Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ernesto Alciati

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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 no consensus. There's considerable debate about the sourcing for the article and whether there's enough to justify compliance with GNG. I think the arguments for Delete have the better case and policy backing, but I don't read the discussion as holding consensus for that position (it's very much split). For that reason, I'm closing as "no consensus." Lord Roem ~ (talk) 22:59, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ernesto Alciati[edit]

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Ernesto Alciati (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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This person is a non-notable athlete Finball30 (talk) 00:13, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Finball30 (talk) 00:13, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions. Finball30 (talk) 00:13, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Italy-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 05:43, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Competed at the Olympics, per WP:NOLY. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 07:49, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I despair of Wikipedia sometimes. Because of one SNG we've actually got to keep this article about a bloke who's notable for not finishing a marathon at the 1924 Olympics?—S Marshall T/C 10:40, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Because he was at the Olympics at all, his name exists in Olympic-related references and will be seen there by people who will be looking for information about him. The fact that he didn't finish the race is not a reason why he's less notable than the other people he was running next to; the fact that he was in the race at all is absolutely a valid notability claim. It's the frickin' Olympics: win or lose, getting there at all is a highly notable achievement by definition. So even if we deemed him not notable enough for a standalone biography, we would still have to keep his name as a redirect to some other article that explained why he was the one and only athlete in the entire history of the Olympics who was somehow less notable than all the others. Bearcat (talk) 13:45, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Am I right in thinking, from that response, that you feel our decisions about notability need to be consistent with each other?—S Marshall T/C 15:08, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you mean "consistency" in the sense that "if we decide that every Olympic athlete is notable for being there, that means we also have to decide that every writer who ever published a book has to have an article regardless of their sourceability or lack thereof", then no, you're not. Different fields of human endeavour have different considerations — some occupations are much more prone to trying to misuse Wikipedia as a publicity platform for their own self-published public relations bumf than others are, for example, so some occupations have to have stricter notability standards than others do (although there's no human occupation for which we have no quantified notability standards.) Being an athlete is the occupation while getting to the Olympics is a career achievement that not every athlete ever accomplishes at all, so this isn't even as unparallel to other notability standards as you seem to think it is. Bearcat (talk) 15:13, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The fact that there are more notable sportspeople than there are notable scientists strikes you as an inherent flaw in our notability standards, and not simply a factor of either (a) the number of sportspeople there are in the world compared to the number of scientists, or (b) the amount of attention that notability-making reliable sources devote to them for us to write articles with? Fascinating. Simple reality check: Olympic athletes always have real sources, whereas scientists may or may not. Neither group is getting special treatment; both groups are simply following the sources. Bearcat (talk) 17:54, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sure. I understand how it works. I just think it shouldn't work like that. A disparity of that magnitude is wrong, and it's a failing of Wikipedia. We need to apply a bit more editorial judgment in the edge cases like this one, in order to go some way towards leavening the loaf.—S Marshall T/C 18:23, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
We're all volunteers here, and we work in areas that interest us. 5,400+ footballers vs. <100 scientists is for people interested in scientists to work on. The Italian WP category has 277 scientists, and that's before you look at the sub-cats. Serie A football has twenty teams (according to our own article). So from match one, there are 220 notable footballers (20 x 11). Maybe there simply is never going to be 5,400 Italian scientists. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 18:33, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If you believe there aren't enough articles about scientists, then by all means you're free to do something about it — but the appropriate thing to do is to take on a project of finding and identifying and writing about more Italian scientists who meet our notability standards for scientists and just don't have articles yet, not to tear down sportspeople who meet the notability criteria for sportspeople just because we don't have enough scientists. Bearcat (talk) 18:45, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Bearcat: He's not. Of the 75 competitors listed in Athletics at the 1908 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon (all of them have surnames), five only have initials for a forename, and one of them (Vincent) only has a surname. Now is that "less notable than all the others" or what? ミラP 02:06, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to applicable Olympic games article which mentions this athlete per JzG below, subject to further reply significant counter-arguments from Bearcat et al. (ping me!), was Keep, possibly speedy per Bearcat's rationale above. I don't know the rules on the Olympics, but to me, one doesn't need to finish a competition. They could be signed up to participate on the Olympic team and then back out at the opening ceremonies and still be notable. Also, +1 to Bearcat for his reply to S Marshall that different fields of human endeavour (i.e., writing) merit different notability tests. I couldn't have said it better myself; or,
Delete per S Marshall and JzG below. If this alternate !vote helps to establish consensus and prevent a no consensus outcome, then I'm fine with this outcome as an alternate outcome.
