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Notability of Paralympic Athletes

NARROW THE GUIDELINE

In this discussion, editors considered several proposals to modify WP:NOLYMPICS. These chiefly included:

a proposal to narrow the presumption of notability to only medal winners; and
a proposal to narrow the presumption of notability to medal winners and all olympic athletes who competed in the olympics after a certain date.

The ensuing conversation was long and nuanced, drawing upon several policies and guidelines outside of WP:N to inform the arguments. Editors discussed the relationship between the specific relationship between the WP:NSPORT guidelines and WP:N (and the relationship between subject notability guidelines and the general notability guideline more broadly), the extent to which the Olympics may have been a less significantly covered event before a certain date, the extent to which WP:NOLYMPICS is comparable to the subject notability guidelines of related sports, the extent to which Olymians are "notable" in the common sense of the word, the risk that narrowing of guidelines would result in mass-deletion of otherwise encyclopedic content, the extent and manner in which a shift in guidelines could affect systemic bias, and the extent to which the existing WP:NOLYMPICS guideline may lead to issues with what Wikipedia is not, among others. In this discussion, editors achieved a rough consensus to narrow the guidelines in line with the first proposal. Additionally, there was no consensus to implement a particular date for a cutoff or to use a date-based cutoff for notability.

With respect to the relationship between WP:NSPORT and WP:N, editors in support of the first proposal and those in opposition to it offered varied arguments. Editors in support, articulate that the point of WP:NSPORT is to provide presumptions of notability as a rule-of-thumb, not to establish independent criteria by which sportspeople can become notable. Indy beetle articulates this by saying that the whole concept of presumed notability is that if subject X meets criteria Y, there is probably going to be significant coverage of them in reliable sources. Many of those who support narrowing the guideline, such as Aircorn, made an argument along the lines that there are enough examples of [olympic] athletes not meeting GNG that qualified for the olympics to say that this SNG is too broad. Editors in opposition to the narrowing of the guideline being narrowed disagreed with this sort of analysis; opposition !voter Djsasso argued that People often forget that WP:N actually says an article can meet GNG or an SNG. This is the case where we should be willing to accept the SNG. JoelleJay responded by stating that the guideline's FAQs already state that athletes must be notable by WP:GNG and that eventually sources must be provided showing that the general notability guideline is met.

Editors varied in their responses regarding whether there should be a cutoff date for the presumption of notability. This was discussed both in the discussion on the initial proposal and in the discussion on the alternative proposal. Many editors who supported the first proposal argued that there was a period of time, whether it be before The Great War or some other point, where the Olympic Games did not receive as much coverage or confer that an individual was significant as an athlete (Hog Farm points to the participants of the 1904 marathon as an example). Others argue that this would, as Jackattack1597 puts it, effectively enshrin[e] WP:RECENTISM in a major guideline. Some others who opposed the use of a cutoff date argued that older stubs are less likely to run into WP:BLP and other issues and shouldn't be overly limited or that there would be systemic bias issues that are a result of putting a date as the cutoff. Some argued against the notion that using a date as a cutoff would result in systemic bias; articles without suitable existing sources, some editors argued, could simply be lumped into a list articles describing their nation at the particular Olympics in which an individual participated.

Editors argued regarding the extent to which the current and proposed SNG criteria for Olympic Games participants would be similar to other subject notability guidelines. Some who favored the first proposal argued that the current guidelines were overly broad, though some expressed a concern that WP:NSPORT is more generally overbroad. Others who opposed narrowing the guidelines argued that the existence of other permissive WP:NSPORT guidelines would result in the coherence of our notability guidelines being thrown out of whack. As Lugnuts stated, you could finish in the top 8 at the 1930 British Empire Games, and pass the notability, but finish 4th in similar Olympic event and not. Responding, RandomCanadian quoted Indy beetle, who wrote that arguing that we shouldn't fix one SNG for the sake of maintaining the equity of brokenness across all SNGs is not the solution. Others, such as Simeon, indicated a willingness to tighten the guidelines but believed that the first proposal was too big of a jump from the current guideline to gain their support.

On that note, there was a concern from editors that the change in guideline would result in the mass deletion of existing content. Some based their opposition to the first proposal upon this point. Others, including those who supported the first proposal, indicated that they would prefer that mass deletion not occur. Some editors floated the idea of a moratorium on deleting currently existing articles for a period of time, while others floated an idea of grandfathering in existing content. There was not enough discussion around this point to reach a community consensus, though previous RfCs which had an effect of establishing narrower inclusion criteria have asked editors to not flood AfD with indiscriminate nominations. There does not appear to be a consensus here to differ from this norm.

Editors also discussed concerns regarding systemic bias that might arise from a narrowing of the guideline. Some editors who opposed the narrowing of the guideline wrote that it would make it harder to include female Olympians, Olympians from non-Anglophile countries, and Olympians from countries that do not have a strong media ecosystem that would provide them with coverage that could be easily accessed by Wikipedians. Some argue that, as notability requires only the existence of suitable independent, reliable sources, we may be apt to delete articles on otherwise notable non-medalist Olympians whose coverage exists but is harder to access for the typical Wikipedian. Put more bluntly, as Wugapodes stated, editors argued the only outcome of this change will be to increase our systemic bias in coverage by giving automatic articles the athletes from the US while presuming international-level athletes from the Global South aren't notable. There was pushback on this notion from those who supported the guideline. Some argued that the overrepresentation of athletes compared to other individuals is its own form of systemic bias, while others, such as JoelleJay argued that forcing editors to find SIGCOV in multiple [independent reliable sources]... will encourage editors to create actual thoughtful and informative articles on minority athletes who would otherwise be reduced to useless single-line stubs and thereby improve the quality of coverage of underrepresented Olympians when compared to one-line stubs.

Editors also discussed WP:NOLY in the context of WP:NOT. Some editors who advocated for a narrowing of the guideline in line with the first proposal argued that the existence of many single line stubs was not in line with the notion that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. They argue that the mass collection of very large amounts of single line stubs, where reliable sources do not exist to support the article's subject, are a violation of this policy. Others, who argue that the guideline should not be narrowed, point out that Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia and that there is no practical limit to the number of topics Wikipedia can cover nor the total amount of content.

Finally, editors debated over the extent to which the Olympians are in-and-of-themselves notable by virtue of their accomplishments. Some editors who argued for the guideline to not be tightened argued that this is indeed the case—that Wikipedia should cover these individuals because the Olympics are themselves unique. Some, such as SpinningSpark, affirmatively argued that WP:GNG should be rejected as a minimum threshold in the context of the Olympics, saying that Olympians are in some ways more notable by virtue of their achievements than a minor company set up yesterday who have succeeded in getting a few articles in magazines written about them. Others argue that, while the Olympics are certainly prestigious and important in modern times, this was not always the case. As noted above, many editors state that the Olympics prior to a certain date did not attain the level of prestige or significant coverage that would make participation in them notable. Others argued that WP:GNG is not a very high bar to pass and, absent GNG-level coverage, the articles on these Olympians would not be sufficiently deep to be worth keeping as individual articles; some suggested that instead of having many stubs, editors could cover these athletes into list articles relating to their sport or nation at a particular Olympic Games.

By my count, there were a more editors who favored the first proposal than editors who opposed it proposal. Regarding the second proposal there was a far larger number of editors who explicitly opposed it relative to those who explicitly supported it in the relevant discussion section. Consensus, however, is not ascertained by a vote, but rather is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy. And, through that lens, there is a rough consensus in support of narrowing the guideline in line with the first proposal. As a result, WP:NOLYMPICS should be modified to reflect non-medalist Olympians are no longer generally presumed notable on the sole basis of their Olympic participation.

The sorts of questions of how to create SNGs for particular sports were not the focus of this RfC and are in many ways outside of the scope of the consensus to narrow the guidelines. This close is intended to reflect the consensus that participating in the Olympics, in and of itself, does not automatically merit a presumption of notability. This is should not be read to wholly supersede all other established subject notability guidelines listed within WP:NSPORT that involve the Olympics in some way. Editors may find that, for some Olympic sports, individuals beyond medalists may be reasonably presumed to be notable owing to their status as a participant or owing their place earned. This close should not be read to imply there is currently a rough consensus to preclude these possibilities nor to make specific changes to already existing notability guidelines for particular sports. Notability guidelines for a particular sport listed on WP:NSPORT should reflect nuances specific to that sport, but, per the result of this RfC, a justification for a sport-specific guideline should not be based a priori on the notion that all Olympic Games participants are inherently notable.

Editors are reminded that such individuals can still be presumed notable through other notability guidelines, including WP:NBASIC and other WP:NSPORT guidelines, and that many non-medalists will pass a notability guideline. Editors should take care to not mass nominate non-medalist articles for deletion indiscriminately, but should only do so when they believe, in good faith, that the individual does not pass any established notability guideline. (non-admin closure) — Mikehawk10 (talk) 15:50, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I am concerned about the current policy surrounding the notability of Olympians and Paralympians. Currently every athlete in the Olympics is considered notable but athletes in the Paralympics are only considered notable if they have won a medal. This is blatantly discriminatory. The Paralympics have a global audience with billions of views. The Rio 2016 Paralympics audience had 4.11 billion views in over 150 countries.[1][2] Paralympians have amazing stories and should not be discarded by Wikipedia simply because they have a disability. If we can have an article for every Olympian, including those who do not medal, we can have an article for every Paralympian. -TenorTwelve (talk) 01:39, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

For reference, I believe Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 24 § RfC: Paralympics is the last significant discussion held on this topic. You may want to consider the advice in Wikipedia:Notability (sports)/FAQ under "Proposing revisions to Notability (sports)" regarding a recommended approach for devising new criteria for this guideline. In short, these guidelines are a predictor of a subject being able to meet the general notability guideline. Demonstrating that your proposed criteria are a highly reliable predictor is helpful. isaacl (talk) 02:36, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Besides Issacl's comments, you've been around Wikipedia long enough to know that the encyclopedia is not here to right great wrongs. People do not qualify for articles because we are striving to be anti-discriminatory or because they "have great stories." People qualify for articles because they meet standards of notability, and it's both insulting and condescending to claim that Wikipedia "discards" Paralympians for "having a disability." Hopefully your methodology in whatever criteria you come up with is better than that of the sources you list -- that "statista.com" claims only 3.1 billion viewers for the far vaster and far higher profile Olympics in the same year, with far more hours of coverage. Ravenswing 06:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Something I need to remind myself about occasionally is to not edit Wikipedia while angry. As context, I noticed a page of a Paralympian under consideration for deletion, which upset me. While perhaps my language was strong or excessive, I do believe that Olympians and Paralympians deserve equal treatment, including on Wikipedia and that Paralympians are notable simply for being a Paralympian. I will try to proceed with a more balanced temperament and wordings. Thank you. -TenorTwelve (talk) 07:47, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

The issue here is that notability is based on coverage in reliable sources. If Olympians get more coverage than Paralympians, which is probably the case, then there might well be a genuine reason for the current situation. It's also worth noting that some of us would be happy to treat Paralympians the same as Olympians by limiting WP:NOLY to medal winners only. And also worth noting (again) that NSPORT does not determine notability, that's for WP:N, GNG and AfD. Nigej (talk) 07:59, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

I think this is linked to general notability the current Olympic position is to weak but it way to late to change the policy though. Thousands of Olympians have single line pages with a career not justifying a wikipedia pages and should just rely on the event results pages. Classification based sports is a tricky. Yachty4000 (talk) 21:49, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

NSPORTS and related SNG's have their problems, but seeing how the (still-running) RfC from March is unlikely to bring a change to that (with many people finding all sorts of reasons to oppose pretty much any change), there's not too much that can be done, besides bringing the offending non-GNG-meeting articles to AfD and hoping they get enough participation and a not-clueless closer. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:25, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

If you can present substantial evidence that most Paralympians who don't medal are the topic of substantial independent press coverage, I will consider your proposal. Otherwise my vote is a hard no. If anything, I would prefer that your claim this is "blatantly discriminatory" be addressed by removing the presumption that all participants in the Olympics are notable. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 00:28, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm on the fence on this (Olympics still do get far more coverage and interest than Paralympics), but I've gone ahead and made a formal RfC - there's an argument to be made that if there are many cases where subjects meeting the SNG don't actually meet GNG, then the SNG needs to be made more restrictive. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:41, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, the way to solve this bias is not to restrict Olympic athletes too, but to make a general guideline for both that is less restrictive for Paralympians. Joseph2302 (talk) 12:42, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

The ideal solution would be to just cut to the chase and get rid of SNGs entirely. Either A) you have enough good sources to write a decent, (short) encyclopedic article (and thus pass WP:V) or B) you only have enough to write what's basically a database entry, in which case, too bad. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:31, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Formal proposal: Olympic athletes

Should WP:NOLYMPICS be altered so as to presume notability only for medalists (in all forms of the Games)? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:41, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Survey

Yes. Unless someone can demonstrate all Olympians from all time periods receive(d) sufficient coverage we should not be giving essentially free passage to tens of thousands of biographies. Maybe there's an argument for presuming notability in the post-Internet era, but certainly not for all the Brazilian crew team members from 1920 or whatever. It's a major burden to go through hundreds of existing Olympian stubs trying to find GNG coverage; putting the onus more on the article creator would relieve a lot of this effort without affecting the overall number of notable Olympic athletes with pages. JoelleJay (talk) 03:28, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
No - I have the possibly eccentric view that general notability is overrated, because significant coverage is ambiguous; and we really should be using the SNGs to pre-empt GNG when they are applicable. Making a national Olympic team is at least as much of an achievement as making a first-tier association football or cricket or baseball team, and I don't see anything wrong with having some permastubs that will never be expanded. That is my thoughtful, if possibly eccentric, opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:12, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
No - No, much like academics (ie WP:NPROF) there are certain subjects that should be in an encyclopedia and Olympians are the epitome of that when it come to sports. People often forget that WP:N actually says an article can meet GNG or an SNG. This is the case where we should be willing to accept the SNG. -DJSasso (talk) 11:19, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
People often forget that WP:N actually says an article can meet GNG or an SNG. This is the case where we should be willing to accept the SNG.

