see how any of the sources provided pass WP:BIO. There are hundreds of stories about footballers moving clubs/joining academies who don't meet criteria. BBC produces articles about non-league players who clearly fail the notability. --Jimbo[online] 09:08, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • None of those sources would make him pass WP:BIO, like Jimbo says it would be quite easy to find a number of sources for hundreds of non-league players in the UK but it doesn't make them notable. Heck I could even find sources on my footballing exploits but it doesn't make me notable enough for an article. Basement12 (T.C) 13:21, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The sources I linked above -- two feature articles focusing entirely on Nimo from the Portland Tribune, one of which covered him when he was playing in Florida (opposite side of the country) would definitely be significant per WP:BIO. I haven't had a chance to work them into the article yet, but I will. -Pete (talk) 17:57, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The articles "PREP WEDNESDAY Road to join U.S. elite, starts in refugee camp" and "Nimo gets All-America team honor" and "RSL: Rookie toughened by years as refugee" as can easily be discerned from the titles, are only about him. These three are independent/RS and substantial coverage. Throw in the two FIFA articles which contain his name in the article title (also independent since he does not work for FIFA) and that's five, not counting the ones Pete has discovered. Please note, that if this was just another player, he probably wouldn't pass BIO, (in contrast to the above concern: the articles created by the BBC for the non-league players likely do not provide substantial/significant coverage of those player) but here you have the additional sob story of being a refugee and overcoming great odds, basically the American dream that the media loves to eat up and regurgitate. That's why there is so much on him, it ain't just about football/soccer. Further, if there were 5000 sources for a player all with substantial/independent coverage, but they never played in a professional league, it sounds like that might not be enough for the deleters here. Remember that deletion is not about what you find notable, but about applying the preexisting guidelines, which this article passes under either WP:N or WP:BIO. Aboutmovies (talk) 18:53, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And WP:ATHLETE is a section of that guideline. He is not notable for anything outside of his football career therefore his notability should be established as an athlete. He has never played professionally and therefore fails WP:ATHLETE, the relevant part of WP:BIO. Basement12 (T.C) 23:14, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Plain and simply, nope. Read the guidleine, the whole thing and pay attention to what it says at the header of the section Additional criteria, for which Athlete is a SUB section of:
Additional criteria
A person is generally notable if they meet any of the following standards. Failure to meet these criteria is not conclusive proof that a subject should not be included; conversely, meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included.
Should a person fail to meet these additional criteria, they may still be notable under Wikipedia:Notability.
Emphasis mine. So, he passes not only WP:BIO under bio's standard criteria, but he also passes under the general WP:N criteria. Aboutmovies (talk) 23:42, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Since we're quoting guidelines, from WP:N, "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be a suitable article topic .... "Presumed" means that substantive coverage in reliable sources establishes a presumption, not a guarantee, of notability. Editors may reach a consensus that although a topic meets this criterion, it is not suitable for inclusion"
I'd say that gives me leeway to apply my opinion as to what I see as notable. Therfore i'm going to stick with my view, as he is an athlete who has not competed at the top level, regardless of how many sources have been written about his performances at youth levels or his early life. Its almost certainly academic anyway as he'll no doubt play a pro game eventually and then he can have an article, but please don't suggest i'm ignorant of the guidelines. Basement12 (T.C) 00:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There has always been that "presumption issue" but that is not what you were arguing above. You have been arguing he doesn't meet ATHLETE and FOOTY and BIO. So, do you have any other arguments you want to throw out there like WP:IAR or simply the Basement12 inclusion guidelines now that your original argument was undermined? Aboutmovies (talk) 00:28, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My only further advice to you would be to take a quick look at AfD Wikietiquette and possibly WP:DBAD as well, the aim here is to gain a consensus not to try and undermine the thoughts/arguements of other editors. Basement12 (T.C) 00:37, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I have no access to the majority of references in the article I'm going with Neutral. Although, he obviously fails WP:ATHLETE if the print sources listed cover HIM in significant detail he would pass the general criteria under WP:N. Jasynnash2 (talk) 11:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • The print media sources are only regional news, not national. Of course they're going to report on local players. There are thousands of local rags that do articles on local footballers, I'd hardly call them a significant amount of media interest. --Jimbo[online] 08:45, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • "The Oregonian" is a "regional" paper in Utah? Are you serious? And considering the size of the US who decides what is regional vs local? Say in comparison with Peterborough, UK and Cambridgeshire for instance? Additionally, "media interest" isn't really the same as significant coverage. (otherwise a whole lot of