Doug Mehus (talk) 15:39, 7 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. SNGs are there to indicate the type of person likely to have enough sources to allow a biography, they are not there to override core policy. There are no substantive sources about this person. We cannot have articles based on namechecks in results lists. Guy (help!) 13:49, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
JzG, Interesting. Are you saying, essentially, that because there are no sources which meet WP:GNG/WP:NBIO, the supplementary notability guideline at WP:NOLY doesn't apply? Tagging Bearcat to see your response and consider a reply. Either of you can ping me and I'll consider changing my !vote based on further responses.--Doug Mehus (talk) 16:17, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Dmehus, Yes. WP:GNG describes the sourcing needed to meet canonical policy (WP:V, WP:NOT etc). It has wide consensus. Subject specific guidelines are almost all drawn up by small groups of fans of a subject with no non-fan input, they offer a handy guide for consistency and generally indicate the kind of person likely to meet GNG, but if there are no sources about the subject then we should not have an article. Wikipedia is not a directory of Olympians or anything else. There's no reason you can't have a list article with redirects, when you have results but no biographical sources. Guy (help!) 16:46, 8 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. While this technically meets WP:NOLYMPICS, in that he took part in 1924, there is nowhere near enough for WP:GNG. The little narrative there is in the article has been derived from statistical records and I don't think that is sufficient for an article. My take on the argument above is that the SNG provides an indication of potential notability which must then be determined by reference to the GNG. Achieving SNG by means of a statistical mention is not a qualifier for GNG. No Great Shaker (talk) 08:20, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Because DNF is a participation. --Kasper2006 (talk) 11:02, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Only sources are trivial mentions. Meeting a SNG is an indication of notability, not iron-clad proof of notability. --RaiderAspect (talk) 11:29, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep WP:NOLYMPICS doesn't exist because someone decided out of nowhere that all Olympians are notable or to override general notability guidelines. With arguably the exception of the earliest editions, but certainly by 1924, people who attended the Olympics were not just picked out of a hat, they were elite athletes at the national level. In 2019 in English, yes, the only thing that is readily available is that he failed to finish the marathon at the Games, but the fact that he was there in the first place suggests that he had at least some success in his home country, which is probably difficult to find information about unless you have access to Italian publications from the 1920s. WP:NOLYMPICS exists, therefore, because consensus determined that if the individual was at the Games, there is a significant likelihood that sufficient sources for a biography exist that may just be difficult to access. My work is on pre-1952 Egyptian athletes, and information beyond their Olympic appearance is difficult to find in Arabic online, let alone in English. But I happen to have access to newspapers and sports journals from that era and there is plenty of coverage on all of them that would satisfy WP:N with ease. For a country like Italy, which at the time had a better-developed press and sporting infrastructure, there must exist coverage of all of their Olympians that would easily satisfy WP:N, I just can't access it (or at least read it). WP:NOLYMPICS represents that consensus that these sources likely exist for all Olympians, even if we cannot find them, and so we can avoid discussions such as this and presume notability unless there is convincing evidence otherwise. Canadian Paul 17:40, 9 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The notion that everyone who has participated at any olympics from 1896 to the present is default notable is just ludicrous. Sourcing is not there to create even semi useful articles on over half of the people who ever participated in the olympics. We need to use better criteria and destroy or revamp the olympics notability guidelines.