Djsasso, the SNG in question (NSPORT) actually explicitly states it does not override GNG and that GNG coverage must be found (see the FAQs at the top of the page). JoelleJay (talk) 16:47, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
I am well aware of what NSPORT says, but since everyone always says WP:N overrides with this SNG says. WP:N says A topic is presumed to merit an article if: It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG) listed in the box on the right; And this SNG is in the box to the right. I am mostly pointing out the contradiction of people arguing that bios have to meet WP:GNG when WP:N says that isn't true. -DJSasso (talk) 16:52, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
I forgot to respond to this earlier, but NSPORT explicitly says it does not replace the GNG and that all athlete bios must eventually meet GNG.
Q5: The second sentence in the guideline says "The article must provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below." Does this mean that the general notability guideline doesn't have to be met?
A5: No; as per Q1 and Q2, eventually sources must be provided showing that the general notability guideline is met. This sentence is just emphasizing that the article must always cite reliable sources to support a claim of meeting Wikipedia's notability standards, whether it is the criteria set by the sports-specific notability guidelines, or the general notability guideline.
This is from the FAQs at the top of NSPORT. There isn't a contradiction with N when the SNG itself requires GNG. JoelleJay (talk) 20:46, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes that is what the FAQ says, as the FAQ is just an interpretation, the actual SNG does not say that. -DJSasso (talk) 17:00, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
Djsasso, the FAQs are part of the actual SNG. Just because they're collapsed at the top of NSPORT doesn't mean they're an "interpretation" separate from the SNG (which also establishes the relationship to GNG in the very first sentence). They were devised through community consensus on the NSPORT talk page and furthermore have been reaffirmed multiple times in AfDs and in a 2017 RfC. JoelleJay (talk) 17:34, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
There have been many discussions in the past that determined they were not actually part of the SNG but only an attempt to explain the SNG. They are specifically in FAQ form as consensus didn't exist to make the SNG specifically say what the FAQ says, the FAQ was a direct result of us who are regulars here not being able to come to consensus on putting that wording in the SNG itself. But for the sake of argument, lets assume it is. That doesn't change the fact that WP:N itself says NSPORT can be used instead of GNG, regardless of what NSPORT says N superseeds it. -DJSasso (talk) 17:45, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes Even the tiniest start at tightening the overly loose sports SNG is at least a start. And while I agree that merely making it to the Olympic games is more notable than just making the "did it for a living for one day" sports SNG criteria, comparing to the loosest and most problematic SNG in Wikipedia should not be a basis what happens here. North8000 (talk) 11:41, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes, NOLY should certainly be limited; medalists is an easy bar to set, perhaps finalists for many sports (which can be done by amending the sport-specific sub-guideline), but all participants is obviously far too loose. There are vast numbers of Olympians, perhaps even a majority, for whom there is next to zero significant coverage; and not just historical athletes. NOLY is an open door to endless permastubs that will never say anything more than "X is/was a fooian athlete who competed at the YYYY Olympic Games in this or that sport, finishing nth" because the only sources in existence are wide-ranging databases and results lists; that door needs closing in a substantial way. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 11:49, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes, unless it can be shown that some high proportion, say 90 or 95%, of biographies would meet WP:GNG on their own merits. The last thing we want is to be excluding actually notable people; the second last thing we want is a proliferation of database scrapes as Wjemather describes, along with all the misbehaviours at AfD along the lines of "Speedy keep! OMFG! Meets WP:NDERP! Automatically notable! Block nominator for disruption! How very dare he!" Reyk _YO! 12:03, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
No the proponents of this change have presented no evidence to back up their assertion that 'Most Olympians that haven't medalled have no significant coverage'. We wouldn't loosen an SNG without evidence that those newly included have significant coverage, why should we tighten an SNG without any evidence that those newly excluded don't have significant coverage? Iffy★Chat -- 12:19, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Iffy, the issue is that no one ever demonstrated that 95% of Olympians do meet GNG in the first place. JoelleJay (talk) 16:51, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Whatever standard was used in the past to get to where we are now is irrelevant, as the current guideline does give all Olympians a presumtion of notability. What matters is whether the proposed change improves the SNG by removing a class of non-notable athletes from it, and I'm not hearing that argument being made. Iffy★Chat -- 17:27, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
No almost all athletes that compete in an Olympics achieve coverage to meet WP:GNG. Maybe limiting it to top 30 or top 50 in a event with lots of competitors (such as the marathon or mass-start skiing events), but medallists is way too restrictive as a guideline. "Presumed" already means they can be deleted in the rare case where no coverage exists. Joseph2302 (talk) 12:36, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Oh and this seems illogical when the top 8 at many athletics events are "presumed notable", so why would we limit it to 3 competitors at a more notable event? Joseph2302 (talk) 08:18, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
No. Agreed that restricting to just medallists is way too restrictive.-- Earl Andrew - talk 14:23, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
@Earl Andrew: This does not "restrict" anything. It just removes the (de-facto) blanket license to create perma-stubs. Articles about non-medallists wouldn't be deleted if they otherwise meet WP:GNG or some other criteria (for example, many would likely already have received coverage for participating in other high-level competitions - at least, in more recent times). As has been shown, simply taking parts in the Olympics is no guarantee that an athlete will get significant coverage: of course, many athletes that do will have such coverage, but the fact is there are too many which don't for NOLYMPICS to be kept as is. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:52, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
No for (some of) the reasons above, namely that it would be too restrictive. Giant Snowman 14:39, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
No for now. The "discrimination" bit is rather ludicrous; SNGs are intended to provide advice on subjects that are likely to pass GNG, and that advice may well not be the same for Paralympians as Olympians. There has also been no evidence presented that we have a permastub problem in Olympic athletes. However, if it could be actually demonstrated, rather than just handwaved at, that a lot of Olympians who meet these guidelines fail GNG, then tightening will be required. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:07, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes. Having reviewed some of the provided examples, I am satisfied that "has participated in the Olympics" is not in itself a reasonable guarantee of passing the GNG. Tightening to medalists would seem a reasonable step to address this. This of course does not mean that non-medalling Olympians should not ever have articles about them, only that passing the GNG should not be presumed and must be actually demonstrated. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:32, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Seraphimblade, well, the 1920 Brazilian rowing team members I referenced above seem to be permastubs, only appearing as mentions in lists. In fact, every 1920 Brazilian Olympian is a stub sourced exclusively to databases/non-independent reports. I would guess the vast majority of Olympian pages are currently at least stubs, although some can likely be expanded. All this proposal would do is require an article creator find SIGCOV for these athletes before bringing them to mainspace, rather than leaving it to hypothetical editors after (and GNG SIGCOV is required for each athlete, per NSPORT (see FAQs) and the overwhelming trend in recent AfDs). JoelleJay (talk) 17:27, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes. We know almost nothing about many pre-WW1 Olympians. Separate one-line articles about them are just embarrassing. Post-WW2 I think the presumption of notability may be ok. —Kusma (talk) 15:13, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes. Or some other tightening, particularly for the early Olympics when competing was not so formalised or competitive as it is nowadays. Nigej (talk) 15:34, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
No. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 15:59, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes, for older Olympics - with the way Olympic selection works now, anyone good enough to qualify in the last several decades is definitely going to have significant coverage. Get before WWI, yeah, not so much. The 1904 Marathon, in particular, included a Cuban mailman who went on his own and hitchhiked a lot of the way, as well as two people there who were there to take part in a Boer War reenactment and happened to compete in it. The presumption behind NOLY seems to be that the individuals' athletic achievements to get that far would result in significant coverage, but since early Olympics, the tight bar to get in wasn't nearly as present. Many of those older athletes will have significant coverage, but not all will, and we can't assume that said coverage was created by athletic careers that sometimes were just frankly nondistinguished in the early days. Hog Farm _Talk 17:21, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Mu The wrong question is being asked. We should only be counting, as notable, the athletes for which there is enough reliable, independent source material to write an article about them. This will be true for many medalists, but also for many non-medalists. Focus on sources to use to write articles with, not on arbitrary standards that may or may not have enough information to actually write an article about them. --Jayron 32 17:49, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes: No one has actually done the work to tie this vast horde of athletes to notability, and -- like the one-top-flight-game-ever=notable rule -- is a massive presumption uncluttered by evidence. Ravenswing 17:55, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes. In addition to the above: many sportspeople go on to be businesspeople, motivational speakers and the like. The lax notability criteria for sports is a backdoor that enables UPE spamming. MER-C 19:09, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
No At least for recent Olympics, virtually every Olympian is going to receive significant coverage in their home country. While we may not have access to sources from, say, Sao Tome and Principe, we should be careful not to let that bias affect us. That being said, the Olympics received significantly less attention before World War I, and I am open to imposing a stricter standard for those Olympics. Smartyllama (talk) 19:49, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
No As someone who does Olympic research for a living, the claims here that early-edition Olympians received no coverage in contemporary sources is untrue. Are there some that may strain Wikipedia's concept of notability? Sure. But I would argue that if we had perfect access to sources, you could write a substantial bio on 99% of all Olympians, which is why we have the policy in the first place. All removing the rule will do will add to Wikipedia's systematic bias. There are plenty of editors who will rush in with news reports to preserve the articles on American and British Olympians. Countries like Egypt, which have been competing since 1920, will end up having lots of athletes deleted because there are very few editors with the time, language skills, and access to the materials to be able to preserve them. Canadian Paul 05:56, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
As I noted above I could write a substantial bio about my grandfathers but Wikipedia notability (via WP:GNG) is a much higher bar than that (excuse the pun). The ability to write a family-history style bio of someone is not sufficient. Nigej (talk) 06:23, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Non-sequitur. No one has remotely suggested writing family-history style bios. Jeff in CA (talk) 07:32, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes, per a number of the above arguments, particularly MER-C and Ravenswing. Mere appearance in a sporting event – yes, even the Olympics – is clearly no guarantee that coverage will exist of a person, given the vast number of tiny Olympian stubs with zero sources outside of sports databases and event listings. We are not a sports database. If there is no GNG-compliant coverage, we should not have an article on a subject, period. I would support merge/redirecting athlete names to a list at the appropriate country and year, so that we don't lose the minute amount of information we do have about these people. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:08, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
No, for the reasons stated above by those also answering, “No.” Jeff in CA (talk) 07:32, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes I have found in the past that even for fairly recent Olympics athletes who participated but didn't do very well often have little information available apart from statistics databases and other brief mentions of their results. I'd be happy for the presumption to be extended a bit beyond medallists (e.g. someone who finishes fourth is likely to be notable), but I don't think merely taking part indicates you are likely to pass the GNG. Hut 8.5 07:34, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
No Some sports are fiercely contested and so even qualifying for the final is a challenge. Restricting to medal-winners would eliminate most of the field and no good reason has been given for doing this. Andrew🐉(talk) 07:48, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
@Andrew Davidson: Since when did doing things that are "fiercely contested" and a "challenge" make a subject qualify for a Wikipedia article? -Indy beetle (talk) 11:33, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Notability is a guideline and so common sense is supposed to be used. Some Olympic sports are niche and some are major. They all have much the same medals though and so the proposed rule would not scale. My !vote stands. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:03, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Andrew Davidson, Clearly you don't understand the proposal. T v x1 22:12, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes - People should remember this is for presumed notability. The whole concept of presumed notability is that if subject X meets criteria Y, there is probably going to be significant coverage of them in reliable sources. Simply competing at the Olympics throughout history does not seem to generate lots of coverage of the literal thousands of athletes. This is how we get an absurd article advertising Walter Ganshof van der Meersch as a 1920 Olympic bobsleder (because someone combed some Olympic contestants database) when he's actually much more well known as a Belgian jurist and Minister of African Affairs who shaped a great deal of Belgian policy in the Congo. I can see presumption of notability being there for medalists. Simply competing is an incredibly low bar that breeds permastubs and feeds the fanboy crowd. There are definitely non-medalists who are notable, and that's why we have WP:GNG which they can satisfy. -Indy beetle (talk) 11:33, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
It appears that, if it weren't for the Olympics, we would not have an article about Walter Ganshof van der Meersch in the English Wikipedia. And if this rule were adopted, we would have mechanical deletionists trying to delete it because he didn't win a medal. This would not be an improvement. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:18, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Doesn't seem a particularly compelling example. Or, maybe, it's a compelling example, for the opposite viewpoint. There's surely thousands of "Belgian jurists and lawyers". If his only claim to fame is competing in the Olympics a century ago, and if this is the only information that can be found about him (the burden of proof is on those claiming there is more information; since I can't prove a negative), then I don't see why people would be so desperate to keep this article as is - a "List of [nation] competitors at the [year] Olympics" would be far more than enough to give all this information to the reader. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:52, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
I agree that a list or something like "Belgium at the 1920 Winter Olympics" with a list of athletes would be way better than a bunch of sporadic articles that only have enough information to be stubs. As for Ganshof, what I'm saying is that his claim to notability should not be based in the Olympics, and fine and well enough for me to delete such a terrible stub based on a onetime bobsledding competition (which has zero in depth coverage of him) so it could be rewritten to reflect the other stuff he did. -Indy beetle (talk) 22:59, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
No I fully support the proposal.... but this policy is to late to implemented I suspect there 1000s of olympians with one line pages. The benefit to individual pages is it does encourage expansion and help searches as a positive. Yachty4000 (talk) 14:37, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes, there's lots of no-name Olympians who aren't particularly notable. Winning a medal is a good baseline for notability. For everyone else there's WP:GNG and the rest of WP:NSPORT. – Anne drew 18:45, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
No For a lot of reasons. First, modern Olympic medal awards are dominated by athletes from industrialized nations which pour insane amounts of money into these programs in order to project athletic and political power. In the all-time medal rankings we have to go down 36 countries before we get to a delegation from Africa. There are 45 delegations who have participated in at least 10 Olympic games without winning a medal, and only 5 of those are countries in Europe. Of the 18,876 medals ever awarded, 27% were won by the Anglophone nations of the US, Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. 10% of medals have been won by Russia and its predecessors. 53% of all medals ever awarded went to one of ten nations: the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, China, Sweden, Australia, and Japan. The question might as well be "should we delete articles on African Olympic athletes?" Absolutely not.
The major concern is that some number of these articles will be short. So? What policy prohibits stubs? Wikipedia is WP:NOTPAPER so if we can have an article on every footballer who ever touched grass, I think we can survive having articles on athletes who represent the peak of their country's athletic achievement. Before someone replies with a link to NOTINDISCRIMINATE, this isn't indiscriminate. In fact it's highly discriminate (have you qualified for the Olympics?). It's not like we're creating an article for every high school in America just for merely existing.
Lastly, the appeal to the GNG and N are red herrings. We are allowed to create other notability guidelines beyond the GNG, and we are allowed to delete things regardless of whether they satisfy N. We should proceed from the belief that an encyclopedia would reasonably include an article on someone who competed at the international level as a representative of their country's best athletes. In specific instances it may be better to merge or delete or redirect, but I'm not going to decide that right here based on speculation about what sources may or may not exist. That is something to be decided case by case on the basis of what sources actually say. Literally the only outcome of this change will be to increase our systemic bias in coverage by giving automatic articles the athletes from the US while presuming international-level athletes from the Global South aren't notable. Absolutely not. — Wug·a·po·des 20:42, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Not considering so many athletes automatically notable could decrease the systemic bias that has caused sportspeople to be massively over-represented compared to most other people. —Kusma (talk) 20:55, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
I doubt that people interested in writing about sportspeople will suddenly decide to start writing about female biochemists. I think they'll just leave. We'll be creating a new systemic bias to make the other systemic bias look less bad. That's not a winning strategy imo, particularly when a slow news day incentivizes some journo to run the "Wikipedia's deleting African athlete articles" story they'd been incubating (c.f. 2013 Category:Women Novelists controversy). It's tangential to this discussion, but if we want to reduce our bias towards sports people, maybe the problem is WP:NFOOTY allowing an article on anyone who has ever touched grass in the thousands of professional matches that occur annually? I really doubt the quadrennial slate of athletes from Benin are a major contributor to our bias towards sports people. — Wug·a·po·des 21:08, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Can't WP:NOLYMPICS and WP:NFOOTY both be problematic? Supporting altering WP:NOLYMPICS doesn't mean that the other is the best it can be. And frankly, the more more and more I encounter the "oh no we can't alter the notability guideline because we'd loose all these precious [x] minority person articles" argument the more frustrated I get. It's as if we think CSB means posting a bunch of terrible stubs about African women will suddenly fix our problem. Perhaps I take the unfavorable view in that hosting a bunch of stubs about minorities is just as bad or worse as not having them at all (the best would be in this instance they're all sorted into a nice clean list about their country at [X] year Olympics). The media can go shove it if it would rather complain about Wikipedia than actually write in-depth articles about the people it's so worried were deleting. -Indy beetle (talk) 23:13, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
I sincerely doubt that the way to fix our systemic bias is to start deleting stubs about African women. I'm no mathematician, but going from 5 in 20 to 1 in 16 actually lowers the proportion and makes the problem worse, not better. Even ignoring how numbers work, non-autoconfirmed editors can't create articles, but they can edit articles. Deleting an article instantly reduces the number of people who can add content. I'm not saying having stubs will fix our problems, I'm saying that by any objective measure you are literally advocating making problems worse while pretending you will make them better. If you're frustrated, go fix a stub, but don't pretend deleting hundreds of articles on African women will improve our coverage of African women, that's quite literally nonsense. — Wug·a·po·des 23:18, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
If you're frustrated, go fix a stub That's the problem, you need good coverage in reliable sources to do that. Which is something many of these subjects lack. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:29, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

