Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Barker (athlete)

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

The result was redirect. FT2 (Talk | email) 23:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

A quick summary of the issue: a person who competed in a long ago olympics (1912), didn't finish, no significant coverage can be presently found with ease (as yet) although reliable sources do evidence he existed and competed and dropped out from injury.

A quick review of the policy based points suggests the following:

  1. Wikipedia considers the historic notability of a person. (WP:NOT) Also there is hinting in the policy wording to the effect that a notable topic does not have its notability affected by passage of time.
  2. As all we know of him is that he competed in the 1912 games, the question is, whether being in an Olympic team itself enough to make someone notable, generally. The answer (per commonsense and WP:BIO) would seem to be, "yes".
  3. That he dropped out, or little else is known presently, would not seem to change that. (Also it seems hard to conceive that additional to the above comment and evidence verifying it, that some other sources do not exist, even if at present we have not found them. Would no newspaper have covered the team or his dropout; no book have been written on the games? This is speculative but is also encouraging in concept. However the main point is as stated above)
  4. Notability is also touched on in other ways. Per WP:N the aim of notability is to try and identify whether the wider world took note of him in some non trivial way, and clearly whatever happeend at the games, being a member of the team suggests that indeed, there was clear discrimination; he was not merely a "random athlete" and passes the hurdle of "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection". These are suggestive of notability.
  5. However at present all that is known of him is "he competed in a major event and dropped out". We have no evidence he was notable for anything else, or for his sports career or other aspects of his life generally. This seems to be classic WP:BLP1E, in which we "cover the event, not the person". Hence redirect.
  6. (And we also at present can't write much else about him or a neutral article on him, as we do in a pactical sense, lack actual biographical information of substance.)

[edit] James Barker (athlete)

James Barker (athlete) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Contested CSD, for notability concerns. There are no reliable, third-party sources, and the only reason for its initial undeletion was a dubious precedent that any Olympic athlete deserves an article. Ergo, this is somewhat of a deletion review in the form of an AFD, for reasons expressed at the Policy village pump. (I strongly advocate deletion). Keilanatalk(recall) 03:07, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not dubious at all, it's the core tenet of wikipedia's notability rules. The Olympics is the highest level of track and field, this man was in the Olympics of 1912, he's notable. There are no grounds for deletion at all. I note that you speedily deleted this article twice and are now apparently seeking to change a long established policy to justify acts which other admins and editors seem to disagree with. Nick mallory (talk) 03:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak delete It does need some sources. I assume they exist, ancient newspapers and so on, but I couldn't find any. --W.marsh 03:13, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • If you assume sources exist, then why weak delete? I'm not hopeful that someone will find the sources, but that's not the issue here. If the sources exist, then this article is warranted. –Pomte 03:57, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • They probably exist... but I'm not sure until we actually find them. Maybe no newspapers happened to write about this guy. We can always undelete if someone finds better sources. --W.marsh 04:01, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Any sources found are very likely to be trivial. The general notability requirement states that a subject must have substantial coverage. Until there is more than just a passing mention of his participation, the article shouldn't be kept. Reywas92Talk 16:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually, merge/redirect makes more sense, given the lack of non-directory style information about this guy, and the incomplete nature of the information we do have (how did he qualify? Where was he born? when did he die? etc.) The redirect can always be undone when someone goes on a microfilm binge and finds sources, if they really do exist. If nothing else there must have been an obituary. --W.marsh 15:21, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep The current source from www.olympics.org (a very reliable source) backs up the notability claim of competing in the 1912 Olympics. Olympians more than qualify under WP:BIO in that they are competing at the highest level in an amateur sport. Being an Olympian, even if you don't medal, is a very exclusive classification that belongs to a finite group of athletes. Considering that the Olympics in question are from 1912, there is a good chance that the addition sources needed to expand the article are probably not available online but in libraries and archives from that time period. (Look at the number of online sources for the 1912 Summer Olympics page itself). We should not let a bias towards relying on online sources cause us to delete an article that is clearly on a notable subject. AgneCheese/Wine 03:25, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment I think the crux of the issue is with WP:BIO, which clearly allows an article about an Olympic athlete. The "highest level" clause has established the notability of countless professional baseball, football, basketball players in numbers that are probably greater in numbers than our coverage on Olympic athletes. In just a small sampling I counted over 800 entries in Category:Major league players from California, almost 300 entries in Category:New York Knicks players, over a 1000 in Category:American football quarterbacks and an incredible 5200 plus entries in Category:English footballers. In contrast the Category:Olympic athletes of Great Britain has a little more than 400 entries. Not everyone of these Olympian won a medal, just as I'm sure that not everyone in any of the other "Major league" categories won a major award, was part of an All-star or Championship team. But the one thing that these Olympians have in common with these other "major league" athletes is that they are one of the very few individuals (out of the billions in the world) that have competed at the highest level in a very notable endeavor. Again, this is such a small and finite group of people. If you have a philosophical issue about the threshold for notability (and it is reasonable to have those concerns), then that should be brought up at the WP:BIO page. But as it stands now, with the precedent of thousands of articles on "major league" athletes, being an Olympian is notable. AgneCheese/Wine 04:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree, but I would caution against WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. That is typically not a valid arguement for keeping or deleting an article. I am a huge fan of American baseball, and I will be the first to admit: there are ball players who have articles that simply don't deserve them. I agree with you on that issue. However, just because those articles exist in the first place, does not give proper grounds for this one to exist. LonelyBeacon (talk) 07:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Agne, the Olympics.com source is reliable, but does it really do anything? It is an extremely trivial source saying that the person existed, participated, and has a birthdate. A passing mention in a list or nearly empty bio page is not a useful source. Reywas92Talk 16:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak Delete - There is no such precedent that any Olympic athlete deserves an article. If there are multiple third party sources, then yes. Otherwise, no. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, the notability page disagrees with you. I (talk) 03:34, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Nah, right above that, it says "meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included". By that it means the existance of sources (or lack thereof) can overrule the subjective criteria. --W.marsh 03:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, that's what I would think, but people seem to disregard that, and treat these cases as automatic notability. See the comment immediately below me (3:36) I (talk) 03:42, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
It's sourced to the British Olympic Association, what more do you want? Nick mallory (talk) 03:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
All that's sourced so far is directory-style information... name, year of birth, events. It's been prose-ified, but based on sources we know about now it really could never be expanded beyond directory-style information, which runs afoul of WP:NOT. --W.marsh 03:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
This is ridiculous, you're now on your third rationale for deletion in half an hour, the first two having been clearly refuted. This is in no way a 'directory' question. What next? How can you possibly know this article can't be expanded? A few minutes ago you couldn't find any trace of him despite him having a page at the BOA site confirming all the relevant details. Nick mallory (talk) 03:50, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
There's no need to get rude... the only reason this article is even at AFD and not a redlink is because I demanded an AFD. None of my arguments have been refuted anyway. I asked for reliable, non-trivial sources and all that was found was a directory listing, which poses obvious problems. --W.marsh 03:54, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
You mean online "google-searchable" sources? We have a reliable source that establishes notability. Considering the news and press coverage that have historically surrounded the Olympics, it is very likely that there are sources available to expand the article but they are just not available online. For something that has it notability established, we shouldn't delete articles because of the fact that it may require a trip to the library or a dig through old newspaper archives to find more sources. We should be wary about this bias for online sources. We are trying to craft an encyclopedia and sometimes we have to go beyond where a mouse click can bring us. AgneCheese/Wine 03:56, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Uh, that tangent you went off on is based on a false assumption. As I thought I communicated above ("ancient newsapers"), I know the sources here, if they exist, are on microfilm... but that's if they exist. You want to assume they do, I'd like someone to actually find them first. There might be sources on all sorts of stuff. --W.marsh 03:58, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I'd like someone to find them too. I still see no reason to delete an article that has it notability already established just because someone hasn't found them in the first 5 hours of the article's life. AgneCheese/Wine 04:02, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
NOT#DIR doesn't apply here as it's meant to avoid articles on non-notable subjects; it doesn't prevent perma-stubs. This stub doesn't need to ever be expanded because there's a clear assertion of notability and no evidence that this article cannot theoretically expand. –Pomte 04:07, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
How about Bergvall, Erik (ed.) (1913). in Adams-Ray, Edward (trans.).: The Official Report of the Olympic Games of Stockholm 1912. Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand as a source? I wasn't being rude either, but googling ' "James Baker" Olympics ' produces the BOA site as the first hit. Can I ask what search terms you used in your failed search earlier? If the British Olympic Association isn't a good enough source for a British Olympian then I still don't know what is. Nick mallory (talk) 04:12, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I did two news story archive searches, which include a lot of papers from this era, but none seemed to mention Barker. Is the information in the source you mention more than what the BOA site has? --W.marsh 04:20, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
The source clearly establishes that he existed and someone who participates in the Olympics is clearly notable by Wikipedia's notability standard. If you want that standard changed then this isn't the place to argue about it. This issue has come up lots of times Lecomte, Christine Robinson, and Albert Baumann AfDs for example and the community consensus is clear. Nick mallory (talk) 04:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
All of those AFDs were before the re-focusing of WP:N to be based around the existence of sources. The older criteria of WP:BIO are increasingly obsolete... for example we couldn't have an article on a living Olympian if there weren't any non-directory sources, due to WP:BLP. --W.marsh 04:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep As has just been pointed out anyone who participated in the Olympic Games is by definition competing at the highest level of their sport and is therefore automatically notable by the long established Wikipedia standards regarding sportsmen. It's clear by policy and precedent that Barker is notable. The article is linked to the British Olympic Association site, which clearly records his name and participation.Nick mallory (talk) 03:36, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - He meets the WP:N requirement for amateur athletes, so he should be kept. matt91486 (talk) 03:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep and clean-up; there has to be more information on him somewhere. That should be included here. --Mhking (talk) 03:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep –Pomte 04:07, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep, Olympian = notable. Corvus cornixtalk 04:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep An article doesn't have to currently cite sources in order to be keepable; it only needs to be established that sources clearly exist. The Olympics, since their inception, have always generated significant reliable press, and thus athletes that compete in them will have copious sources about them. It is not that Olympics athletes are granted some "golden ticket" that makes them exempt from notability requirements, its that the sources clearly exist even if the article in its current state does not cite them. Each of the specifically cited WP:BIO claims of individual notability are not exemptions from the standard notability requirements, they are recognition that such categories of people will likely pass said requirements all the time. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:17, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Strongest Delete - This article is not encyclopedic, period. An examination of Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics - Men's 100 metres will show that this athlete's performance is that he did not even finish the 100 meter race. Searches could not turn up any other notable activity. Yes, he's a real person. This person is flat out not notable by any rationale definition of notability, and is within the spirit of WP:N to be deleted. [[W.marsh has established that simply being an Olympian does not connote notability per WP:N. If that is the sole wall of defense for this article, then I see this as a clear case to advocate WP:WIARM if that single notability issue is the sole pillar of this article's defense. While trying to maintain good faith, I am suspecting that WP:POINT may be at work somewhere ... I truly hope I am wrong. LonelyBeacon (talk) 04:23, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
He competed at the highest level of his sport, which part of 'the spirit' of WP:N does that contravene again? Nick mallory (talk) 04:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment As the "undeleting" administrator, I'm not going to !vote, but I do feel it necessary to comment since I am involved. As it stands, per former consensus and per the way the "top of the field clause" is worded, then this should be kept. This argument is more than likely far beyond the scope of this individual article. If I could !vote outside that clause, however, I would say delete, because WP:N requires that third party, reliable sources provide significant coverage of the subject of the article. It is not up to the people who nominate the article for deletion to find these sources, outside of a good faith effort to make sure that there's not an obvious amount of them. Otherwise, Wikipedia is very clear that it is up to the people adding the material to the encyclopedia to provide sources that assert notability. Having said that, I can't !vote outside of the clause, and therefore will take this discussion to a more appropraite venue (the village pump per above). Cheers, CP 04:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Redirect to Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics - Men's 100 metres unless more is found about him. That article mentions him as not finishing. I assume he has finished 100 m races to qualify but if there is no known mention of a result or source coverage beyond one line then don't make an article. Olympic athletes in 1912 were usually much less notable and competitive than today. WP:BIO#Additional criteria says: "meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included. ... Competitors and coaches who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports (who meet the general criteria of secondary sources published about them)." PrimeHunter (talk) 04:39, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Notability does not expire. Saying an Olympian of 1912 is less notable than one of 1972 or today is ridiculous. How about we axe every baseballer before 1930? Nick mallory (talk) 04:41, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
The problem is we so far have no evidence that he was ever notable as in non-trivial coverage by reliable sources. We only have speculation about unknown sources. My point was that 1912 Olympic athletes got far less attention at the time than athletes today so many of them never had the same level of notability. The public and media simply cared far less and this guy didn't even finish the shortest event. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:48, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't know how legitimately one can claim that people of a certain period "cared less" because we happen to be blessed with more news coverage and media presence in this "information age". Politicians were certainly covered less in the early 20th century due to lack of television or internet news sources, but do you really think people "cared less" about their government officials? What about the comparison in news coverage between World War I and the Iraq War? AgneCheese/Wine 04:53, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
What evidence is there that he actually competed? The record says that he did not finish, which could mean that he never even started the race. The sole evidence is an entry that he was in attendance. There is no record of qualification. For all we know, absent sources, he was a British citizen on the boat to Stockholm, and got added to the roster, and never started the race. By WP:N as applies to athletes, I would say that there is no evidence to support that this person ever competed at the highest level of amateur competition. LonelyBeacon (talk) 05:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Honesty, that doesn't matter. Achieving the feat of becoming an Olympian is an incredible accomplishment that so few people will ever do. Scott Baird holds the distinction of being the oldest Winter Olympian to win a medal and didn't even play. He was an alternate on the bronze medal curling team. Even though he never threw a rock in an actual Olympic game, he is still an Olympian. He still achieved, what so few others will ever do. The same with James Baker. He is one of infinitesimal amount of individuals in the world who ever became an Olympian. I'm surprise that there are people here who do not understand how significant of an accomplishment that is. AgneCheese/Wine 05:34, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
With respect, I think it is highly paramount since some people here seem very intent to follow "the letter" of WP:N rather than to really consider the spirit of what notability entails. If you really feel an athlete who (at least) never even finished a race 85 + years ago is notable, then that's your opinion, and its no more or less valid than mine. However, the letter of WP:N states for athletes: Competitors and coaches who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports. I say: give me one shred of evidence that this man competed. So far not one ounce of evidence has been produced to confirm his competition. This is in violation of WP:V. The only evidence that we have is that he was in Stockholm in 1912, and was on the British team. By the letter of Wikipedia policy, this article should be deleted. In the spirit of Wikipedia policy, it should be deleted for, IMO, lacking rational notability. LonelyBeacon (talk) 07:27, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Page 351 of this document suggests that he did participate in a heat, but did not place. Zagalejo^^^ 08:06, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Although, interestingly, I don't see him included in the List of Competitors (beginning on page 891; I'm using the original page numbers, BTW). Zagalejo^^^ 08:17, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I think Olympic athletes got a much smaller ratio of the public attention in 1912 than today. How many of the British population in 1912 would have any recollection of reading, seeing or hearing about a