stuff that is covered ALOT in a trivial manner would trump things covered very little but, in great depth. Jasynnash2 (talk) 10:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Jimbo, as I have yet to see anything about coverage being "national" in any notability guidelines, could you let me know where that is coming from? Otherwise The Oregonian is one of the 30 largest newspapers in the US (higher if you throw out those with inflated numbers due to JOA papers) and is a Pulitzer Prize winning paper, thus easily meets the definition of a WP:RS. And notability is notability, not international notability, not I've heard of it notability. If it were international notability, then so many things on Wikipedia would fail that requirement and need to be deleted (how people in the UK know of Orr, Minnesota?). These subjective viewpoints are the very reason why we try to stick to the more objective standards of the various notability guidelines. Aboutmovies (talk) 11:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Jimbo can you clarify for me the "as far as I know" thing? Are you saying you've seen it and it IS "a 10 sentance paragraph just stating he's made the All-American team" or that you haven't seen it and are guessing at what it MAY contain? Jasynnash2 (talk) 14:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, should have put "As far as I know, The Oregonian reference could be a..." --Jimbo[online] 14:50, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you can read it i'd be interested to know where as I can't find some of the articles searching the Oregonian website and I doubt the references were added directly from the original publication itself. Basement12 (T.C) 14:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Some tips on accessing Oregonian content online, etc. can be found at WP:ORE/RD. Also User:Peteforsyth/O-vanish. -Pete (talk) 15:04, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that, it explains the problem but I still can't find (using any of the methods described) the articles themselves to check what content is contained within them. Basement12 (T.C) 15:29, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Use this and copy and paste the article title from the Nimo article ref section, and you get a free preview of part of the article and info on how long it is. Aboutmovies (talk) 15:57, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK thanks that worked and I can now find all the summaries. But they do seem to be little more than what Jimbo said, "a 10 sentance paragraph just stating he's made the All-American team". It is nothing more than local interest in the player as a footballer, thus saying to me they are trivial coverage. The only reference that might not fall into that category is the one from Fifa, however that article is not enough for WP:N, particularly given the fact that we tend to apply stricter criteria for sportspeople given the amount that is written about them at all levels of media, hence the existance of WP:FOOTY/N. Basement12 (T.C) 16:15, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Basement, the summary clearly shows "Nimo gets All-America team honor " to be a 359 word article. Having looked at it myself, it has twelve paragraphs -- not one. Focused entirely on Nimo. I share your frustration that it's tough to find some of these articles online, but the fact that you can't see them does not give you grounds to speculate on what might or might not be there. -Pete (talk) 16:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry I should clarify that, my point is that just because its 359 words long it doesn't change the fact that it is nothing more than local interest in the player as a footballer and no more important in establishing notability than if it had been 10 sentences long. There are clear and established precidents for dealing with the articles of young footballers and there is no reason for Alex Nimo to be an exception. Basement12 (T.C) 17:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The original nom has been demonstrated to be flawed. ATHLETE and FOOTY do not override WP:N or WP:BIO to require deletion. These last two !votes do not take into account the more recent discussion. -Pete (talk) 16:46, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes but ATHLETE and FOOTY were created because WP:N and WP:BIO were found not to be sufficient for dealing with articles concerning professional athletes, particularly when it comes to young players. I'm sure the users who placed the "votes" above were well aware of this given their involement in WP:FOOTY. Basement12 (T.C) 17:11, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - OK. I think the arguement being made here is essentially that, because of the clarifications made in WP:ATHLETE, and WP:FOOTY/N in particular, the events being covered do not pass WP:BIO, i.e. the events themselves are trivial and thus so is any coverage of them regardless of what publication that coverage is in. If there was extensive coverage for something other than being a youth international or playing in a non-competetive friendly the article should be kept (and being a refugee is not sufficient). Basement12 (T.C) 18:19, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Basement, thanks for summing up your position. The difficulty I have is this: some of the things you say are highly subjective. Whether or not an event is trivial, whether or not refugee status is significant, etc. In my view, this is precisely why we have a policy like WP:N: rather than have Wikipedia editors determine whether the nebulous totality of facts about a person or topic is sufficient to establish notability, we turn to the editorial decisions of established news organizations and the like. In this case, multiple organizations have determined that the totality of Nimo's life to date merit coverage of him as an individual. In applying the inclusion criterion, it is not up to us to determine on what basis they made that determination; the simple fact that they did is enough to establish notability.