It sounds like you are proposing NOLY be an entirely separate SNG from NSPORT, one that isn't explicitly deferent to GNG (as NSPORT specifically requires article subjects meet GNG). And I disagree this would increase systemic bias (although even if it did, this is a perfect example of RGW); if anything, forcing them to find SIGCOV in multiple IRS (so, like we do for basically every other bio for every other discipline) will encourage editors to create actual thoughtful and informative articles on minority athletes who would otherwise be reduced to useless single-line stubs. Clearly subsequent editors are not picking up the slack in expanding existing stubs (and why would they, it doesn't pad their creation stats like churning out a dozen microstubs an hour from a database does), so if we actually want to address coverage of minorities in any meaningful way it will require the article creators put in the minimal effort of writing an encyclopedic entry. JoelleJay (talk) 03:06, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
@JoelleJay: Wholeheartedly seconded. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:29, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Your comment is based on multiple false premises. NSPORT specifically requires article subjects meet GNG This is so false I suspect you haven't actually read NSPORT or N. To quote the big bold text at the top of NSPORT: The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below (emphasis original). You incorrectly interpret policy on the talk page of that policy, and yet you seem to think that making more and more restrictive rules will improve compliance? Call me suspicious. forcing them to find SIGCOV in multiple IRS (so, like we do for basically every other bio for every other discipline Again, like I said to Rhododendrites below, a counter example is academics who only need to demonstrate national or international achivement in their field. Further, I sincerely doubt that creating more hurdles to writing about minority athletes will incentivize people to volunteer free labor to write about them. Autoconfirmed editors cannot create articles directly, and AfC is routinely backlogged by weeks. What seems like a minor inconvenience quickly turns into multiple additoinal barriers to article creation conveniently hidden behind the baseless assumption that increased difficulty will incentivize contribution. Clearly subsequent editors are not picking up the slack in expanding existing stubs You say "clearly" yet provide no evidence. While you assume people only care about their article creation count (an assumption again supported by no evidence) we have multiple successful initiatives that improve articles already created such as WP:Women in Green and the Wikipedia Cup. if we actually want to address coverage of minorities in any meaningful way it will require the article creators put in the minimal effort of writing an encyclopedic entry. Again, it's not the only way, and we routinely have success getting new and established editors to improve existing content. I know because I've led multiple workshops to get new editors to improve existing content within my field (see User:WugapodesOutreach). Just because you cannot imagine a solution other than deleting articles and making it hard to create new ones doesn't mean it's the sole solution. — Wug·a·po·des 23:18, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
As referenced in the FAQ, the original discussion that created the sports notability guideline agreed it does not supersede the general notability guideline, but acts as a predictor of suitable coverage in reliable sources. This has been affirmed repeatedly in discussions (links are in the FAQ). Also referenced in the FAQ is a discussion on the second sentence, where the consensus view is that it is essentially a restatement of the verifiability guidance: the article must provide sources for whatever statements are being used to illustrate that Wikipedia's standards for having an article are met. isaacl (talk) 14:58, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I spent around 2 days reading NSPORT, GNG, and N as well as ~100 of the most recent sports bio AfDs with >10kb discussion before I ever participated in a sports AfD. I've since !voted in probably 150 of them. So I would say I am very familiar with these guidelines. The first sentence of NSPORT situates the guideline as being firmly in relation to GNG with regards to notability: This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) is likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia. The second sentence is not describing the options for meeting notability but rather, as isaacl says, the requirements for meeting V: the article must demonstrate it is backed by RS and that it has a presumption of notability (most articles show this by directly meeting GNG; NSPORT offers the option to use an agreed-upon predictor of GNG based on verifiable achievement as a temporary, rebuttable stand-in). The second sentence is further clarified in FAQ Q5 (collapsed at the top of NSPORT):
Q5: The second sentence in the guideline says "The article must provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below." Does this mean that the general notability guideline doesn't have to be met?
A5: No; as per Q1 and Q2, eventually sources must be provided showing that the general notability guideline is met. This sentence is just emphasizing that the article must always cite reliable sources to support a claim of meeting Wikipedia's notability standards, whether it is the criteria set by the sports-specific notability guidelines, or the general notability guideline.

That NSPORT is subordinate to GNG has been affirmed numerous times, including in a 2017 RfC and in the closes of admins active in NSPORT AfDs. See, for example: Dennis Brown at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Shahid_Ilyas, Nosebagbear at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Qaiser_Iqbal, Sandstein at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tariq_Hafeez and Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Prateek_Sinha (where his closing statement is The result was delete. There is by now a relatively broad community consensus that participation in certain sporting events establishes a presumption of notability per the sport-specific notability guidelines, but that this is not enough to establish actual notability if, as here, no sources beyond participation records can be found at AfD.), Barkeep49 at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Mohammad_Laeeq, Randykitty at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Salman_Saeed_(2nd_nomination), and Black Kite at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Obaidullah_Sarwar. See also the discussion here.

What all of this means is that this proposal will not make an article suddenly susceptible to deletion. It may speed up the deletion of subjects that do not meet GNG, but these would and should have been deleted anyway. Therefore, the only effect it can have is to improve the depth of coverage of subjects that do meet GNG who would otherwise have garnered little attention as microstubs. See my response here as well.

The vast plurality (maybe majority) of articles on one-time Olympians were made in batches by a single editor using one or two database or non-independent refs and never expanded by anyone else. Why rely on a specific initiative to improve coverage of Category:Olympic_athletes_of_Guinea when we could also incentivize finding SIGCOV for them in general and require it for every new article–like we do for almost every other bio outside of sports? Why is it so desirable that we increase the numerical representation of African women athletes and not artists or musicians or actors? And it's not like having lower notability standards improves the ratio of women or underrepresented country bios; we don't weaken our NPROF criteria on the promise of adding a few more women inventors, so why do the equivalent in sports? JoelleJay (talk) 19:20, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Basically any move to make notability of any topic stricter will wind up making systemic bias worse, but it's true that in this case we do have a confluence of such biases outside of Wikipedia that would then be codified within Wikipedia. Still, if we're going to have an SNG which creates a low bar for inclusion such that meeting the GNG isn't required, why choose shotputters and bobsledders? Why not scientists, artists, writers, journalists, etc.? Not that Olympians aren't impressive; it just seems like the main thing this has going for it is that it's already a rule rather than that it should be a rule. Practical, I guess, but not an ideal way to set policy. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:26, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
@Rhododendrites: It's not an either-or situation, we're not choosing between the best national bobsledder and teh best national chemist, we already treat national achievements ins both those fields as sufficient to presume notability. Criterion 2 of WP:NACADEMICS quite literaly says that achieving a national honor for scholarly work is sufficient to presume notability, and that is clearly analgous to being named to the national olympic team for your sport in terms of national distinction in your field. If anything the criteria for an academic are lower as we presume academics who attain high status at a university are presumed notable which is in most cases a regional rather than national distinction. This guideline has more than inertia going for it: achieving a national distinction is notable regardless of field, and it is completely reasonable to presume that if someone is going to represent an entire nation state on the international stage, someone in their home country is going to write about them. If that presumption turns out to be false, we can delete through our normal processes like any other page, but it makes no sense to assume that someone who achieved national distinction and competed on the international stage will be ignored by reliable sources in all countries and languages--including their own--just because they didn't medal. — Wug·a·po·des 23:19, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
@Wugapodes: It's true that one of the examples I gave, scientists, is covered by a rare other example of inertia-driven "this is important"-based exceptions to (or, for some, an idiosyncratic interpretation of) the GNG. It's also true that we're not presented with a choice between several options. But we are choosing here to make a rare exception to the GNG where we do not for most other things. I think it's worth considering why this is worth making such an exception "because it's important" when so many other subjects that I would argue are further along that scale (and appreciate that many disagree) but wouldn't get as much traction because of lack of inertia or lack of enthusiasts on Wikipedia. it makes no sense to assume that someone who achieved national distinction and competed on the international stage will be ignored by reliable sources in all countries and languages - Speaking as someone who has achieved national distinctions and competed on an international stage in games that absolutely no reliable sources care about, I represent that remark. :) But that's not ultimately what this is. It's not about assuming they'll be ignored; it's declining to assume that they will all receive the requisite coverage. That seems like a meaningful difference. As I said below, if it is true that this presumption functions well as a shortcut indicating who has received such coverage, then that works for me. I'm just not yet convinced that it does in such an overwhelming majority of cases that we can create a rule based on it. I think that's a skepticism some others hold, too. Unfortunately, I had a busy week and have failed to follow through on my spot check, and as such have not !voted here. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 05:16, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes appearing in the olympics, alone, does not predict the availability of sources from which to write an article. Medaling does. Levivich 01:32, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
No It is way too restrictive as a guideline. --Phikia (talk) 01:36, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
Not sure yet, for three reasons.
One is that I'm still considering what Wugapodes wrote above.
Two is that I think it's worth more explicitly codifying alternatives. With so many stubs about Olympians, it regularly strikes me that they would be better placed into a parent article/list. When we talk about notability, we tend to just talk about whether something should be included in Wikipedia. But there are lots of exceptions where something is notable, but doesn't need its own article. I'd say that regardless of whether someone won a medal, we should err on the side of including them in a team/list article except where there's enough material to flesh out a real stand-alone article.
The third reason I'm not sure is that I want to know how often our existing articles fail to meet GNG. So I used Petscan to come up with a random sample of 10 Olympians from our category tree (depth=9). It seems like a relatively diverse group, so I'll plan to go through them as a very small spotcheck. Here's my sample: Hanlin, Borja, Cangá, Chew, Murugesan, Mehelba, Suzuki, Ribeiro, Kim, Şulţ. I'd be curious what others find if they've done a similar check. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:26, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
Rhododendrites, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the argument I put forward above in response to Wug, as well as the examples of Olympians I gave to SeraphimBlade? JoelleJay (talk) 17:18, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose, Any athlete who is skilled enough to compete in the olympics, the most prestigious sports competition, should still be considered to be automatically notable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackattack1597 (talk • contribs)
The Olympics weren't always the elite level competitions that they are today (dig for my comment about cricket in 1900 and the 1904 marathon...); and in any case being "skilled enough to compete in the Olympics" is no guarantee of significant coverage (well, the idea probably holds true for some disciplines which attract significant attention outside of the Olympics, but that is not true of all disciplines, and that is not true at all times [coverage of sports is far more widespread and accessible nowadays]), as shown by multiple examples over time (if the sports SNGs were adequate, there wouldn't be the need for the always awkward and unhelpfully divisive "subject meets SNG but fails GNG", ever so frequent at AfD). And, no, nothing is ever "automatically notable". Either A) there are sources (a requirement of both WP:GNG and WP:V) or B) the subject, no matter their perceived accomplishments, simply didn't attract attention. Too bad, but WP:RGW. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:27, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
Oppose - this practice has worked quite well through the years with few real problems. Why would we attempt to fix what isn't broken? Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:30, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
Support. For those who say there is no problem, take a look at @North8000's analysis at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-07-25/Recent research. The extant policy under discussion heavily influences our gender disparity in biographical coverage. Sports bios are one of the larger biographical categories, and current rules give Olympic competitors who never placed (and may have no additional individual coverage) an unrivaled presumption of notability among biographies. There is an article I linked above on this talk page—Harrison, Stephen (July 26, 2021). "How to Use Wikipedia When You're Watching the Olympics". Slate. Retrieved July 30, 2021.—that compares how the gymnast P. Gussmann, who finished no better than 43rd in any individual event at the 1904 St. Louis Games, is automatically entitled to a Wikipedia page because he competed at the Olympics compares to the general threshold of notability (e.g., Donna Strickland). Even as I hope there are some reference works to flesh out the Gussman article, I think it's fair to say that the threshold for biographical notability deserves to be more consistent across categories. And in that light, the proposal is completely reasonable. czar 02:44, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
No why not consider the reader in all this discussion instead of notability bureaucracy in ever decreasing circles. The Olympics are not like other sporting events, they are the most watched sport event in the world and the wikipedia reader has grown accustomed to all olympic participants being included so why disappoint them and tell them to go elsewhere as Wikipedia slips steadily down the most used website charts, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 03:20, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
No ~~all competitiors get coverage (more or less of course).~~ (Not good worded and most likely wrong) We should not restrict to only the medal winners, also per other reasons above. Kante4 (talk) 08:28, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
It's already been said that this wouldn't prevent having a page on non-medalists, if they otherwise meet GNG (probably by virtue of having gotten coverage as a participant in major competitions in their sports). Why people keep acting like SNGs are sina-que-nons for having a page when they're only truly hints that something might meet GNG is beyond me. There are plenty of examples to show that "all competitors get coverage" is a patently false statement. For just one sport, Tennis, which gets plenty of coverage outside the Olympics (so one could argue: "oh, players there are likely to have gotten coverage elsewhere"), picking a few examples at random:
Enrique de Satrústegui (1920) : No significant coverage
Significantly expanded. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 19:39, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
There is still no GNG coverage here. The sources used are database entries, a court document, a genealogy/nobility directory, and a single name-drop, which obviously do not establish notability. JoelleJay (talk) 00:56, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
All of which I found in 5 minutes of Google searching without meaningful access to contemporary sources from the country he's from. Who does it benefit to delete this article? -- Jonel (Speak to me) 08:49, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Who does it benefit to delete this article?