failed 100 m Olympic runner from games in another country? I guess not many. And this was long before the time of live television which has revolutionized sports coverage much more than coverage of politicians. If Wikipedia had existed in 1912 then I doubt editors would include this man unless there are great unknown sources. The Olympics is a huge event today but if todays interest is about todays athletes then I don't think it should automatically merit addition of an old failed participant with two lines of known information. And getting into the 1912 British team took far less effort than today. It doesn't have to be any kind of large personal achievement. I have heard many of the early Olympians were upper class people with time and money to spare. Amateur rules were very strict, most people had to work for a living, boat trips were long, and many had to pay for their own travel. Many of them probably viewed it more as an active vacation than a great sporting event. And as LonelyBeacon hints, often they were not carefully selected after qualification but were just willing and able to participate. Currently we don't know whether James Barker has ever run 100 meters in a time within seconds of the best at the time. One of the heats was won in 12.4s and another in 10.6s. Being 1.8s from the winner today would be a joke. PrimeHunter (talk) 06:03, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Verifiable and NPOV article on someone who competed at the highest level of amateur competition. DoubleBlue (Talk) 05:25, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per previous precedent for Olympic athletes. I agree that the criteria for participation in 1912 was quite different from today's Olympic athletes, but where do you draw the line? The same criteria for notability must apply for all Olympic Games. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 06:16, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • This article as it stands is pretty worthless, but as I have demonstrated with my work on Norwegian athletes the article can be expanded with performance in national championships, personal best marks etc. It depends on the quality of the sources, though. Punkmorten (talk) 10:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Redirect - The fundamental problem is that Wikipedia has tens of thousands of these stub articles that do the reader very little good. We allow them because we hope that someday someone will come along and spend the enormous amount of effort to research old and/or obscure sources to find enough to expand the articles, effort that (in my opinion) would be far better spent improving articles that a lot of people actually do read. Worse, by fragmenting information like this, we keep it out of articles like Great Britain and Ireland at the 1912 Summer Olympics. How did the Great Britain and Ireland do in field and track in 1912 as opposed to 1908, or Olympic games in the 1920s? If information is consolidated, it's useful, and it can always be spun off when it gets too lengthy. If information is fragmented (as it is now), it's likely to stay fragmented - and virtually worthless - for a long, long time. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect. When looking through Category:Possibly living people I came across large numbers of stubs like this, and I looked at the categories for old Olympic athletes from the early 20th century by country and by particular olympics and almost all are stubs. I think that most of these should be merged and redirected unless people have multiple reliable sources about them. Wikipedia is not a directory, either.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 15:03, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete or redirect; I am an inclusionist on most issues but here I think we're plowing way past the boundaries of notability. I know what our policies say, but they only describe past consensus, and consensus can change. This article should be deleted because:
  1. Notability can expire - it is very difficult to make a counter argument to this. While this runs against our prior consensus on notability, what was only vaguely notable in 1912 - and in this case no one has even shown that - is likely not notable at all in 2008.
  2. This individual competed in a single heat of a single sporting event of a single Olympic games. I do not believe that competing in one major event in one's career should grant notability. An athlete should need need to compete in an event on a championship level, or set a major record, or be notable outside of the sport, or do something else that makes an impression on the public - that creates a rationale for notability. Otherwise you end up with articles on Silvio Diliberto and Phil Sanderson.
  3. "The Games grew to nearly 11,100 competitors from 202 countries at the 2004 Summer Olympics...at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin Italy, 2,633 athletes from 80 countries competed in 84 events." - From the Wikipedia article Olympic Games. Do you really believe that all 13,000 athletes from this past Olympiad's Games are notable. I believe that around half of them are not notable at all. Based solely on the information presented in the article, James Barker would have fallen into the not notable category because he never made it out of the preliminary round.
Please evaluate my arguements on their merits and not on old consensus.--CastAStone//(talk) 16:13, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Delete Participating at the Olympics does not make one notable. He was eliminated in the first round! CastAStone's argument is great. In 2004 there were 11,099 athletes at the Olympics. Every one of them is not notable just for participating there! Reywas92Talk 16:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Comment - So far (I could be wrong here), we have two sources - one being from the U.K. Olympic Committee (reliable) and one the final report from the 1912 Olympics provided by Zagalejo (also reliable). I would argue that to meet notability, there needs to be sources independent of the athlete's participation in the games. In other words, there needs to be a newspaper article from an independent source. I would say that until such a source surfaces, the article has to go. Further, there are arguments for merge. I would say every bit of useful information is already found at Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics - Men's 100 metres (his event, nation represented, and that he may or may not have actually run the race). A redirect would probably be good until such time sources can be established. LonelyBeacon (talk) 16:50, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I believe that those sources prove Verifiablility, not notability.--CastAStone//(talk) 17:25, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Huge comment Many people have simply stated that he is notable because he competed at the highest level of competition. HOwever, a simple look at WP:BIO clearly shows that he would be notable because of this, but also says he must meet the general criteria of secondary sources. James Barker does not meet the general criteria of secondary sources. From WP:BIO:

The person must have been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject.

  • If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may need to be cited to establish notability.
  • Trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability.