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:31, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to Athletics at the 1908 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon at the suggestion of both Doug Mehus. While the subject meets WP:NOLY, so do a dozen people who don't get articles because the fact that they only have a initial for a forename (e.g. W. F. Theunissen, A. B. Mole) or no forename at all (Vincent) makes it clear that there are not gonna be any biographical info other than participation anytime soon. Perhaps we should make centralized athlete lists like in early modern English cricket, where the scorecards are incomplete to a point where we have people like J. Cox, S. Maynard, Venner, two people named Walker, Morgan, H. C. Howard, Ashurst - oh, I could go on forever. Heck, we even have a Wikipedia:Featured list on the subject. It is extremely important to note that if it's voted to redirect the article, this could have a huge effect on Wikipedia's coverage on Olympic athletes. ミラP 02:03, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. ミラP 02:12, 11 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - notable per WP:NOLYMPICS. That's policy with backing consensus. All other opinions are WP:IDONTLIKEIT viewpoints contrary to policy. If you don't like that particular SNG too bad. We follow written policy. Contrary to the deletionists in this discussion, SNGs exist to temporarily lower the threshold of inclusion in specific content areas where proving GNG compliance is difficult. Otherwise we wouldn't need any guidelines except for GNG. SNGs are just as authoritative as GNG within their particular content area. Stating otherwise is just false. 4meter4 (talk) 16:37, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    4meter4, guidelines aren't policies, and if we are going to go that way, the WP:BIO1E exists to counter that. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 10:38, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Some AFD closers do favour SNGs over the GNG, but it's standard operating practice at deletion review to overturn them when that happens.—S Marshall T/C 10:55, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to Athletics at the 1924 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon per WP:BIO1E. "When an individual is significant for his or her role in a single event, it may be unclear whether an article should be written about the individual, the event or both. In considering whether or not to create separate articles, the degree of significance of the event itself and of the individual's role within it should both be considered. The general rule is to cover the event, not the person" The subject is notable only for appearing and not finishing a race in Olympics, ergo we cover the event which we already have an article for, instead of a separate article for the person. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 10:30, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Jovanmilic97: WP:BIO1E doesn't easily apply to Olympic athletes because in order to qualify they would have had to medal in an important national event (in this case the Italian National Championships Marathon). Even if the article doesn't reflect that content currently, we can presume the athlete would have succeeded in other important races within his own country.4meter4 (talk) 10:38, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
4meter4 WP:NRV says that we "that there must be verifiable, objective evidence that the subject has received significant attention from independent sources to support a claim of notability" which we don't have for anything apart of his Olympics appearance so it has to fall under WP:BIO1E and "no subject is automatically or inherently notable merely because it exists" and also see WP:MUSTBESOURCES which is an argument not to make in this AfD. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 10:42, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Stop WP:wikilawyering Jovanmilic97 and use common sense. We have WP:NOLYMPICS for a reasons just like this. The Olympics has very specific and stringent qualifying rules which govern participation, one of which is placement in the highest national event within the sport. We can trust that any athlete that was accepted passed that criteria. Therefore WP:BIO1E can never apply to Olympic athletes.4meter4 (talk) 10:50, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I would point Wikipedia:Wikilawyering to you as well for using WP:NOLYMPICS and I can also turn WP:COMMONSENSE back to you for WP:BIO1E. I am sad to see you attacking me (and I see other editors above for being deletionists with no proof) when you have no additional arguments, especially since I respected your editing/AfD participation. I'm also not going to reply further since your post above was an enough indicator that we won't get to an agreement, and I'm not going to be involved in a petty reply drama here. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 10:54, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sigh. I have a pet peeve with editors who ignore SNGs. They are there for a reason. SNGs were written for cases just like this one. It does seem incredibly disrespectful to the community that took the time to carefully put these SNGs together. SNGs were made to temporarily lower the bar for inclusion when GNG compliance proves difficult. If we are going to insist on WP:SIGCOV in every case, then we might as well delete all SNGs as completely irrelevant. This will be my last comment on the matter. Appologies if I upset you.4meter4 (talk) 11:02, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm afraid that's not how it works. SNGs don't trump the GNG. Some AfD closers do make mistakes about that and we routinely overturn them at deletion review.—S Marshall T/C 12:26, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think SNG trumps GNG, they are an indication that GNG likely exists. Do you believe we have exhausted our search for pre-internet Italian sources, the most likely place this would be covered? Canadian Paul gets to the essence of why SNGs are important. For those who want to delete by redirect, what are you going to do with the non-olympic information per WP:PRESERVE? 78.26 (spin me / revolutions) 12:45, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