The same could be said for any other article violating NOTDIRECTORY. But we have that policy for a reason. JoelleJay (talk) 17:43, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Suzana Petersen (1968): No significant coverage
Significantly expanded. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 19:39, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
There is currently one source that gives significant coverage, not the multiple required by GNG. The rest are statistical entries and name-drops. JoelleJay (talk) 00:59, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Again, we went from "no" coverage to at least one significant source (and I would disagree that the rest are merely "name-drops"--newspapers covering the results of matches are exactly the coverage we should expect for sportspeople) in 5 minutes of Google searching without meaningful access to contemporary sources from the country she's from. Further, she didn't even compete in medal events--only exhibition ones. In any case, who does it benefit to delete this article? -- Jonel (Speak to me) 08:49, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Routine match reports are exactly the types of sources excluded from notability considerations by NSPORT. We do not give athletes an exemption from depth of coverage, and every other source for her is a trivial mention (the lengthiest is merely The three Brazilian Olympic medals belong to Suzana Petersen, all bronze, at the Mexico Games, in the "exhibition" dispute in Mexico City, in women's, women's doubles and mixed doubles. JoelleJay (talk) 17:49, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

David Prinosil (1996, 2000): No significant coverage (the whole page is basically "played at X and Y tennis tournaments", with the apparent sources being only the ATP website, which isn't too much more than a database, and certainly isn't independent, in this context)
Significantly expanded. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 19:39, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
The Munzinger database might have SIGCOV (I can't access all of it), but the rest of the sources are routine match reports (one derived from the other). And this is for someone who won an Olympic medal in 1996. JoelleJay (talk) 01:12, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Hah. Just what we can see from Munzinger without going past the paywall is clearly significant. And the rest of those are hardly routine, with biographical details and lengthy descriptions of matches, with different content. And again, that's 5 minutes of Google searching without meaningful access to contemporary sources (yes, 1996-2000 is more accessible than 1920, but still not entirely so) from the country he's from. Nobody's deleting this article. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 08:49, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Those match reports are routine, and anyway lengthy descriptions of matches are not in-depth coverage of the athlete, else we would have articles on every high school state championship player. It's also not clear how the Munzinger article collects its info; while I assume it's through independent investigation, many database/biographical encyclopedia-type sites source their material from the subjects themselves (see, e.g., OUP's Who's Who). JoelleJay (talk) 18:03, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
I've added a few more sources to the Prinosil article (and that's without digging deeply into German press coverage). The contention that Prinosil lacks sufficient SIGCOV to pass GNG is not supportable. Cbl62 (talk) 20:03, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

And this only for one, relatively high-coverage sport. Let's not get into stuff like the modern pentathlon (where coverage for even recent participants might only be very sparse, ex. Saleh Sultan Faraj (1984), Vasileios Floros (2004), Shohei Iwamoto (2016 and 2020!!)... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:10, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
Quite. "All competitors get coverage" is quite simply wrong, and I'm pretty curious as to the basis for making that assertion. Ravenswing 13:15, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Which meant they get "normally" covered by their NOC's at least (at least the more winning countries). In Germany they at times publish news when a local athlete competes in the Olympics, writing about the career, and after re-reading this i see your point as that is not the case for other (maybe most?) nations. I corrected my statement above. ;) I just feel that if someone qualifies for the Olympics, they accomplished something big which not many people do. Kante4 (talk) 13:22, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not exist to commemorate someone's accomplishments (or lack thereof). -Indy beetle (talk) 15:43, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
You got a point there. Kante4 (talk) 15:48, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm confused as to what you think a tennis player would get coverage for other than playing tennis, or why you think that would not satisfy GNG. In fact, if they're notable for being a tennis player, focusing too much on non-tennis coverage if and where it existed would violate WP:UNDUE. Same with other sports. Smartyllama (talk) 18:15, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
No, as already said and explained better, that's an extremely restrictive rule. I'm not against limiting the notability guideline for Olympians, and a guideline like the proposed could work for pre ww1 Olympians, but as a general rule it's way too restrictive. Kaffe42 (talk) 18:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
@Kaffe42: As already also said and explained better, this doesn't restrict anything. It just removes the unwarranted automatic presumption. If the athletes in question still meet WP:GNG, they won't be deleted; and even if they don't meet it, then they'll still be covered in appropriate list articles. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:09, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
Which makes it more restrictive. It also will wind up being misogynistic in regards to womens articles, especially in the past where the men would get huge writeups and the ladies nary a word. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:17, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
Every single article that would be deleted under the proposal would also be deleted under the current guidelines, which explicitly require a subject meet GNG. But even if they weren't, Wikipedia is not here to RGW. And get out of here with that "misogynist" nonsense; if the coverage doesn't exist to write a biography, then the article shouldn't exist, end of story. Applying lower standards to women or minorities just perpetuates paternalistic attitudes and skepticism of our achievements; applying lower standards across the board just so epsilon more women/minorities have microstubs is even more counterproductive because guess what, it permits a way higher number of cishetwhitemalewhatevers in as well. JoelleJay (talk) 02:52, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
We have a huge disagreement then and it's why I said no to the proposal. Wikipedia by it's very nature takes a lot of things into consideration and it's why certain things are guidelines and certain things are policy. I can't count the number of times discussions go against or lay on the fringes of guidelines here. Almost always assumed notability turns into confirmed notability in the sports I tens to edit. It makes perfect sense to confer that. And yes... If I see every article of males that win Wimbledon I will always assume there's a source out there that tell of the female that won Wimbledon the same year. Showing articles of all the men and relegating the all the women to a list is not the best way to handle things. It's why certain things are guidelines. We assume that since 99% of certain players turn out to be notable in some language or another, that all that class of player is notable unless shown to be otherwise. Of course we require sourcing in all articles. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:10, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

If this proposal truly changes nothing, then we are all wasting our time by discussing it and it should be speedily closed with no result as totally and utterly irrelevant. That being said, I strongly disagree with the assertion that it changes nothing as others have explained. Smartyllama (talk) 23:45, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes. In general, the criteria for sportspeople are too loose, and this is a step in the right direction. I would also mention that WP:NSPORTS states "these are merely rules of thumb"; as it stands, this is not an appropriate rule of thumb, as it does not reasonably approximate GNG. BilledMammal (talk) 03:41, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes This SNG is ridiculously overinclusive. There are many, many, many Olympians who do not get significant press coverage that would be needed to write a balanced article, not to mention the BLP/privacy issues with having an article where you did one impressive thing in your 20s and now every time you show up in the news for any tiny little thing these things accumulate on your WP article. I think about this for one of my Olympian friends who definitely should not have an article here. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:42, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes, with some modifications accordingto the sport and the period and the country represented. . The rule here does not need to approximate GNG, but should be judged on its own merits.For many sportspeple of previous generations, there is neither sufficient interest nor material; for many even in recent Olympics, the situation may be similar, at least in sources available to us. Despite some claims above, this has not worked well over the years--it has never been accepted by most Wpedians working in other subjects, asshown by the continuing complaints. Let those who think that alls uch athletes meet the GNG, write articles that actually show it, and the encyclopedia will be better , especially for those interested in the subject. DGG ( talk ) 23:00, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes. Only winning a medal gives notability. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:05, 30 August 2021 (UTC).
Yes The mass-production of Olympic participant articles, few of which have seen expansion, has gone too far. Olympians do not all receive significant coverage, and the attention paid to individual athletes today is NOT representative of every athlete from every place across the 125-year history. No automatic notability or bulk creation without substantive coverage. Reywas92^Talk 04:29, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
No. The Olympics is an elite sporting event. Elite athletes are of encyclopedic interest. --Michig (talk) 07:14, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
That is a value judgement, one which has no bearing at all with whether the subject is actually likely to meet the notability guideline by virtue of having attracted significant coverage. There are plenty of examples of olympians who either (or both) A) were not "elite athletes" [especially in the early years] and B) did not attract significant coverage [the latter true for even some modern ones, ex. Shohei Iwamoto, who has exactly zero significant, independent, coverage, as far as I can see, beyond databases and routine sports results listings]. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 11:54, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
Notability is a value judgment. And how well have you searched Japanese newspapers for Iwamoto? Iwamoto and Takamiya Uchida as representatives of the modern pentathlon seems promising, but I don't have a subscription. And that's just from a google search. And here's an in-depth profile: IWAMOTO Shohei: Enjoying competing is the key to winning. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 13:59, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
Interviews (what you call an "in-depth profile", but it's obvious from all the "he said"s and "he explained" that this is just a write-up of an interview) are not acceptable sources for establishing notability, as they are not independent of the article subject. Of course, no comment about the paywalled source. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:35, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
So, no, you haven't done any checking in the places where he is most likely to have gotten coverage. As usual. The profile has quotes from him, yes, but also says things like "Iwamoto had been an enthusiastic swimmer in his native Kagoshima Prefecture, when he was scouted by the Physical Training School, Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF). In April 2008, he joined the JSDF, received group training, and was selected to take part in the modern pentathlon. In 2012, he achieved victory for the first time at the Japan National Championships before winning three consecutive times, confirming his status as a promising pentathlete." That is, someone is writing about him "beyond databases and routine sports results listing." -- Jonel (Speak to me) 15:00, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
"As usual" is of course borderline impolite. As for the profile, whether it has things which are not directly quoted from him doesn't matter, it's still very obviously closely associated with the article subject (due to being an interview - I wouldn't be surprised if much of the information was provided by the subject himself even if it isn't quoted verbatim out of his mouth). It's not an independent reliable source as needed by GNG. Of course the whole of this is of course germane to this RfC, so suggest you take it up at the appropriate venue. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:41, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes - as it stands, this is a massive exception to WP:GNG. I don't see any convincing reason it should be allowed to continue. Medalists are notable, athletes who meet the GNG for any reason are almost certainly notable, but every Olympian ever? No. If not notable, their names can be listed on the appropriate page for the event they competed in. Ganesha811 (talk) 14:03, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes - for non-medalists, athletes that still meet the GNG or other NSPORT criteria can have articles. Note that I would presume we will grandfather in existing articles to this - that is, at least for X months (12-24 or more) deletion of athelete articles that had met the old version of NOLY would not be allowed to give time for editors to try to find sources or a similar mechanism for grandfathering. --Masem (t) 01:17, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes I have not yet see anyone make the case that all or nearly all Olympians would pass WP:GNG. All Olympians can (and are likely to) be listed in coverage of the event, and any Olympian can still pass WP:GNG or another SNG. I do support the idea of a pause on Olympian AFDs (for a certain time period) if this proposal moves forward if that would provide editors time to expand articles to show how the subject meets WP:GNG. --Enos733 (talk) 05:54, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
No This would be at odds with other sport notability across this project, for example WP:NATH. For example, you could finish in the top 8 at the 1930 British Empire Games, and pass the notability, but finish 4th in similar Olympic event and not. And then most individual sports have their own threshold of competing at the Olympics, including football, badminton, equestrian, rugby, etc, etc. This would also have a massive impact on WP:BIAS, esp. addressing female participation and athletes from Asia and Africa. Yes, some Olympians go to AfD, and the vast majority are kept. The cases I've seen, those athletes have also had participation outside of the Olympics and sourcing has been found for article expansion. There may be some, as per any subject area on WP, where little to nothing else can be found about them, but applying that to all non-medalists is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 08:33, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Quoting Indy beetle: "arguing that we shouldn't fix one SNG for the sake of maintaining the equity of brokenness across all SNGs is not the solution". If NATH is also too indiscriminate, the solution is easy. As for the issue of WP:BIAS, that has also already been discussed. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 11:34, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