Barker's coverage is trivial and not substantial. It is true that the British Olympics website is both reliable and independent, but it is not substantial! That source simply includes Barker's birthdate and the fact that he participated in the 100m at the 1912 Olympics. Not to be rude, but if you think that is substantial enough to warrant his notability and that of other athletes, you need your head examined! The passing mention of thousands of athletes in lists and pages like this does not mean we need an article on the person! (After an edit conflict: Thank you LonelyBeacon!)Reywas92Talk 17:03, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment – "redirect" is not a useful option for the disposition of this article. The Olympics WikiProject uses templates for formatting pages such as Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics - Men's 100 metres (the only mainspace article that James Barker (athlete) links from). Specifically, Template:flagIOCathlete is used to render the flag before the athlete's name and the wikilink to Great Britain at the 1912 Summer Olympics after his name (using the IOC code "GBR"). Redirecting athlete's names to also point to the respective "Nation at the year Olympics" pages is a pretty useless action since the wikilink to that page is already there, adjacent to the athlete's name. If this article is deleted (and a new precedent is set for Olympic athlete articles), then the correct course of action would be to simply de-link athlete's names from results pages (like the 1912 100 metres page). — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:30, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment - Redirect is a useful option - the absence of an appropriate article indicates a problem with the lack of a place to collect relevant information about the 1912 team, and/or the 1912 field and track atheletes of the 1912 British team. Was the team expected to do well? What competitions were used to determine who was on the team? Were notable athletes absent? Did athletes have to pay their own way? (I'm sure that other editors can come up with other interesting aspects of the team, and individuals on it.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:04, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Basic biographic information on an Olympic athlete is encyclopedic. Although there are numerous Redirect suggestions above, this is a poor idea for articles like these as a redirect loses valuable information. In this case, date of birth would be lost. Typically we might also lose date of death, places of birth and death, etc. There's no obvious place to Merge dates of birth and death for most articles like these, so they should remain. Quale (talk) 04:39, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep The article already is fully verifiable with reliable sources so does not fail any policies. The only question to my mind is the notability guideline. If this athlete was a modern athlete I have no doubt there would be plenty of sources online to easily meet any notability guideline, and if there was no more than what we have at the moment, then I would support merging to an article on, in this case, British athletes at the 1912 Olympics. However James Barker competed at a time well before the internet, and sources (such as newspaper coverage), are not going to be found online. I am sure if someone checks the back copies of national British newspapers at the time enough coverage to establish notability would be found. It is a reasonable presumption that Olympic athletes (and there were fewer of them in 1912) competing at the highest level of their sport will have enough coverage to justify an article. So keeping this article (which as I have said does not violate any policies) on the presumption that sources are available, unless someone can reasonably say they have made a genuine attempt offline to find sources and cannot find them? Davewild (talk) 15:12, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Comment - Is there a codicil in WP:V that says older articles need not be as verifiable because they are old? From what I am reading there are no exceptions to subjects needing to be verified in terms of notability. I don't remember seeing one, and don't really think older subjects deserve a pass. You state it is a "reasonable presumption" that there will be coverage. How can this be defended? You are applying modern standards t something that happened nearly a century ago. The Olympics themselves did not have the history and level of importance in 1912 than they have today. I refute that there should be an "assumption" that there exists references to establish notability. Should these references come to light, then the article can be recreated. I don't recall there being a policy that articles should be kept because "one day someone's bound to find something that will establish notability". I know that there is no set time that exists to improve an article, but I don't believe that applies to confirming notability. LonelyBeacon (talk) 17:44, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Comment - It should be noted per Zagalejo, this person was apparently so notable that the 1912 Olympic committee report did not have him listed as a member of the U.K. Olympic Team. There is a record that he lined up to start the race, but he was left off the official roster of athletes in the official report. LonelyBeacon (talk) 17:44, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
To respond, as I stated he already meets WP:V - everything in the article is sourced to reliable secondary sources. If an article exists on olympians on which no reliable sources can be found during an AFD then deletion is probably necessary. My belief is that it is pointless to delete articles on very old olympians (that meet policies WP:V etc.) because we do not have the sources immediately available. The presumption in our existing practice (I think this is only the second time I have seen an olympian on AFD and that one was quickly kept) is that olympians will almost certainly be notable and deleting the article to force someone to have to completely restart in the future seems pointless to me. Davewild (talk) 18:12, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Comment - He meets WP:V in so far as we have confirmed that he was alive and in Stockholm. We have not confirmed that he has competed. The most tenuous clinging to notability is that he competed at the Olympics. This has absolutely not been verified in any way consistent with the spirit of WP:V. I would say that at this point WP:V has not been met. I might (just might) be more willing to vote against deletion, if there was some certainty that one day sources will be found, and that a deletion would make someone start the article over. As it is, the article is three sentences long. If sources are ever found (and I doubt that they will), the article can be restarted properly. Not much would be lost. LonelyBeacon (talk) 02:05, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
He is meets notability in as so far as he is an Olympian, meaning that he had to had to have compete and qualified to be considered one of the best track athletes that Great Britain had to offer. Remember, there is far more that goes into being an Olympian than in just competing in the sport. Like I mentioned previously with the curler Scott Baird. He helped his team qualify for the Olympics and even though he didn't throw a single rock, much like Barker didn't even finish his race, Baird is still recognized as an Olympian. Heck, Baird is even recognized as medalists! Again, there is more to acheiving the very exclusive and difficult title of being an Olympian than we should be taking for granted. This is not like forming some garage band or webcomic. AgneCheese/Wine 02:15, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