What info to be preserved? His birth info and athletic club (the 2nd one being completely trivial)? In any case we already WP:PRESERVE by doing a redirect while keeping the history intact. The target article could be expanded with more info about the competitors too. WP:IMPERFECT applies.Jovanmilic97 (talk) 13:19, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I don't see anything encyclopaedic enough to qualify for preserve either. But I'm not sure expanding the redirect target with the dates of birth and athletic clubs of the participants is necessarily very helpful for our readers. If these editors need more time to exhaust their search for pre-internet foreign-language sources, then I have no objection to moving this content to draft space while they work?—S Marshall T/C 13:29, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • S Marshall, well, and concisely, said: SNGs do not trump the GNG. It's good to hear that this is (one of) the purpose(s) of deletion review. Doug Mehus T·C 14:02, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - per WP:NOLYMPICS. Agathoclea (talk) 17:35, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I don't have the time to research this individual, but it's worth noting that the guideline Wikipedia:Notability (sports), of which WP:NOLYMPICS is a section, specifically says "All information included in Wikipedia, including articles about sports, must be verifiable. In addition, the subjects of standalone articles should meet the General Notability Guideline. The guideline on this page provides bright-line guidance to enable editors to determine quickly if a subject is likely to meet the General Notability Guideline." (Emphasis mine). This SNG is not a substitute for GNG. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:39, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Vanamonde93, Yep. Good emphasis. SNG becomes moot and there's no indication WP:GNG is met here. Sadly, seems like a clear cut case of delete. Doug Mehus T·C 21:45, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Dmehus: SNG becomes moot because... why? How are you so certain that there aren't Italian sources from the 1920s? How are you certain GNG is not met? 78.26 (spin me / revolutions) 22:07, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    78.26, We have to prove offline sources exist, per Bearcat at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James H. Stuart. Thus, I believe that, until WP:GNG is proven to have been met, deleting without prejudice to re-creation, ideally through AfC seems reasonable. Doug Mehus T·C 22:10, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I have all the respect in the world for Bearcat, and while we often have different perspectives I don't disagree with what he wrote there. However, this article is not based on primary sources, and an Olympic athlete is not in the same league as a local politician. I believe that it is cases like this that make SNGs necessary. I believe that those who want this deleted should show one of two things, either 1)that it is highly unlikely that any reliable, independent sources exist for an Olympic athlete, from a foreign country, from 70+ years before the internet, 2)or alternatively, that community-supported/vetted guidelines such as WP:OLYMPIC are never valid and should be overturned. Re: to S Marshall, I think the most important aspect to preserve is his best time for a marathon, outside the Olympic events. All things considered, I think the pie-in-the-sky option would be to place the information in a "list of 1924 Olympic Marathon Participants". The verifiable information at hand would easily fit into a table. But as this doesn't exist, I believe the best option for readers seeking to find deep information about a premier event from nearly 100 years ago is to keep this article. 78.26 (spin me / revolutions) 23:05, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - passes WP:NOLYMPICS. This is an athlete from a non-english speaking country who participated in the Olympics 95 years ago so doing WP:BEFORE on Google is probably not going give many results. As he passes WP:NOLYMPICS, one can assume that he passes WP:GNG until a thorough search in Italian newspaper from that era proves otherwise. -- Dammit_steve (talk) 19:29, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Dammit steve, Disagree that he meets WP:GNG by assumption. Nothing wrong with deleting and letting someone try again, preferably someone in Italy with access to local sources. Doug Mehus T·C 20:14, 18 November 2019 (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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