This would have a "massive impact" on an essay? Oooookay. But that being said, yes, subjects can qualify for an article under one guideline and not under another, and different sports have different thresholds for notability. This is something new? Ravenswing 13:24, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Sports specific sub-SNGs such as NATH provide a very simple solution for many of the objections to making this change, since they can easily be adjusted to extend the scope of a more restrictive (all-sports) NOLY criteria from medalists to then include finalists, semi-finalists, last-16, or whatever bar is reasonable for that sport. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 17:56, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes. The relevant principle is WP:NOTDATABASE, Wikipedia is not a database. Covering the final results of Olympic events is valid. However, if all we have is a name in a chart, that's not a standalone article - that's just content in the article on the event. To be clear, a great many non-medalling athletes will still be entitled to articles, especially in the modern era with easy-to-find coverage, but WP:PROVEIT - let's see those other sources before the article is spun-off. And if other guidelines have loose requirements, than they should be tightened as well, rather than weakening this proposal. SnowFire (talk) 18:11, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes. SNGs should be predicated on actual evidence that there is a strong correlation with satisfying GNG. That seems to be lacking here, and there seems to be quite a bit of evidence given above that in fact many Olympians simply don't have significant coverage, however much we may consider it a notable achievement. — Amakuru (talk) 11:09, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. I agree that the current SNG for Olympic participation is too lenient, but think this is oversimplistic. Someone could do the hard work to determine where/when a presumption of notability is warranted (e.g., which years, which events, which level of competition (medalists, finalists, top 10)). Cbl62 (talk) 15:30, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
Also, some discussion should be had with respect to notability standards for participation in team sports. I am not sure that a bench player on a bronze medal winning team in volleyball, softball, or water polo warrants a presumption of notability. The current proposal ignores all of these differences and assumes that anyone who goes home with a medal is notable and anyone who doesn't medal isn't worthy of a presumption. This is way too simplistic. Cbl62 (talk) 15:37, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
In general, I agree with you, that the presumption differs between sporting events and across olympiads, but the question here is where the community is comfortable being assured that (in only but the most extreme cases) there is significant coverage about an olympian. I would say, again in general, that clear and consistent lines are much easier to understand. All of this means that many, if not most pages of non-medalists will be kept, but that creators and editors will have to provide more than "they competed" in the olympics. --Enos733 (talk) 15:55, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
Enos -- I hear you. The existing guideline is simplistic and over-inclusive. The proposed replacement (limiting presumed notability to the top three finishers even in marquee events like the 100 metres, decathlon, figure skating, downhill skiing, swimming, gymnastics, etc.) is a flawed reaction to a flawed SNG and establishes an equally simplistic and under-inclusive standard. What we need is for someone to do the hard work to come up with a reasoned and nuanced guideline. Cbl62 (talk) 19:35, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
I still don't understand why athletes are (almost singularly) given this privileged exemption from demonstrating GNG... What makes the effort of including multiple SIGCOV IRS from the get-go so much more onerous in sports than it is in any other discipline? JoelleJay (talk) 20:06, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes. There are enough examples of athletes not meeting GNG that qualified for the olympics to say that this SNG is too broad. While requiring a medal might be to narrow we have the back up of GNG which many will meet anyway. SNGs should always err on the narrow side. I think any athlete that qualified and fails GNG should be redirected to a list, so they will not be deleted anyway. For single sentence permastubs this is almost always a better option. If more sources become available then they can be split our again. Aircorn (talk) 18:08, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
Who, exactly, are the examples of Olympic athletes not meeting GNG? Each time I see someone provide such an "example," sources are found. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 18:56, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
Everywhere? It's not hard to find. Mike Bitten for one example (a Google search comes up with nothing other than one article article where he's not the focus but mentioned in passing). Or Hans Sperre Jr.. Or Florin Balaban. This is just clicking on random first-round losers in 1992 Badminton. They're not from countries with low Internet penetration, either. SnowFire (talk) 01:13, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
A Google search comes up with a lot more than that, and certainly isn't the best way to find coverage of 1992 badminton players. Bitten: [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], plus a bunch of articles on his kids that discuss him at varying lengths. Sperre: [8] is more than a database entry, [9], dozens of lesser mentions. Balaban: [10], [11], [12], [13], many many more here. Again, this is all pretty cursory searching; there clearly is sufficient coverage to expand all of these articles. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 09:20, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Just examining those sources for Bitten – not independent, barely a passing mention, passing mention, passing mention/match result; same story for Sperre. There is nothing for either that would establish notability per GNG. Some decent sources for Balaban though, but they also show that he is probably notable as a caricaturist rather than a badminton player. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 11:00, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
That's what I could find with a quick Google search (much more than "nothing other than one article"). Someone with access to contemporary newspapers from the appropriate countries would almost certainly find more. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 15:07, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
I did previously find some of the other articles you found when looking into Bitten (who was the one I looked into closely), and per Wjemather, I don't consider them sufficient - it's mostly just databases, in the same way that we have databases full of names of non-notable minor-league basketball players and such. The article on Bitten's son is actually still the only one I'd consider valid, and it's not enough for an article alone. If this was an article on a singer and we had only passing mentions that they exist and did a show at a local Canadian music festival and had a son that played hockey, it would not pass AFC. (For Balaban, interesting point that he may be notable... but on vanilla GNG grounds, not on athletics grounds!) SnowFire (talk) 16:51, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
No. appears too restrictive per others. ~~Also, has anybody ever been able to prove that an olympian definitely fails WP:GNG?~~ BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:53, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
Well, if you could find any coverage about " the gymnast P. Gussman, who finished no better than 43rd in any individual event at the 1904 St. Louis Games"; that would be helpful... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:33, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
That answers my question ... I couldn't even verify that he competed besides in databases. I agree that his article should be deleted (unless someone miraculously can find something). However, I still stand by my opinion that the proposal is too restrictive. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:56, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
@BeanieFan11: I'm confused, you're supporting a guideline that would have us keep P. Gussman despite thinking that the article should be deleted. -Indy beetle (talk) 07:21, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
@Indy beetle: I'm saying that the proposal is too restrictive, I'm not saying that I agree with keeping the Olympic SNG as it is. I'd be happy to support if it was e.g. top 25, top 15, etc. but top 3 seems too restrictive, considering that somebody who competes in the games is thought to be one of the top in the world, meaning they likely have coverage in their home country. In cases similar to P. Gussmann, where we don't even know his name, I would say delete as its unlikely anything exists if his first name is unknown. BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:19, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

@Indy beetle: There's a happy medium between including people from the early days of the Olympics for whom we don't even know their names, and excluding everyone except medalists, even for the more recent Games where virtually every Olympian receives at least some coverage in their home country. The policy as proposed is too restrictive. Smartyllama (talk) 12:49, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
The guideline changes outright wouldn't "exclude" non-medalists, it would just require the author of the article to show a little more WP:BURDEN and by demonstrating that they pass GNG (the way most of Wikipedia works). The practical impact is this means people like Gussman wouldn't be kept (for good reason) but any other article that receives real significant coverage in RS could be kept as long as sources are provided. -Indy beetle (talk) 17:32, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd be happy to exclude people for whom we don't have a full name. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 09:25, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes, with a caveat. I would include in WP:NOLYMPICS a statement such as "While non-medalists are not presumed notable, many of them are notable because they pass the general notability guideline. Please do not submit an article about an Olympic athlete for deletion just because the person did not win a medal." --Metropolitan90 (talk) 17:19, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes. Not every Olympic sport gets wide coverage in media in every country, and not every Olympic athlete gets written about. This is particularly true of the pre-internet age where print media was more limited in scope of coverage as opposed to the bloom of media sources in the internet age. Presuming significant sources exist for every Olympic athlete is just not congruent with reality. Athletes not meeting GNG could always be included in relevant list articles.4meter4 (talk) 17:41, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes per Aircorn. The question here isn't "who deserves a biographical encyclopedia article?", but rather "what's the threshold we should consider an obvious pass?". Medalist seems a fine threshold. Surely enough material exists to support articles on all medalists (perhaps nearly all? Either way, a decent threshold). Folks who want to dig for coverage to craft articles on non-medalists are welcome to do so, even if NOLYMPICS is narrowed. Ajpolino (talk) 21:41, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
No The proposal is far too strict. If it's made to be medalists only, the entire athletes section of NOLY should just be scrapped considering that a number of comments have pointed out that many of these Olympians would pass GNG/SNG anyway. There needs to be better-defined cutoffs for notability, whether that be diploma winners (up to 8th), event finalists, and perhaps seperate cutoffs for team events. Particularly, these cutoffs will be relevant to older editions of the Olympics, where you are inevitably going to have stubs. Having a proper, but bigger standard will cut down on Recentism in this respect. I sympathize with the goal of removing (hundreds/thousands of) stubs, but I don't think that the language of this proposal is the right way to get started. EditorSeto (talk) 23:11, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes Notability requirements for athletes are too loose in general. Need to raise the bar across the board. Schierbecker (talk) 01:28, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes, we should impose some limits on the presumption that all Olympic athletes ever have received enough coverage to justify getting a separate, stand-alone article, regardless of our ability to find enough independent sources to actually write a decent article. Having said that, I also fully support including all known Olympic athletes in Wikipedia through some method, e.g., in lists of participants, or descriptions of the teams from each country. "Not getting a separate, stand-alone article" is not the same thing as "entirely excluded from Wikipedia". WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:37, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Note that I expect that nearly all Olympic athletes in recent decades will be proven notable by GNG and other standards for notability even if they did not happen to win a medal. This change puts very few actual articles at risk of being merged. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:40, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes – As Schierbecker (most recently) and others noted before me, I believe the notability requirements for athletes are too lenient, and this does not apply solely to Olympians. Consider this imaginary athlete, for example: Alfred McFootballson was a mildly talented American football player in high school who managed to make his way onto a professional team by fluke and who became its new seventeenth-string one-sixteenth-back wide defensive safety lineman. (I don't know football.) He sits on the bench for nearly every single game, then finally, in the last game of the season, he's put in for one play, where he performs his job strictly adequately. That one play, which he tangentially participated in with a technically sufficient level of aptitude, grants him the presumption of notability!
The same scenario can be applied to Olympians. They are the best of the best of their nation... unless they're not. Suppose the nation's Olympic Committee is simply desperate to get an athlete in the Games in a particular game, a game that nation's people don't typically play. Picture a game with unquantifiable or subjective skill, such as a team game or rhythmic gymnastics. I don't believe that player should automatically be presumed noteworthy, either.
As an aside, the athletes in my examples may be notable because of their mediocrity at such a high level of competition; however, it should not be their position that grants them the presumption of notability but instead, in these two cases, the unlikely circumstances on their position.
~ JDCAce | talk ~ 10:54, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Oh you mean like Rudy? One of the most notable football players ever for precisely the reason you you say he's not? Or Eddie the Eagle? Or Eric the Eel? Or David Ayres? (Not an Olympian but notable per WP:NHOCKEY)? All highly notable for precisely the reason you said they wouldn't be. Smartyllama (talk) 18:07, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose, per Djsasso and Cbl62's arguments above. This proposal is far too simplistic and restrictive. Ejgreen77 (talk) 16:52, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Support. There seems to be little reason to presume notability for all Olympic and Paralympic athletes besides the fact that, at some point, a sufficient number of editors considered these athletes WP:WORTHY. If we can't even find four pieces on a subject, what sort of article can even be written? In 95% of cases, it's nothing more than their date of birth and death, and the fact that they competed at the Olympics. A listicle or redirect to the '[Country] at the [year] Summer Olympics' ought to be sufficient. Domeditrix (talk) 08:02, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
No My work with Olympians in Australia shows that they are all notable in that they receive widespread coverage in reliable. This has been true since the very beginning, and there is ample coverage of athletes from the early part of the 20th century. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:21, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Each and every one of them? And you're satisfied that if we go digging that not a single athlete that has ever competed in the Olympics for Australia would fail the GNG? Ravenswing 09:21, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Even if that were true (and the same may be true of some other countries), your argument is a very simple logical fallacy that if one country's Olympians are all notable (i.e. meet GNG) then all countries' Olympians are notable. All Olympians is the scope of this sub-SNG and that is what must be considered, not just a very narrow subset (e.g. one nationality, sport, event, etc.). _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 09:28, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
No. Strong oppose. This proposal is just another attempt of mass deletion of encyclopedic content about sport especially in smaller countries and is therefore not only extremly discriminatory, but also systemically biased. The intention is probably to quickly delete all information about older athletes, before we could find enough sources that are not online for the older Olympic games. The current policy is not the best (there are many great athletes that have not competed on Olympics for one or another reason and do not have an article), but it is still much better than the proposal. Ludost Mlačani (talk) 14:10, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
Ludost Mlačani, the proposal would not suddenly make subjects non-notable. NOLY still ultimately requires GNG is met, so any athletes who don't meet it can and should be deleted regardless of whether the proposal passes. The intent here is to shift the burden of demonstrating SIGCOV in multiple IRS the article creators rather than forcing later editors to do all the work. This would actually increase the depth of coverage of smaller countries/older time periods since the articles would have to have SIGCOV sources rather than just database listings; instead of just skipping over microstubs after seeing they're "presumed" notable, editors would now be incentivized to do a thorough BEFORE, notify relevant wikiprojects, and attract more attention from all the editors who !vote keep at every sports AfD. Plenty of Olympics databases already exist with microstub-level info on all competitors; every athlete is also already covered on Wikipedia at the relevant [country] at [year] [Olympic Games] articles. What the world doesn't already have is detailed profiles of these competitors derived from multiple SIGCOV refs, which this proposal would do a LOT towards achieving. JoelleJay (talk) 19:33, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes. Medal = presumed notable. No medal = Could still be notable, but you need to prove it some other way. Stifle (talk) 15:53, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
No. In my opinion, being chosen by your country to represent it in Olympics is enough achievement to be notable, like being elected to a political position. Using this guideline will remove lots of athletes from lesser known countries, creating bias towards athletes from more well-known countries that may have better coverage. SunDawn talk 20:58, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes. Otherwise we're failing WP:NOTSTATS. Medalists are normally being reported on, other contenders not as often. Sandstein 08:26, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes Athletes can always still qualify by demonstrating WP:GNG. I suspect the original discussion mostly took into account athletes from Western, English-speaking countries. However, there's way too many permastubs for the rest.—Bagumba (talk) 15:40, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
Strong no', being called up to the Olympics is obviously inherently notable. And this proposal would be unnecessarily harsh on athletes at older olympics where modern reference are harder to find, and athletes from third world countries that perhaps don't have the standard of coverage that we prefer, but is otherwise valid.--Ortizesp (talk) 22:39, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
It's not "harsh", it's consistently applying guideline WP:WHYN: We require 'significant coverage' in reliable sources so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic. If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page, but should instead be merged into an article about a larger topic or relevant list. —Bagumba (talk) 00:43, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
No, per Wugapodes and WP:NOTPAPER. I personally view the Olympics SNG as being distinct from the other sport SNGs, and view our coverage of the Olympics as being more important in our role of being an encyclopaedia. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:36, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
No - This is way too restrictive, per Djsasso and others. Rlendog (talk) 21:49, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes. All too often, we're left with 1-2 line stubs that say they played sport x and participated in Olympic Games y. Redirects to their respective Olympic sports-specific articles, where they exist, is sufficient. Clarityfiend (talk) 04:20, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
No The Olympics is the most elite sport event in the world. We have articles about hockey players who appeared in one match and never played professionally again; we can definitely have articles about non-medalists at the Olympics. Lettler^{hello • contribs} 14:18, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Lettler, this wouldn't prevent creation or retention of articles on non-medalists if the subjects meet GNG. All articles on Olympians (and athletes in general) are ultimately required to meet GNG anyway (per NSPORT; see the FAQs at the top of the page), so anyone who isn't notable should be deleted regardless of whether this proposal passes. JoelleJay (talk) 17:58, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
No for individual events, yes for group events - I can't say what happens elsewhere, but certainly here in Israel every Olympic athlete gets significant media attention. I still remember in 2004 all the discussion on the radio about Gal Fridman from the beginning, and was later surprised to find out he previously got a Bronze medal. And in the recent Olympics there was constant discussion on which athletes and groups were likely to get medals. 46.116.237.47 (talk) 20:09, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. An encylopedia ahould be encyclopedic. Should we delete every NFL player who never played in a Super Bowl and every soccer player who never appeared in a World Cup final? The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006. Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong! (talk) 03:01, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
WP:POINTY to delete articles with sufficient coverage for non-stub bios. Many non-medaling Olympic athletes would still meet GNG.—Bagumba (talk) 03:11, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Hullaballoo Wolfowitz, no-one is suggesting deleting all articles on Olympians who did not win a medal. The proposal is just to limit presumed notability to a smaller set and to require actually proof of notability for those outside of that set so that there articles would actually be meaningful. Many non-medal winners would still retain their articles by virtue meeting WP:GNG. T v x1 22:20, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Very weak no. There are strong arguments here on both sides. I very much wish people would not create hundreds of one-sentence stubs - but I don't see this presumption of notability as something unreasonable - the examples presented here make it a reasonable presumption. I also would be inclined to agree with 46.116 that group events likely attract less coverage, so a presumption may not be appropriate there. I think for people who participated in multiple games, there is a much clearer presumption than for an athlete who only participated once. Anyway, good luck to the person who has to close this! Elli (talk | contribs) 03:04, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes. Many Olympic athletes receive substantial coverage, but manty do not, or only WP:ROUTINE coverage. Simple lists of competitors are not substantive commentary. Many Olympic sports are obscure (which is part of what makes the event ineresting) and it makes little sense to base Wikipedia notability decisions on the vagaries of qualification processes in diverse sports of very different popularities. Any competitor who did receive substantial coverage would still qualify for an article per WP:GNG. The sports SNGs are generally far too permissive; this change is a sensible tightening of one of them. Modest Genius ^talk 11:15, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
No. It's high time Wikipedia grew up and stopped being a slave to GNG. We should not limit ourselves to what miserable hacks in the press choose to write about, but decide for ourselves what our content should be. Olympians are universally considered to have made an outstanding achievement. They are far more deserving of an article than a minor company set up yesterday who have succeeded in getting a few articles in magazines written about them. SpinningSpark 12:50, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Comment A number of !voters on both sides seem to think that while this proposal may be too restrictive, the current guideline is too loose. It may therefore be a good idea to consider something in between this proposal and the current guideline. The closing admin(s) should also take note of this when assessing consensus rather than just counting !votes. Smartyllama (talk) 12:58, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
yes, bandwidth is cheap. Already, Wikipedia makes it notable for all high schools, TV episodes, so why not all Olympic athletes? In contrast, professors are always not notable unless they are the chair/chairman, which is really wrong. Wikipedia is sort of wacky. The truth of it is only Olympic medal winners and certificate winners (4th, 5th, 6th place) are usually the notable ones, not some minor athlete from an obscure sport that failed to qualify in the initial race in the Olympics (but did qualify for the team). Charliestalnaker (talk) 16:53, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes The current bar is ridulously low and many these declared notable by Wikipedia's current standard are at all. There are actually quite a lot of competitors in team sports who are selected but are never actually brought into action at the olympics themselves. The reality is that medal winners is much more accurate bar of presumed notability. Notability of non-medal winners needs to be proven by them passing the GNG and they often do so regardless of Olympic activity anyway (e.g. Ryan Giggs).T v x1 21:56, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
No Going from "all Olympic competitors" to "only medalists" is too big a jump. There are quite a few sport-specific guidelines at WP:NSPORT which describe presumed notability for competing at particular sports events which makes me think that the number of Olympic competitors for which we should presume notability is bigger than just medalists. Please note that I'm not using other sports guidelines here to justify, say, a loose WP:NOLYMPICS, only that I can't support the proposal as currently proposed and that, of course, other sports guidelines can also be modified if there is consensus for that. It's also possible that WP:NOLYMPICS needs to be tailored to the sport (e.g., finishing top 10 in the Olympic marathon could be a possibility, but finishing top 10 for weightlifting is less useful when there are 12 competitors in an event). - Simeon (talk) 13:52, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes. I'm of the opinion that sport's presumed notibility is far too lenient in general. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 18:28, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
No. But the word "presumptive" in presumptive notability for all athletes (not just Olympians) should be taken more seriously, with in-depth sourcing of the individual athlete (not just scores or places or times in events or start lists) required once notability has been questioned. Conversely, the fact that a competition is not the full Olympics (for instance, that it is the paralympics) should never be used as a reason for deletion, as for instance it appears to be used in the nomination statement of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel Boldo and at least one concurring comment: once notability is being questioned, then it is no longer relevant whether there is presumptive notability; we must instead seek real notability through in-depth sourcing. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:06, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
David Eppstein, it would be great if everyone at AfDs understood that this presumption is rebuttable, but unfortunately many get hung up on the second sentence of NSPORT and neglect to read the FAQs (which elaborate on this sentence and explicitly state it does not mean GNG isn't ultimately required). This results in a lot of AfD !votes that assume notability is achieved strictly through meeting a sport-specific guideline. I realize this is an issue with NSPORT in general, but given some of the responses above that seem to interpret NOLY as an independent guideline exempt from the requirements of NSPORT I think it would be beneficial to tighten the criteria at least somewhat, especially given the dearth of coverage in earlier eras. What is your reasoning for keeping the presumption as-is? JoelleJay (talk) 16:45, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
My reasons are (1) I have seen a lot of pre-Olympic coverage for Olympic qualifiers in obscure sports, so I think a presumption of notability is reasonable in this case. (2) Unless we do big across-the-board cuts to other sporting criteria, this is already significantly stricter than many other sporting criteria (where a single top-level appearance can be enough; one doesn't have to be in the championship game), so it is inappropriate to make this one so much more stricter even than that. (3) If we interpret presumption appropriately, it is harmless, because any inaccuracies in that presumption would be ironed out by later discussions of those who do not actually meet that presumption. The inability of sports fans to follow simple guidelines is not a good reason to make the guidelines even simpler. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:47, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
David Eppstein, I agree that most sports nowadays have ample coverage, but that's definitely not the case for all sports in all eras. There was a good chunk of time where the Olympics was a much more casual, amateur event and athletes' full names weren't necessarily even recorded, let alone their backgrounds discussed in RS. And lately there has been major reconfiguring of SSG criteria, for example the culling of some tournaments/leagues from WP:CRIN. Ideally (to me, at least) we wouldn't have NOLY at all and instead Olympic participation would be addressed individually for each sport in its corresponding SSG, but I doubt that would gain traction here.