What are your reasons for believing that "he had to have competed and qualified to be considered one of the best track athletes that Great Britain had to offer"? Do you have any sources backing up this statement? _R_ (talk) 16:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
As I already stated, just because something is verifiable and sourced doesn't mean that the person is notable. If the trivial reference for this person is enough, then there shoudl be an article on me. There are a fair number of internet sources with a trivial reference of me. Everything is verifiable, but this unsubstantial source doesn't create notability. This Three-sentenced article has absolutely nothing unique other than the birthdate, and the only link to it is the 100m race article. Reywas92Talk 18:26, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
But this is about someone 100 years ago (none of the British newspapers at the time are available online) who competed at the highest non-professional sports level, the olympic games, that is the difference. Just like we give the benefit of the doubt to any inhabited place which we can verify existence of, we should be able to do the same for James Barker. Davewild (talk) 18:34, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Now you're breaking WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS (I was responding to his comment above.) For one, it has always been argued that a place where many people live is notable. One of those people isn't necessarily notable. Two, places can be found on the map, and more information can usually be found eventually, rather than a single person 100 years ago. Three, don't think that I'm not going for West Dean, Wiltshire next. That should be merged to Wiltshire as there is zero unique information. Reywas92Talk 19:03, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Just like places can be found on the map olympic athletes can be found in the records of the events/teams. Basically my philosophy is that if it is reasonable the article can be expanded in the future and its not breaking policies let it be in cases where there is a strong assertion of importance. The oppoosite philosophy (probably what you believe?) is that if the article cannot immediately meet the main notability guideline it should be deleted/merged. This is the difference and I doubt we are going to persuade each other. Davewild (talk) 19:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
  1. Comment I'd just like to mention again that Barker has never even met the notability requirements set months ago. WP:BIO clearly states that even if he competed at the highest level of amateur sports, the Olympics, there must be sources that are substantial. Barker's reference is clearly trivial. Really, this so-called precedent that that Olympic atheletes are notable must go. But then again, the precedent has always been plainly addressed in WP:BIO. If there is a problem with this (in the Additional criteria section), it should be taken there, but this article is not up the Wikipedia's notability standards. Reywas92Talk 20:05, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Olympic atheletes have competed at the highest level of amateur athletics.--Cube lurker (talk) 20:47, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. Olympians are notable. Happy New Year! Sincerley, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 20:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
    • For heaven's sakes, you two! Have you read anything? There is more to Wikipedia notability than being an Olympian! Reywas92Talk 22:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
I have read the thread, just because I do not agree with your interpretation on things is no cause for you to lose civility. I stand by my keep opinion.--Cube lurker (talk) 22:29, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry if I lost some civility, but the article clearly does not pass WP:BIO as the source is in no way substantial. Reywas92Talk 23:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep; multiple independent sources and the article meets all content policies. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:31, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Not quite. The independent sources can't be a trivial mention, which they are. Reywas92Talk 23:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
      • The mentions are not trivial, they simply taken independently have low depth of coverage. More importantly, however, WP:BIO is not a content policy and even for pages that fail that guideline, deletion is a last resort only. No argument made for taking desperate measures in this case. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:41, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
        • I'm sorry, but you seem to have contradicted yourself. A mention having such low depth of coverage, only the birthdate and that he didn't even finish, is considered trivial. If deletion is a last resort, the article can be merged. Reywas92Talk 23:54, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
          • No. A trivial mention would, for instance, simply be the appearance of his name in a list with no other information at all. This is simply a small, but non-trivial, mention. A merge, if desired, can be discussed in the appropriate location on the article talk page. Nominating for deletion implies a belief that the content cannot usefully be merged. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:20, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete or Merge. If there are not enough sources to create a complete encyclopedic article, we shouldn't have the article. This is true of every subject. Either enough sources exist to make it more than a stub, or they do not. If enough sources don't exist, the article should go away. If sources are found at a later date, the article can always be recreated with those sufficient references. Wikipedia already has far too many "perma-stubs" based on ridiculous keep arguments completely disconnected from the goal of building complete encyclopedic articles. We don't need another. Vassyana (talk) 03:17, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Well considering that there are currently reliable sources in the article to establish notability, on what basis are you making the assumption that more sources do not exist? Especially considered that many newspapers do not have their archives online. AgneCheese/Wine 03:24, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Two primary sources (the Olympic association and the official Olympics report) are not sufficient to establish notability. Multiple independent references are required to establish notability. Additionally, it is indeed possible that sources may exist, but we do not have any indication of the existence of those sources currently. I said quite clearly in my rationale: "If sources are found at a later date, the article can always be recreated with those sufficient references." Regardless, notability has not been currently established and no evidence of sufficient extant sources has been put forward. Vassyana (talk) 03:40, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