I'd also like to address the oft-repeated concern about "local" coverage. None of the relevant policies (WP:N, WP:BIO, nor WP:RS) mention "local" coverage. They talk about the quality of a news organization, but not "how local" it is. If a publication qualifies as a reliable source, the "local" nature of it should not concern us as editors. If there were a case where broad coverage conflicted with local coverage that seemed to carry a bias of some sort, that might be worth exploring; but in terms of determining notability, it is not relevant. -Pete (talk) 19:23, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I agree to a certain extent about the issue of local coverage, but you need to understand that in the UK, and other countries where football is a far bigger sport than in the US, media coverage is far more extensive, all the way down to local papers that circulate within small towns or even villages. Thus many, many articles are written in reliable sources on players who represent small or even amateur clubs. The precident is to ignore this type of coverage, a recent example would be Giuseppe Sole's deletion, where sources included some from the BBC, but deletion occured because he had never played a professional, competetive game at senior level and thus failed WP:ATHLETE and WP:FOOTY/N. The aim of ATHLETE and FOOTY/N is to keep the creation of articles like these from getting out of hand, by clearing up the loophole created by extensive and trivial coverage on sportspeople. Would you allow articles on the 500+ players in Conference National, the 1000+ in Conference North and Conference South, i'm sure reliable sources could be found for them all? Where would you suggest we draw the line? And as for "rather than have editors determine whether the nebulous totality of facts about a person or topic is sufficient to establish notability", how do you think WP:N was created in the first place, why are these other guidelines, which I am simply explaining in a more wordy way specifically to this case, any less valid? Basement12 (T.C) 19:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Basement, you raise interesting points, but let's not leave aside a general discussion of where to draw the line. (Or move it to our talk pages, or elsewhere.) We have a specific article to decide on. The example that you bring up (the BBC article about Sole) is merely 3 sentences -- quite a different situation than the multiple full-length articles about Nimo. WP:FOOTYN and WP:ATHLETE might be helpful in clarifying cases like Sole's, where the concept of an "article" is not fully applicable, and a brief mention might otherwise be confused for substantial coverage. But that is not the case with Nimo. The articles about Nimo (two in the general interest Portland Tribune, one in the general interest Oregonian, and others in soccer-specific pubs) are real articles -- they have a lead paragraph, and then go into his life history and development as a player. They are not mere data entries that happen to be put on the web as distinct pages. Thus, there is nothing about Nimo that makes WP:N or WP:BIO difficult to interpret, there is no clarification needed. Full articles focusing on the subject in multiple independent publications equals notability. -Pete (talk) 20:14, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think the question of where to draw the line is a relevant one, and for now I continue the debate here as it could be seen as a test of the relatively new WP:FOOTY/N guidelines. You are attempting after all to go against what is now the established convention on notability of football players (which to a certain degree has come to ignore general notability guidelines), note the box at the top of WP:FOOTY/N that states "WikiProjects are encouraged to write essays on notability that meet or exceed the expectations of notability or the applicable sub-guideline (BIO, ORG, NUMBER, ACADEMICS, and rest of the sub guidelines)." The key word there I think is exceed. The article from the BBC may only have be four paragraphs but it is from an internationally known media outlet. I don't have access to local publications for the Woking (i'm not sure what they would be) but i'm sure there would be a number of articles written about Sole, another young, up and coming player, that would be equivalent to those in the Portland Tribune, or Oregonian. I use Sole merely as a comparison of an article that i've seen recently which seems to have upheld FOOTY/N, perhaps over BIO. I merely ask that you don't dismiss the expectations set out by other editors who are perhaps more knowledgeable in the area. Just to clarify my position i'm not a part of WikiProject football, my only editing in the field is to keep an eye on articles relating to my favourite team, however I have tended to contribute to a lot of sport related deletion discussions. I will leave a message at WP:FOOTY to draw their attention to this discussion with the aim of getting a wider from its members on the application of their guidelines. Basement12 (T.C) 20:44, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That is now done. - Basement12 (T.C) 20:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, if the role of the WP:FOOTYN essay (not adopted as guideline, I now see) needs clarifying, I'm happy to discuss a bit more. And your note to WP:FOOTY seems like a good idea, I'm interested to see what others say.