The inability of sports fans to follow simple guidelines is not a good reason to make the guidelines even simpler.

Can you please !vote in/close more athlete AfDs :) JoelleJay (talk) 17:33, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes, something more than a database listing should be provided to establish notability. Renata•3 03:49, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes - essentially per MER-C and PMC. The key issue is whether sufficient sourcing can be found to write a decent encyclopedia article on a subject. If the only thing that reliable sources say is that "Foo Bar competed in the 19XX Summer Olympics for Ruritania as a javelin thrower, they didn't make the finals.", that is not a decent encyclopedia article, but merely a database entry. I feel it important to note here that this is about presumed notability only - if Foo Bar had significant coverage because... I don't know, they were the first Ruritanian to compete at an Olympics, then of course they would get an article by virtue of being notable independently of this SNG. For those saying that other sport SNGs are more lax, I would agree, and would also support tightening those as well, but that is another debate for another time. firefly ( t · c ) 13:35, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
Support being more restrictive about presuming notability for people in general and sportspeople in particular, including this proposal specifically. I don't find the arguments that this would be too restrictive compelling, for two main reasons. Firstly, implementing this would not restrict us from writing stand-alone articles about non-medalist Olympians that meet WP:GNG anyway. Secondly, implementing this would not restrict us from writing about non-medalist Olympians that do not meet WP:GNG in other articles—they can be covered in articles like Jamaica national bobsleigh team, Polo at the 1936 Summer Olympics, and Malaysia at the 1972 Summer Olympics. As WhatamIdoing put it: "Not getting a separate, stand-alone article" is not the same thing as "entirely excluded from Wikipedia".
Canadian Paul raised the issue of WP:Systemic bias arising due to imperfect access to sources affecting countries unequally (if I understand their point correctly, in this scenario the Olympian in question does meet WP:GNG but we mistakenly think they don't because we cannot access the sources that contain WP:Significant coverage, and implementing the proposed change would mean that no article is created even though it in principle could be), and I think that's a valid point worth considering. But I'm not persuaded by it, and the main reason is this: we would still need to access those sources and the WP:Significant coverage found within them to write a proper article. I don't think an article that basically just says "X is/was a fooian athlete who competed at the YYYY Olympic Games in this or that sport, finishing nth" (as Wjemather put it) ameliorates Wikipedia's systemic bias in any meaningful way, and I don't think sticking to just having entries in the appropriate list articles as described above would exacerbate systemic bias issues in such a case; Bagumba got it precisely right when they brought up that WP:WHYN says We require "significant coverage" in reliable sources so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic. If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page, but should instead be merged into an article about a larger topic or relevant list. TompaDompa (talk) 00:22, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes with Metropolitan90’s proposed addition, to avoid deluge at AfD. I just don’t agree with scores of one-line bios; however well-intentioned, if these cannot be filled out to write anything approximating an encyclopedic account of the person’s life, they become ripe targets for coatracking, POV-pushing and vandalism (see the early page history at An San—and she’s a medalist!) Folks for whom even a solid paragraph cannot be written should be noted, but if we cannot write real bios, then they should be listed on team pages to deter these issues. (That there are a number of other sports categories that allow these one-line bios does not make me feel better about them.) Finally, of course if they meet GNG without medaling then they can still have a standalone bio: this is not a restriction, just a change in who’s given an automatic pass versus who needs to produce the presumed sources. Innisfree987 (talk) 20:35, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
Oppose this will only increase the systematic bias across Wikipedia. The difficulty of expanding olympic sportspersons is finding the sources. Firstly, they may be not be in English. Secondly, they will be local sources to the country with whom the sportsperson represents or possibly sport specific magazine. That thirdly, are more than likely difficult to access online or only exist in print in a library somewhere. The diffculty is finding it, it does not mean however we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. Spy-cicle💥 ^Talk? 14:47, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
@Spy-circle: And how exactly will keeping thousands of barely sourced stubs improve systematic bias? Considering that the vast majority of sports biographies, especially of the one-line database entry type, are about (Western) males, this will likely reduce it by removing the incentives for creating articles based on misguided notions of automatic notability (which is not a thing: notability (and writing an actual encyclopedia article) requires verifiable evidence). If nobody is willing to put in the effort to actually go find appropriate sources to write an actual encyclopedia article, then it is better for editors (as per Innisfree987, just above) if, instead of having unhelpful stubs, which are harder to maintain and discourage improvement (since the link is blue and leads to its own page), the information is organised in lists (which in the same manner makes the information more accessible to our readers). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:15, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
We are non-paper encyclopedia that will never finished. You are assuming that every article deemed notable from this way will be a short stub which is not true. Many are stubs which we encourage editors to expand with these templates (Category:Stub message templates). Just because an article is a 'blue' link it does not mean we do not encourage users to expand them. "Considering that the vast majority of sports biographies, especially of the one-line database entry type, are about (Western) males" well I think you would need to provide evidence for such a claim. Even if that were correct that just means that many more athletes (like from all around the world including women) just have not been created yet, as editors who do create many articles at once even if they are notable from criteria are discouraged due to "swamping NPP". So you criticise that many of these article are too short stubs, but then say they are hard to maintain: please pick one. "If nobody is willing to put in the effort to actually go find appropriate sources to write an actual encyclopedia article" as I have already said we will never be finished building the encylopedia but helping to fill out and create articles on those that are notable help towards that goal of making it comprehensive. (Also I did not get that ping). Spy-cicle💥 ^Talk? 23:35, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
Yes - I think it's worth looking at this question through the lens of WP:BIO1E. To quote from that guideline: "the degree of significance of the event itself and of the individual's role within it should both be considered." Obviously, the Olympic Games are notable, but given the large number of participants, I don't think we can make a blanket guarantee that the notability devolves onto every athlete; therefore, I think it's best to ensure they meet the standard notability threshold. One proposal I saw mentioned earlier in this discussion and liked, however, is the idea of creating an aggregate page for Olympians who don't individually meet GNG - i.e., pages in the form of "Belgian athletes at the 1920 Olympics" and so on. To my eye, this would strike a good balance, where Olympic athletes would continue to be recognized but would not create a proliferation of stubs. ModernDayTrilobite (talk) 17:18, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
Yes. The GNG is not a high hurdle! If it isn't met, the only article that can ever be written is a stub, and permastubs do not help our readers. Now, it goes without saying that many Olympic non-medalists do pass the GNG, and, mindful of WP:NEXIST, editors should be very reticent to nominate these articles for deletion unless they're absolutely certain that there are no qualifying sources available. (I hope that this is made clear in the closing statement.) Additionally, alternatives to deletion (e.g. redirecting to an article like this one) should be considered. But the blanket presumption of notability currently enshrined in the guideline strikes me as unjustified, and this proposal is a reasonable way of resolving that. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:46, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
Yes per Levivich. Appearing in the Olympics is not a good indicator of adequate sources to build a Wikipedia article from. Why are our standards for athletes so low but our standards for scientists so high? It's a bit ridiculous. Nosferattus (talk) 15:53, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Alternative Proposal: Notability for all Participants After a Certain Date

A number of participants in the discussion above, myself included, have suggested that there could be different levels of notability for more recent Olympians compared to older ones. Some of these people have !voted Yes, others have !voted No, but neither !vote really fits the proposal above (a yes !vote would imply only granting notability under NOLYMPICS to medalists, regardless of the era, while a no !vote would imply maintaining the status quo where all participants are notable regardless of the era, neither of which are supported by those !voters.) Therefore, I am creating this proposal to explicitly discuss applying notability to all participants after a certain date, and only to medalists beforehand. If you have a specific cutoff in mind, please specify that. Smartyllama (talk) 20:04, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Support as proposer for all Olympians after World War I, or perhaps all Olympians 1924 or later (excluding the 1920 Games as well since there seem to be some issues there as well.) Contemporary coverage of the Olympics picked up significantly at that point, and the fact that the sources for some of those are offline rather than online should not factor in to our decision. That being said, before that point fewer sources exist even offline. Smartyllama (talk) 19:57, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
I have strong concerns about this due to WP:Recentism. Is the idea that, before a certain date, competing in the Olympics wasn't considered as big a deal? If so, what is your evidence for that? As I said below, the fact that you have to go digging in newspaper archives for coverage of older Olympians doesn't mean that they didn't receive it. ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 08:24, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Well, some participants at the Paris 1900 Olympics didn't even know they were participating in an Olympic sport (cue: Cricket at the 1900 Summer Olympics). The 1904 marathon was not quite the same level of elite competition that it is today (the original winner was disqualified for having taken a car along much of the way...) So yes, there is clear evidence that the early olympics didn't quite get the coverage they do today. And WP:RECENTISM isn't about conjuring coverage where none exists, or writing single-line articles about persons who might be "known" for at most one far-off event... it's more about the exact opposite (and that we're giving too much prominence to recent events is rather obvious, not just in the Olympics). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 11:33, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