How are those sources not independent of the subject. Do you have evidence that James Barker or his family operate the site or wrote the report? And how vague and subjective do you want quantify "multiple"? 2, 4, 10? Once again, where is the omniscience for knowing how many available sources exist? We have established evidence that some sources exist, otherwise there would be none in the article. We also have established a time period that does require some degree of common sense to realize in what medium that most reliable sources would exist in-i.e. nothing that a "google search" would be considered infallible or conclusive for. AgneCheese/Wine 03:50, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
In article about an Olympic athlete (especially where the only information is essentially their participation in the Olympics), their own Olympic association and the official Olympics report are most certainly not independent of the subject. I never claimed any kind of omniscience. What I said is that we do not currently have any indication sufficient sources, not that they will never be found. I will again point out to you that I explicitly stated: "If sources are found at a later date, the article can always be recreated with those sufficient references." Vassyana (talk) 04:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
We do have a disagreement on the "independent" aspect. While I agree that the Olympic site on an article about the Olympics would not be an independent source, we do have a significant degree of separation in an article about an Olympian. Similar to the essay Wikipedia:Independent sources, I would count both sources as "disinterested views" since neither the British association or the Olympic report having anything to gain by falsely recording what actually happened or building Barker's acheivement up to anything more than what they are. It ultimately comes down to my differing views that these reliable sources should not be discounted and it would be needlessly wasteful to delete an article on an Olympian when such sources clearly establish their notability. It is a fair view that one can delete the hundreds of thousands of notable stubs in Wikipedia and just wait for someone to recreate it as more developed article, and I do have some leanings to that view myself, but that is far from current consensus in Wikipedia. As I've stated a couple times before, there are many valid philosophical reasons to oppose this article's existence or the application of pertinent guidelines. I do think those reasons should be more fully explored on pages like WP:BIO instead of being battled out on isolated AfDs. AgneCheese/Wine 04:14, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
We shall have to agree to disagree. :) I'm posting a message on your talk page to avoid derailing this AfD with a side conversation. Vassyana (talk) 04:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Delete. This should be merged into a list of similar people if kept at all. General notability considerations have to trump the desire to give due acolade to heros. --BozMo talk 16:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I don't think that's an appropriate view on the purpose of articles on athletes. The guidelines for amateur athletes require competition at the highest levels. Can you really argue that the Olympics aren't that? Obviously information from 1912 will be more difficult to come by than information from 2002, but his participation in the Olympics meets that notability requirement as it is currently phrased. matt91486 (talk) 23:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Merge and Redirect is the best solution. Currently I see no point in keeping this article, because the sources are of trivial mention. All they do is prove that this guy exists and that's it, no other information. I see several people who is voting keep because it meets WP:BIO. In the current wording of the process, it does, but without the propoer sourcing,the guideline is moot. A merge and redirect is a better solution as the redirect can be removed once the sourcing is found Secret account 23:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
      • Please read my earlier comments (in this edit). A redirect is useless. Redirect to what? The logical redirect target would be Great Britain and Ireland at the 1912 Summer Olympics, which is where discussion about the enitire GBR team of 1912 (medalists, results, etc.) is intended to be kept. However, because of the way we write Olympic results pages, the only place in which James Barker (athlete) is used (i.e. Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics - Men's 100 metres), already has a wikilink to this article immediately after Barker's name. Turning his name into a wikilink to the same destination article is totally pointless. The other article in which Barker could be mentioned is in the results section of Great Britain and Ireland at the 1912 Summer Olympics itself (when we get around to doing that in the Olympics wikiproject), so that would just result in Barker's name rendered in bold. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 23:53, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
        • The redirects become even more problematic when you have people who participated in multiple years. Neier (talk) 07:45, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
        • I couldn't finish my comment though, as my computer battery died on me, and I had to leave soon after to a party. Anyways, to finish my comment, and to add a new one after your replies, sourcing from this year, while harder to get, isn't impossible to find. Several British newspapers has archives from that year, and sourcing is poosible. The issue is that I checked google.uk for the proper sourcing (the regular google normally gives american newspapers) and I couldn't find anything useful. I also checked google books, and google scholar, and again nothing. As for the redirect issue, I recommend to be redirected to the Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics - Men's 100 metres article, and let you guys decide where is the best place to redirect. Without proper sourcing, an article can't exist. Anyways there is no evidence that he participated in multiple years. Secret account 20:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Is the pure participation in Olympic Games really the "highest level of competition"? Instead the highest level might be the participation in the final run. James Barker (athlete) is protocolled as "DNF" in the first heat (according to the linked source which seems to be reliable compared with other better known facts). So I am in doubt about his notability. -- Hunding (talk) 10:22, 3 January 2008 (UTC) (visitor from dewiki)
  • Strong Keep. The fact that he competed at the Olympic games for Great Britain implies that he was clearly one of the top athletes in the UK. This is clearly enough for him to be notable enough for Wikipidia, and attempts to deny this are likely to suffer from recentism. However, as it stands, the article concentrates on one, relatively minor, aspect of career - his failure to finish the 100m at the Olympics due to injury. I can see a fuller article on James Barker concentrating on his athletics career outside the Olympics. Bluap (talk) 13:27, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Again, nearly 14,000 athletes competed in the Olympics this past Olympiad. That number alone should clearly prove that merely competing in the games is not in and of itself notable.--CastAStone//(talk) 13:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