I think part of the confusion arises from the note in the essay box that you quote, that "WikiProjects are encouraged to write essays…that meet or exceed the expectations…" I think that's a somewhat vague statement, and it would be nice to see it clarified. First, being encouraged to write essays doesn't mean "are empowered to override policy" -- I support the intent to encourage public deliberation, but I don't think it should be understood to created binding rules. Second, what exactly is meant by "exceed" in this context? I'm not sure. Does it mean that the essays should concern topics that should be included even though they fail WP:N, or topics that should be excluded even though they pass WP:N? I'm not sure. Nor am I sure who it is doing the "encouraging," or on what basis.
In any event, I think it would be one thing if the only interest in Nimo derived from his being a football/soccer player. But as with pretty much everyone, it's a little more complex than that; he is also an Oregonian, a Liberian, a Floridian, and a political refugee. That's potentially four WikiProjects (or more) besides WP:FOOTY that may have insight into whether or not there should be an article on this guy. Sure, his prominence arises mainly from his playing football, but there is a point where the aggregate interest based on all those factors pushes an individual over the cusp of notability.
I firmly believe that in such cases, WP:N and WP:BIO are, and should be, the ultimate guide to making this sort of decision, where overlapping WikiProjects are concerned. The simple fact that several, non-soccer-specific publications have chosen to publish complete articles on the person satisfies the notability criterion, independent of whether the publications chose to write about him based on his soccer playing, his refugee status, his shoe size, or whatever else. -Pete (talk) 21:22, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Changing to keep - I agree with what you've said there. WP:FOOTY/N is indeed only an essay, yet it is applied ruthlessly at AfD in the role of an endorsed guideline in a one two punch with WP:ATHLETE, hence my previous position. The problem seems to be a chronic misapplication of this essay, and for that matter ATHLETE itself, to overule any other criteria, in BIO etc, in order to delete when infact they should probably only be used include people who may not otherwise "qualify" for an article. This needs clarifying in a wider context and it needs to be made clear that WP:FOOTY/N is not endorsed as overruling criteria for inclusion. Basement12 (T.C) 21:43, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fails WP:ATHLETE, but passes WP:BIO - especially the articles from FIFA. Which should take precedence? It's got to be WP:BIO in my eyes, so it's a Keep from me. - fchd (talk) 22:29, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Basement, glad we've found some agreement. I think you're right that the precedent of various policies, guidelines and essays could be made a little clearer, and I'm happy to help work on that if you have any ideas of how to proceed. -Pete (talk) 00:37, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I don't think the FIFA sources should be used to establish notability as, IMO, they are not sufficiently independent. Although not having a direct connection to Nimo it's obviously in FIFA's interest to raise the profile of football as a whole and the profile of events they organise in particular. Thus, IMO, they are likely to cover subjects that a truely independent source wouldn't. I accept this is just my view and is only one possible way of reading WP:N - others may, quite reasonably, have a quite different view. Dpmuk (talk) 09:09, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

KeepLord Cornwallis (talk) 23:37, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: John, I think you've managed to state what took us a couple days and many paragraphs, in a nice tidy package. Thanks! -Pete (talk) 23:41, 14 September 2008 (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.
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