This was my immediate reaction to this as well. Very much an issue with WP:RECENTISM. Especially after seeing User:Canadian Paul who does Olympic research for a living indicating above that he believes that you could source 99% of Olympic athletes. -DJSasso (talk) 12:45, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
If David Carstens and the other examples in Template:1932 Olympic Gold Medalists Boxing (found via their user page) are representative of what CP can find with his "Olympic research for a living", then the argument that there is very little coverage seems even more correct. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:57, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Looks like he created the template, not the articles. Nor even really edited them so you don't really have a point. -DJSasso (talk) 13:08, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Support original proposal as first choice, this as second Per my previous comments and concerns that coverage does seem to be much sparser than what people want to admit, and that claiming this is recentism is missing the point. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:57, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Oppose If there are no sources for information about those people to write about them (beyond trivial appearance on a list somewhere), how do you intend to write an article about them? --Jayron 32 13:28, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
So you're effectively endorsing the status quo where there are no sources ("beyond trivial appearance on a list somewhere") for literally thousands of athletes? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:41, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
If no sources exist, we should not have articles about those people. --Jayron 32 14:56, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Then why are you not supporting this? This will cut down on the "no significant sources exist but they pass NOLYMPICS" people - exactly the kind of stuff you're saying we should not have articles about. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:11, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

@Jayron32 You seem to have ivoted incorrectly. Strike your comment and vote "Support." Schierbecker (talk) 07:46, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
No, I did not. It says "notability for all participants..." I oppose ANY proposal that grants notability based on ANYTHING except the availability of source text. Automatic notability is bad, because that would mean that for some people we don't have source texts to write about them. --Jayron 32 12:03, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Jayron32, this proposal doesn't "grant notability" directly, it just raises the bar for the presumption of GNG notability from all Olympians to only medalists. If any subject doesn't and cannot meet GNG they can still be deleted, since NSPORT (as explained in the FAQs) does not override GNG. I had similar concerns to you when there was a proposal to tighten the CRIN guidelines (since I thought they were still too loose), so I included a disclaimer that my !vote there was to be interpreted strictly as support for eliminating some NCRIC criteria and not as endorsement of the remaining criteria. Another way to read the NOLY proposal is "should the presumption of GNG be removed for non-medalists at the Olympics?"; would you support that? JoelleJay (talk) 17:52, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
The presumption of GNG exists only for subjects for which actual source material is produced. Saying "someone can find it later" is not sufficient. --Jayron 32 17:54, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
Jayron32, I mean, I totally agree with this, but the consensus is that at any given time athletes meeting an NSPORT criterion (which should predict GNG coverage) only have to have a source (like a database) in their article validating they meet that criterion; it's only when the GNG presumption is challenged that multiple IRS SIGCOV must be found. So, NSPORT essentially offloads the search for GNG material to hypothetical future editors who might have access to offline materials/don't have a language barrier/aren't lazy asses. While I think this is ridiculous, we have to work with what the community decides, so IMO making the criteria better predictors of GNG is really our only option. JoelleJay (talk) 23:25, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
As part of the community, I am expressing my interpretation of the existing guidance. That's how community decisions get made. --Jayron 32 11:17, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose, as this is effectively enshrining WP:RECENTISM in a major guideline.Jackattack1597 (talk) 14:04, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
NO - Are we really saying that Eddie the Eagle isn't notable because he failed to win a medal? As for early olympians, if they can be shown to meet WP:GNG, then they are notable enough to sustain articles. Mjroots (talk) 18:10, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
I don't think anybody is saying this. Not being presumed notable unless you win a medal means no automatic article for participating in the Olympics. It means anyone who doesn't win a medal has to be considered like any basically other subject on Wikipedia (by the GNG or BIO). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:32, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@Mjroots:, no one is saying that people who meet GNG aren't notable, that would be ridiculous. We are saying people who don't medal should no longer automatically be presumed to meet GNG. That's it. JoelleJay (talk) 01:18, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
Oppose - this is a solution in search of a problem. Why would we mess with something that has worked so well? There are so many things that have issues at Wikipedia and this isn't one of them. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:32, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
No per recentism comments above. Kaffe42 (talk) 18:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
Support as secondary option, per my comments above and RandomCanadian's !vote here. JoelleJay (talk) 02:52, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
Support as secondary Today most Olympic athletes are at least semi-professional and the likelihood of notability is higher. Before 1971, all participants had to be amateurs, and there is no indication that they necessarily have significant coverage. Automatic notability wihtout substantive sources is unacceptable. Reywas92^Talk 04:29, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
Support as second choice if the above proposal doesn't pass per nom et al. Levivich 03:28, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Support as second choice but only if the cutoff is rather recent - say, 2000ish or so, when the proliferation of online media began and thus the likelihood that a Olympian would recieve some type of coverage from somewhere in the world would be true. Starting too early, like the 1920s, might be easy for first-world country representatives, but difficult for other places, and even until recently this would hold true for smaller or less wealthy nations. --Masem (t) 11:52, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
@Masem: A non-arbitrary date would be 1989 ("Commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) emerged in 1989 in the United States and Australia."), or maybe somewhere closer to the Dot-com bubble (2000). Both of these would be defensible dates. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:03, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Support as the early Olympics were not professional events, and were often sideshows to the world's fair. Whereas nowadays, almost all Olympians will pass WP:GNG easily in my experience. I would set the limit about 1930s-1950s. Joseph2302 (talk) 12:32, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Support as secondary option but only with a substantially later starting date - Per above comments and others, this is better than nothing. I would tentatively suggest 2000 as a nice clean cutoff - it's an easy and obvious year, and sourcing is easier post wide adoption of the Internet. This would allow new Olympians to be covered in detail in the hope that some will eventually pass GNG, while past Olympians - who will have had 20+ years to become notable enough through their endevaors - can just fallback on GNG. (In fact, if we did it this way, we could even have some rolling standard where the cutoff year advances and the articles that ended up as perma-stubs are redirected - this might get too complicated, though.) SnowFire (talk) 18:01, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
Comment. The proposal is reasonable, but people don't want to confront the "real" problem here. While post-1920 Olympians from the USA, UK, Russia, Australia, Canada, Germany, and probably a dozen other countries will typically receive coverage sufficient to pass the GNG bar, this is simply not the case with athletes from most countries. However, I suspect there would be cries of outrage at at a proposal to presume notability only for (i) medal winners, or (ii) athletes from The USA, UK, Australia, Russia, France, etc. Cbl62 (talk) 20:52, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
@Cbl62: During the Africa de-subathon a few years ago, I was able to find significant coverage of virtually every recent Olympian from small African nations in their home country. And by "virtually every" I mean "every one I tried to look for, but that was only a small fraction of them." Whether this would be true of athletes from small countries 60 years ago, I don't know, but many of these small countries were still colonies back then or were otherwise not competing at the Olympics, so the affected number would be very small, if any. I'll try to track down specific articles I worked on when I have a better internet connection. Smartyllama (talk) 12:55, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Smartyllama: Those results are surprising and encouraging. Do you have a list of the African Olympians that were de-stubified? Cbl62 (talk) 13:25, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Conditional support with Smartyllama's 1924 cutoff date. I would oppose a cutoff date as late as 1989 or 2000 as some have proposed. Cbl62 (talk) 13:27, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
A mixed of a yes and no. There will be no coverage that is easily found for Olympians from games till the modern era, so I don't think those should be removed. Moving forward, I think perhaps if you have qualified for the games (mind you, only a limited amount make it) then an article should be created. This would exclude universality and invited athletes, who in my opinion should not have an article unless WP:GNG can be demonstrated. Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 03:36, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. Not every country has the same level of media coverage of their athletes, and not every sport receives significant coverage. This is particularly true of the pre-internet era where media tended to focus on promoting certain sports and certain athletes over others. With such a high degree of variability in coverage, making an arbitrary presumption of notability policy attached to a specific date is not wise in my opinion.4meter4 (talk) 17:51, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
Support as second choice, or combining both proposed rules. Coverage of the Olympics was limited in its early years, and we need to follow the sources, not set a rule that ignores them. If you can't write 10 decent sentences about the person, then it shouldn't be a separate article. "Adam Athlete went to the Olympics in 19-something or another for Ruritania, and that's all the world currently knows about him" is not a desirable type of article. (It could be a very solid entry in a list, however, and I think that type of list should be encouraged.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:44, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Conditional support, using Smartyllama's proposed 1924 cutoff date. Strongly oppose using later dates based on the Internet, as it seems to imply that there is something wrong with using print media sources. Ejgreen77 (talk) 16:52, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Support as second choice. It's a step in the right direction, but a far smaller step than the first proposal makes. Domeditrix (talk) 08:09, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
I'd be fine with this. Those in the original proposal are correct that the caliber of coverage and importance of competition has changed over time, and I agree that we don't need to have a one-size-fits-all rule for all eras of the Games. I think this strikes a good balance. I don't find the concerns about recentism compelling. Firstly, I have a hard time accepting that 1920 qualifies as "recent" (seriously, go read WP:Recentism, it is not about what we're discussing here). The proposal is based on a century-long shift in how the Games are viewed as a cultural institution, not because we like new olympians more. Where the olympics are considered among the highest achievements in sports today, a century or so ago it was nowhere close to as influential as it was mostly amateurs in the truest sense. Taking that historical context into account is not recentism and quite the opposite given that the essay defines the term as writing without an aim toward a long-term, historical view. — Wug·a·po·des 22:22, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
Strong oppose per above.--Ortizesp (talk) 22:39, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
Strong oppose This proposal is even worse than the original, because on top of the systemic bias and disrimination it also adds RECENTISM and arbitrariness. Ludost Mlačani (talk) 07:36, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose per WP:NOTPAPER. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:36, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose - information about older athletes may be harder to find, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, and I don't have a problem with a stub until someone finds more information. I know we had lots of debates about baseball players who met NSPORT by playing just one major league baseball game and almost invariably when challenged to do so we were able to dig up multiple sources even if they were more than a century old, and in at least one case we were able to find enough sources for a 19th century player to create a featured article, even though his first name is unknown. Rlendog (talk) 21:59, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. Has nothing do to with the purpose of this encyclopedia. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006. Fight for freedom, stand with Hong Kong! (talk) 03:12, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose per RECENTISM concerns already set out by others. SpinningSpark 12:52, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose per WP:RECENTISM. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:49, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the WP:VAGUEWAVE. As I was saying, and I'm going to shamelessly quote myself (nearly) verbatim, WP:RECENTISM isn't about conjuring coverage where none exists, or writing single-line articles about persons from a century ago who might be "known" for at most one far-off event... it's more about the exact opposite (and that we're giving too much prominence to recent events is rather obvious, not just in the Olympics). There is definitive proof that the early Olympics were not quite what they are today, and also that there is substantially more coverage of everything since the widespread adoption of the internet. Claiming that we should project the same standards as one would expect today back in the past is the actual case of recentism, here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:39, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Moreover, this page is about ensuring that individual articles are balanced between older and newer information on the article's topic so a reader of that page would see a balanced historical encyclopedic overview of the article. This has nothing to do with keeping articles on recent topics that actual have significant coverage versus other article that do not, and any argument citing this page is not valid. There is no basis whatsoever to have tens of thousands of mass-produced content-free perma-substubs on older subjects because we actually do have substantive sources (and interested readers and writers) on newer subjects. Reywas92^Talk 14:59, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. WP:RECENTISM. — Amakuru (talk) 16:08, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
@Amakuru: So you're not even going to attempt rebutting the points made above (in the comments directly preceding!!!), and instead prefer a WP:VAGUEWAVE? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:07, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
Oppose has the same problems of heightening systematic bias as I laid in my first comment in the original propsosal. Spy-cicle💥 ^Talk? 14:49, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
Oppose per Fyunck, 4meter4, et al, unless "After a Certain Date" is 1895. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 15:18, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
WP:JUSTAVOTE from someone who's created thousands of such articles... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:44, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
Oppose. Making the encyclopedia more top-heavy does not solve any of the issues at hand. If anything, older stubs are less likely to be a problem because they may not be BLPs and subject to the related concerns. Innisfree987 (talk) 19:49, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

This wouldn't make non-medalists not-notable, they would just have to meet some other criteria (either through being notable for their existing sporting achievements, or otherwise meeting GNG) instead of being given a free pass [look, I know, SNG's aren't supposed to be treated like that, but in practice, many people do behave as though it were]. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:40, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Could we have some examples of contemporary Olympic athletes who would not meet GNG? I don't buy that Olympians in prior eras will have less media coverage—it's just less accessible. ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 03:33, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
To me the issue is more with earlier Olympics. See eg Golf at the 1904 Summer Olympics – Men's individual. Most of the these are not notable, no more so that any other middle-class man in America in 1904. OK, you can trawl through newspapers.com to find some biographical details but I could do the same for either of my grandfathers and produce a much more interesting article. Nigej (talk) 05:12, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
One option would be to set a date restriction on it e.g. before year X, only Olympic medallists are presumable notable, and after year X, all Olympians are presumed notable. This is what we do for association footballers and cricketers, which weeds out the 19th/early-20th century players with no information other than they played once or twice. Which seems to be the Olympians people are complaining about. Joseph2302 (talk) 13:17, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

I would support this. JoelleJay (talk) 17:31, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

I have created an explicit proposal to this effect. Pinging @Nigej:, @JoelleJay:, @Kusma:, and @Hog Farm:, all of whom supported this to various extents. Smartyllama (talk) 20:07, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping. I think we should collect some examples for perhaps-not-notable Olympians covered or not covered by various cut-off dates. While I think I support a WW2 cutoff, even after that there are some less clear-cut cases. From 1952 I find Shirley Ascott and Roland Licker questionable. From 1956, Angelo Marciani. (I have only looked very casually at one discipline per olympics, I'm sure these are not the only examples!) —Kusma (talk) 20:49, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
It's worth noting the standard is "almost certain" and not "100% guaranteed" so if you can only find one or two athletes out of the thousands who competed who might not be notable, that would be good enough to me. Smartyllama (talk) 23:36, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
As I didn't have to dig at all to find these examples, I expect the number of questionable post-WW2 athletes is in the hundreds. —Kusma (talk) 08:28, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

1964: Theodorius van Halteren. —Kusma (talk) 13:37, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
A two-second Google search: [14]. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 14:23, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
I admit I managed to not find that one despite searching for "Theo van Halteren", but it doesn't really help in writing an article about him, does it? (All he says (according to my nl-0.8) is that 100000 people were in the stadium for the opening ceremony, he finished seventh, and Princess Beatrix visited the Olympic Village). —Kusma (talk) 15:49, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
Did you check even a single Dutch newspaper from the time period? Do you have access to those and enough knowledge of the Dutch language to determine if the coverage was significant? WP:BEFORE is incumbent on the person proposing deletion (or in this case suggesting non-notability, which amounts to the same thing effectively.) Smartyllama (talk) 19:29, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
I haven't proposed anything for deletion. I am questioning the claim "there exists significant coverage about all post-WW2 Olympic athletes". Usually we require that people arguing for inclusion present sources. —Kusma (talk) 20:49, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