That means that currently an olympic athlete has achieved something that only 0.000215% of the population has achieved. (If I didn't botch my math). I read those statistics differently.--Cube lurker (talk) 14:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Last year, I became the 17th coach in my state to lead my team to a particular state title, which constitutes an event far rarer than being an Olymipc athelete (or even rarer than many Olympic champions!). That establishes zero notability for me. Simply being a rare event does not necessarily constitute notability. LonelyBeacon (talk) 15:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
This is just a guess, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I would venture that whatever sport that your team won (and congats BTW) that there is at least a college level, professional level and maybe an Olympic level above it? I think the point that Cube lurker is try to make is that you can't get much more rarer than being an Olympian and still be competing on the highest level of competition you could be. AgneCheese/Wine 00:56, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
On it's own of certainly not, but the number of olympic athletes is not so proportionally large as to clearly prove that merely competing in the games is not in and of itself notable. (In my opinion)--Cube lurker (talk) 16:06, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Bluap, I know I've mentioned this several times, and some people keep bringing this up: there is no evidence this man competed in the Olympics. He was on the team, and he was there, but there is no record of him actually competing. You are assuming he got injured. The record says "DNF". For all we know, he may have not even started the race. Also, you are assuming that he was a top athlete. Given how the Olympic teams were chosen in the distant past, that is not a conclusion that can be held with great certainty. LonelyBeacon (talk) 16:12, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
The article says that he did not finish the race due to injury. Bluap (talk) 16:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
That is not supported by one of the references. The only thing we are sure of is that he did not finish. There is no evidence for why he did not finish. LonelyBeacon (talk) 18:03, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
In a reply to CastAStone's comment, the UK can currently send a maximum of 3 contestants in the 100m race. I'm not sure how big this limit was in the past, but to be selected, James Barker must have been one of the top sprinters in the UK, and would therefore have competed at the top level in the country. And it's not as if that the UK is a small country, where there is little competition for places. Bluap (talk) 16:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Exactly. If there are three people from a country in a given event every four years seen as good enough to represent them in the Olympics, that seems completely legitimate to me. The proliferation of more Olympians now doesn't make them any less notable, it just means there are more countries now, and those countries have more athletic resources than in 1912. It doesn't make its participants more or less notable than those who participated then. matt91486 (talk) 17:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Reaching the Olympics is a major achievement on the world scale. The fact that it has been noted upon in multiple independent reliable sources demonstrates this achievement is notable. 1 != 2 17:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. No significant sources about Barker beyond merely noting his appearance. He can be in a list or an article about the event. Gamaliel (Angry Mastodon! Run!) 19:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Question What does the "Wudarski" document say? (The last new ref added to the article.) I'm having trouble viewing it. Zagalejo^^^ 20:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I have no clue, when I tried to view it, my computer starting to freeze. Secret account 20:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
      • It is a PDF of (I think in Swedish) the results of the 1912 games. The only new thing this adds is that it has separate entries for athletes who DNS (did not start?) and DNF (did not finish). Barker's sole entry lists him as DNF. It still does not indicate if he actually ran the race, or if he was injured. It just means he was at the starting line when called to report. LonelyBeacon (talk) 20:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
        • It's Polish, and at least he used very reliable sources. Directory -- Hunding (talk) 00:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
          • Yes, Polish. The listing for heat 15 in the 100 m contains the line: "BARKER James J. GBR DNF". Apart from his date of birth and a possibly unsourced claim that he was injured, no known source gives more information than this, and all known sources are directory-like per Wikipedia:BIO#fn 5, listing him among all other participants in athletics, or from Great Britain. Given that this is 1912 and far from the home country in a time of boat travel and low Olympic significance, I still consider it possible that he was pulled in from the street or spectators to fill an open British slot (did they bring qualified substitutes?), and couldn't handle 100 m. Surely he may be notable but since when do we keep articles on people who may be notable when nobody in a high-awareness AfD can demonstrate it? And what if somebody finds a complete Olympic history in suitable format and makes a program to autogenerate 100000+ stubs of this quality? Do we really want that because "all Olympians are notable" as many keepers say. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Olympians are notable. Lawrence Cohen 23:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete, no significant sources. _R_ (talk) 16:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I found a trivial mention from his club, so it appears he was at least a trained athlete. "'Lost' Great Britain Internationals" [1] (apparently posted 1 Oct 2004 [2]) asks for information about a number of people and includes the line: "James J Barker Polytechnic H (also Ilford AC) b 6.11.1892 Ilkeston,d ??", based on the work "Who's Who of UK & GB International Athletes 1896-1939". If this is all a researcher at his own club can find then I'm not sure whether the link increases or decreases estimated notability, but I still say redirect to the only other place he is currently mentioned: Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics - Men's 100 metres. By the way, I think James Barker should list him no matter what happens, since he will remain mentioned in at least one article. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I remain puzzled why "redirect" is continually offered as a resolution for this AfD. How is it helpful to redirect his name back on to the one article in which it is linked from? If we did that to all the athletes in that 100 metre race who didn't have their own articles, we would have a mass of bold text names instead of a mass of redlinks. How is bold better? — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 18:48, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
      • A redirect keeps the article history available to everybody if they find new information (not much to keep in this case though), the redirect can be linked at James Barker, it can go right to the section Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics - Men's 100 metres#Heats, redirects used to show up in searches (they don't currently), there might later be mentions of him elsewhere. Redirect or delete is a small difference to me for this AfD, but if there is a possible target then I often prefer redirect over delete in AfD's. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.