@Nigej: The creation of this kind of articles are precisely the ones that attract the users referred to in this discussion --Kasper2006 (talk) 05:32, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
Let me add a piece of anecdotal evidence. I was trying to see whether I can find some material about Iván Zarco who participated in the marathon at the 2020 Olympics represented Honduras. He was running last the whole distance and finished last, the 76th (well, 30 athletes did not finish, but still). It turned out that this is not a problem at all (though many useful online sources are in Spanish, but my Spanish is good enough to understand them). Currently, the article would certainly survive AfD, and I am sure there is more material available to add, since the guy is 37, and had 20 years career not yet covered in the article. We are not talking about databases, we are not talking about trivial mentions like "Zarco run and finished the 76th", we are talking about articles in reliable sources describing him and his performance at some length. I do not know whether I would have such luck if I pick up someone who was eliminated in the first round of canoeing, fencing or judo, but at least here I did not have any issues at all, the guy easily passes WP:GNG.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:11, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
The practical effect of this would be to suck up people's time searching for mostly old, mostly non-English, often non-online sources which almost always do exist but cannot be found easily. Stubs are harmless. There is no problem that needs a solution here. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 22:09, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
Er, what is wrong with searching for mostly old, mostly non-English, often non-online sources? Isn't that what we have to do to write decent articles in the absence of new, English, online sources? Any change that encourages people to write articles instead of one-line stubs is beneficial. It's not 2006 any more. —Kusma (talk) 22:45, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
Nobody's writing one-line stubs on early Olympians anymore; they're already done. When someone is interested enough to look, the sources are almost always found. If you'd like to expand the stubs, by all means go looking for them. Until then, the stubs are fine. But I don't want AFD nominators to be assignment editors. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 23:47, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Oddly enough, I'm quite in favor of people having to do the work to demonstrate the notability of a subject. I'm certainly far more in favor of that than of the people who rack up ninety-second one-sentence permastubs just to count coup in article creation tallies. If the most that can be found about an athlete is "Ignatz Bartosiak competed for Poland as a cross-country skier in the 1932 Winter Olympics," then Mr. Bartosiak belongs in a List of 1930s Polish Olympians. Anyone who finds the work of genuine research onerous can surely choose to find other tasks to bump up their edit counts. Ravenswing 23:36, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
Nobody today is bumping up their creation counts by adding Olympians before, well, today. You're not going to deter any stub creation with this proposal. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 23:47, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
Also, no idea why you piped Zdzisław Motyka to "Ignatz Bartosiak" there, but Motyka should absolutely have an article, and your suggestion that that page be redirected to a list is 1000% why this proposal is wrong. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 09:36, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Jonel, this is already something editors have to do for biographies of people in most every discipline outside of sports. Why should athletes hold this privileged exception to demonstrating notability? And anyway, NSPORT already requires subjects meet GNG so someone will have to put in this minimal effort, why not make it the one editor guaranteed to actually interact with the article (the creator)? JoelleJay (talk) 01:30, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
This proposal will not make article creators put in that effort. It will only encourage far more AFDs by people who will also not put in any effort. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 09:09, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
The present one-line stubs could all be turned into redirects to "List of (country) participants at the (year) Olympics", with no loss of information. Anybody putting in any effort could then turn them into articles again by, you know, writing an actual biography. If writing an article is "too much effort", something is wrong. —Kusma (talk) 13:31, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
A decision here (if any) may also have implications for other guidelines at WP:NSPORT as many include phrases like "presumed notable if competed at X". It may be become difficult to explain why the Olympics, as sporting event, would be restricted to medalists only (as far as the SNG is concerned) but other sporting events do have "having competed" as "threshold". - Simeon (talk) 14:15, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
It just probably means that other SNGs need to be revised, too. That or scrapping the concept entirely, because they seem to be misused so frequently (as alternatives to GNG, rather than hints whether something may meet GNG) that it's not worth the trouble. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:18, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
Yes, arguing that we shouldn't fix one SNG for the sake of maintaining the equity of brokenness across all SNGs is not the solution. -Indy beetle (talk) 16:52, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
I don't necessarily think it's a problem if some sports but not all specify competing in the Olympics qualifies for notability. A random basketball player or track & field athlete in the Olympics is likely going to receive more coverage than a random modern pentathlete or canoeist, so a change to NOLY doesn't necessarily mean other SNGs have to be changed as well. Indeed we may need to add "participated in the Olympics" to some sports like basketball where an Olympian almost certainly would meet GNG but it isn't specified in the SNG due to NOLY making it irrelevant, and remove it from others like equestrian, where it's hard to make a case for notability if NOLY is gone. Smartyllama (talk) 13:39, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
Another idea could be to restrict to those who have received an Olympic diploma (so top 8 finishers, which of course includes medalists). - Simeon (talk) 16:58, 2 September 2021 (UTC)
Comment. Since it didn't really come up in the discussion above, should the closer find a consensus to tighten the current guidelines, note that I wouldn't really have a problem with some sort of delay / grandfather clause for existing articles (as someone who firmly supports such a tightening). I get that it can be frustrating for people who feel that useful content is about to be deleted to essentially be threatened to add more sources or let it be deleted, having been in that spot myself. As such, some policy of "the new policy is in effect immediately for new articles, but old articles have 1/2/5/? years before they have to comply with the new sourcing standard" would be fine. Alternatively, could also see some policy wherein perma-stub articles of the form "XYZ is an ABC player who participated at the 19xx Olympics" are moved to Draft space, but are exempted from the 6-month G13 deletion criterion, such that if they Really Can be reliably sourced eventually, no "work" is lost. SnowFire (talk) 17:38, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

ALTERNATE SUGGESTION: if there's no information on George Athlete other than that he was an 86-year-old wolverine hurler for Fakelandia in the 1963 Olympics, then, rather than deleting the article on George Athlete, convert it into a redirect to the article on wolverine hurling at the 1963 Olympics - or perhaps even to an individual section of the article on wolverine hurling at the 1963 Olympics. Article history is retained and can easily be reaccessed if it turns out that there's tons of coverage of George just waiting to be scanned, OCR'd, and released from behind paywalls. DS (talk) 04:20, 4 September 2021 (UTC)"Wolverine hurlers" compete to see who can hurl an angry live wolverine the furthest.

(@DragonflySixtyseven, is the wolverine angry before they throw it, or only afterwards?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:54, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

(@WhatamIdoing, before, obviously. What's the challenge otherwise? DS (talk) 12:59, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

@DragonflySixtyseven and WhatamIdoing: The challenge would be surviving uninjured once the wolverine comes back angry? Obviously, if you don't succeed, you don't get further throws... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:36, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Comment. I see that people advocate moving information on Olympians to the lists if non-database sources could not be found. Without expressing an opinion on relation between GNG and SNG, let me remark that in this way important infornation is going to be lost. If A participated in the 1964 Olympics and was seventh in sport B, and also participated in the 1968 Olympics and was ninth in the same sport, and in the meanwhile became the 1965 World bronze medalist and finished third overall in the 1966 World Cup in B, the person will be moved to the lists of 1964 and 1968 Olympians, and the information that all this was accomplished by the same person is going to be lost. It could have been remedied by Wikidata, but the community prohibited links to Wikidata in this context. (Note that I am generally a proponent of lists, and I believe that, for example, railway stations in some area where information is difficult to find are best presented in one list - but athletes are a completely different situation as I described above).--Ymblanter (talk) 16:54, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
True, but what makes an Olympian or any other athlete more deserving of a standalone article documenting their participation in events than, say, a musician who played at multiple notable concerts? There are already many "[sport] in [country]" articles that could also serve to outline Olympic athletes' appearances across games. JoelleJay (talk) 19:12, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
De facto a musician played in a notable concert (or multiple notable concerts) would be considered notable.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:29, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
Nope, that does not, since notability is not inherited. If the only coverage of a musician we have is "played in X notable event[s]", then they do not warrant an article; we can at best create a redirect to the band or event that they were a member of/took part in. I don't see what is different with sportspeople if the only coverage we have is "participated in X and achieved Y". If the sum total of coverage about a subject could be resumed down to a results table, then it's not significant coverage as required by GNG, and if there's an SNG which says otherwise, and if there are multiple examples, then the SNG needs to be tightened. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:57, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Uhhhh what?? I am not seeing that in WP:NMUSIC or WP:NCREATIVE, and it is not supported by our general criteria of notability not being inherited and the requirement for significant sources. I also have not seen such an argument used in musician AfDs, although I don't frequent those much. Maybe this was a trend in like 2011 when requirements were way looser, but it is definitely not a standard now or in the recent past. JoelleJay (talk) 04:25, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Ymblanter, I believe there's a misunderstanding here. If all the information available on an Olympian is that they came ninth in their event in 1964, that's very different from "and also they were the 1965 bronze medalist and finished third in the 1966 World Cup". In such a case, being an Olympian would not by itself bestow notability, but it would help. I'm thinking about redirects, and a message that says something like "Due to the incomplete nature of the historical record, Wikipedia has no information on this Olympian other than their name, age, nationality, event, and rank in the event." Possibly with a "Click <here> to provide more information". DS (talk) 23:02, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
I don't have much to add to this discussion, but I would like to second DS's suggestion directly above this comment. I believe it is a wonderful middle-ground. Can all the information about an Olympian (or really any other athlete that is considered notable right now, in my opinion) be written in one or two sentences? I believe the information would be better grouped with other like athletes and presented in one location, perhaps a table in a single article, such as "Wolverine hurlers of Fakelandia". Can all the information about that athlete fill an entire (respectably sized) paragraph or two? Give it a section on the same page: "Wolverine hurlers of Fakelandia § George Athlete". Can all the information about that athlete cover several paragraphs? Give it its own page.
~ JDCAce | talk ~ 07:55, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I would not disagree with this (if a person participated in one Olympics, and nothing else is known about them - in this case, one can even argue per WP:ONEVENT). However, if not a majority then a significant minority of Olympians participate in multiple Olympics or in one Olympics and several workd championships/cups. This is documented, at least in the last 30 or so years, at the databases hosted at the websites of the corresponding inernational (and often also national) sporting federations. If I read the discussion correctly, the proposal is to move these to the lists. In this case, even a target for a redirect can not be determined.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:26, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
Ymblanter, yeah I definitely agree the redirects can be an issue, but this is already something we have to work around with footballers and cricket players who aren't notable but played for multiple teams so I don't see why multi-Games Olympians should be given special exemptions. I think the answer is to expand articles on "[sport] in [country]" with sections/tables listing the country's Olympic athletes in that sport, the years they played, and their performance. We can also include notes linking to other disciplines for multi-sport athletes. JoelleJay (talk) 17:25, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
I know next to nothing about cricket, but in football, anybody who played a fully professional match passes SNG, and I have never seen lists of players of amateur teams (or, for that matter, teams playing in non-professional leagues).--Ymblanter (talk) 17:37, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
Passing NFOOTY but failing NSPORT/GNG hasn't been enough to keep football players at AfD for quite a while now... Premeditated Chaos, who is a very experienced NSPORT closer, gave a pretty concise statement to that effect in this recent AfD. Even editors who opposed the above proposal routinely acknowledge there is longstanding consensus that scraping by on NFOOTBALL with one or two appearances is insufficient when GNG is failed so comprehensively. JoelleJay (talk) 01:00, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Well, it shouldn't be enough to pass AfD, but my last two NFOOTY-pass/GNG-fail AfDs closed as keep/no consensus, with both closers basically telling me that although the NSPORTS guideline explicitly requires a GNG pass, that doesn't actually matter as long as people ~*~believe~*~ that NFOOTY is enough. Very few people actually have the willingness to enforce NSPORTS as it is presently written, and not as they imagine it is written. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:07, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Premeditated Chaos, eh, I've seen a lot of good closes (even ones against the numerical !votes) citing NSPORT's relationship with GNG from Dennis Brown, Randykitty, Nosebagbear, Black Kite, Fenixdown, and Sandstein. I think the determining factor in many of the keep closes is that !voters believe NFOOTY/NSPORT protects players from CRYSTAL arguments and therefore don't find it necessary to rebut the rest of the guideline. Combined with the 2–4 editors who !vote "keep passes NFOOTY" in every single AfD it can be hard for a closer to justify closing against the numbers, especially if they're not familiar with the nuances of NSPORT. JoelleJay (talk) 18:15, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
Comment. I see a lot of !votes above that claim the proposal is "too restrictive", but it's unclear to me how this would limit coverage of Olympians. Since NSPORT ultimately requires GNG sources (as stated in the first sentence of NSPORT and in its FAQs at the top of the page, and reaffirmed by numerous AfDs and a 2017 RfC), the proposal wouldn't actually make any subjects suddenly non-notable that weren't already eligible for deletion under the current criteria. Moreover, for most other bios GNG sourcing must be found before entering mainspace; why is doing this so onerous for athletes? It's not like sportspeople are uniquely prone to having only offline/different language coverage. JoelleJay (talk) 17:01, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
I think for athletes it's possible to have accomplishment-based guidelines (medals / competitions / records) that can be applied to say: "this article should not be deleted because it passes WP:NOLYMPICS". It can be restrictive if WP:NOLYMPICS only applies to medalists and for 4th place onwards an article may or may not exist, depending on sources. So we could have an Olympic event for which most competitors have an article, except those who finished in 23rd place, 27th place, 44th place and 51st place because we're struggling to find in-depth coverage. But, if there is consensus that these articles should exist (from our long-term point of view), it's still possible to write an article using results PDFs / databases while we look for interviews / in-depth coverage. So the proposal wouldn't limit coverage or make subjects non-notable, but WP:NOLYMPICS can be useful to determine what articles "should" exist rather than hand over that decision to outside sources. It may be nice if we could say: Wikipedia has biographies of all top 10 finishers in Olympic marathons, and not that our Olympic coverage has gaps depending on sources (some !votes above also touch upon what it means to cover the Olympics in an encyclopedia). - Simeon (talk) 18:57, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
Yes Presuming notability for many of these is untenable. Ideally articles removed should be collected in lists or articles per country per game. I don't think anyone has mentioned that mass removals of individual sports bios are helpful for our "% of female biographies" stats, about which the WMF, the media & many editors are very excercised. Johnbod (talk) 18:50, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
No While I understand why people would vote yes, the Olympics are the highest level of sport in the world. Inherent notability is the presumption that these subjects are notable enough to presumably have sources written about them, and that the inclusion of these subjects are needed in order to maintain a completed encyclopedia, both statements of which are true. NSPORT has a complex relationship with GNG, especially when compared to other SNGs, and the NFOOTY exception is regularly cited at AfD; however, playing a few minutes of professional soccer and competing in the Olympics simply weigh differently. Curbon7 (talk) 01:29, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.