Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Siobhán Hoey

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

The result was keep with suggested cleanup. Arkyan • (talk) 21:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Siobhán Hoey

Siobhán Hoey (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Does not making the Olympics confer notability? Her team finished 16th in the European trails... where's the cutoff? 20th? 50th? Irish triple jump champion yes. But triple jump is a darned obscure event, Ireland is a small country, and one editor noted "Multiple Irish triple jump champion but never jumped within 2-3 metres of standard in other countries". I'm sure she's buff and all, but where's the limit here? Herostratus 04:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Keep One could argue that triple jump, being an Olympic event since 1896, is not that obscure... and as for the notability of Ireland, well, I don't know what to say. I would say that the national champion in a notable sport, in any country regardless of size, is notable. --Canley 05:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't think the triple jump is an obscure event either, and Ireland is not an insignificant country. Nevertheless there is a paucity of information here, which means that the article fails to establish notability. If it could be beefed up I'd be likely to say keep, but otherwise delete. BTLizard 09:31, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep as per Canley; national champion in a reasonably notable sport seems legitimate enough. - Iridescenti (talk to me!) 12:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Needs work, but per reasons stated above, no need to delete.Yem75 15:24, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep per above ⇒ SWATJester On Belay! 17:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep needs to be expanded but being a stub is not a reason for deletion especially when some notability can be established. To the nominator, Tiddlywinks is obscure, triple jump is not... Xarr 20:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep ten-time national champion in an Olympic sport. The article is a pathetic sub-stub lacking all relevant biographical information, but the subject is clearly notable enough. Xtifr tälk 13:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
    • If anything is pathetic here, it is the level of triple jump in Ireland generally and speficically the results of Siobhán Hoey. Punkmorten 20:16, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I am sorry but to include her on the basis of her triple jump record is really plain silly. She to the best of my knowledge never competed in any of the following for Ireland- European championship either indoor or out, World or Olympic championship. I am not even sure that she competed in the Europa cup. The standard in the Europa cup and European indoor championship is quite low journeymen or journey women national champions normally get an outing in one or the other. There are also countless living Irish people who have won multiple track and field national titles- it is not for wikipedia to list them all. She triple jumped when the event was just introduced in senior competitions and won national titles. someone had to. Her performances compare very badly to standards in England, France, Germay or America at the time she jumped no where near the marks recorded by athletes in those countries at the time. As an aside she is not the Irish national triple jump record holder either- the long time record holder is also off the pace so to speak compared to other international athletes. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.112.142.244 (talk) 09:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC).— 84.112.142.244 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Strong delete. Being a national champion in a sport is in itself far from notable, even in a large sport such as athletics. I'm a national champion in an athletics event, so if Canley's argument was true I would benefit from that in a way. On the other hand, our goal should be to build a high-quality encyclopedia, not an indiscriminate collection of information. Moreover a set of guidelines known as WP:BIO cover this type of articles, and none of the criteria outlined there are met in this case. Punkmorten 20:16, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong delete. per Punkmorten and also does not meet criteria of WP:BIO User:KRBN 17:08, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Bobslieghers who nearly qualified for the Olympics how many other people around the world meet this criteria. It to my mind lacks notability. They have little relevance outside Ireland as Triple Jumpers but are better at bobsleigh by all accounts- but are still weak athletes by the standards that should be applied to wikipedia which is not here to include everyman and woman who every did some sport to an international or quasi international standard. still strong delete. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.112.142.244 (talk) 16:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC).— 84.112.142.244 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
    • Hmm, it's an encyclopedia, so I would say it probably is in order to record everyone who has excelled at national level in every recognised sport. Your mileage may vary, however I see no reason to delete articles for the sake of it, which is what this would seem to amount to. --Tony Sidaway 18:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
      • I would say the exact opposite - for the same reason: An encyclopedia, Wikipedia should not and does not cover everything. The fact that Hoey hardly excelled in triple jump (look at her results) is another discussion. Anyway, the bobsleigh achievements on the other hand seem good enough to merit inclusion. Punkmorten 18:57, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ireland-related deletions. -- Canley 16:07, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. This article isn't a deletion candidate. Siobhan and Aoife Hoey made national news with their Olympic attempts. The Irish Examiner and the Irish Independent are two out of the three principal newspapers of Ireland. And that's before you consider that we're talking about a six-time national athletics champion. --Tony Sidaway 17:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Still a strong delete. The Triple Jump point has surely been addressed at this point. Neither of the two ladies has any releveance at all outside of Ireland as Triple Jumpers. The fact that they made national headlines for a short period in Ireland when doing another sport in and itself does not merit inclusion in Wikipedia. There is an inference here that they should be included because they are plucky Irish girls competing in a sport not normally associated with that country and they nearly made the Olympics. That is an extremely weak argument for inclusion. They got some publicity as at the time it was a good colour story. But the reality is they are unknown in Ireland. Bad Triple Jumpers, better but not notable bob sleighers. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.112.142.244 (talk) 20:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC).— 84.112.142.244 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • There's a reason the primary criterion for notability is "multiple, non-trivial secondary sources" – whilst I'm sure many who participate in the AfD process would love to have a manual for biographies, and sportspersons in particular, which spelt out what was "notable" in black-and-white, this will never happen: Wikipedians would never satisfactorily agree on the thousands of arbitrary limits and rules required. The Hoey sisters meet the primary notability criterion, with multiple non-trivial references in Irish and UK media and sources over five years – whether this is due to their athletic achievements (which the press seem to have a fairly high opinion of) or because they're "plucky Irish girls" aiming for Olympic glory is irrelevant. You appear to be arguing that it is a bad precedent to include apparently lacklustre athletes, I would argue that it is a far more dangerous precedent to discard the primary notability criterion and instead rely on subjective opinions or "gut feelings" of athletic prowess. --Canley 00:10, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Still a strong delete. They lack notability. The two are absolutely unheard of in the UK- do not accept there were multiple non trivial references there- they made some press for colour reasons whilst Olympic winter sports were in peoples minds. I travel between the two countries. If you want to put it in those terms they really are lacklustre athletes. Utterly irrelevant as Triple Jumpers and no relevance in winter sports. It is a dangerous precedent to keep these ladies here. Being Irish claiming to have no access to funds and nearly doing something seems to allow you to have these girls punch above their weight. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.112.142.244 (talk • contribs) — 84.112.142.244 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Attacking this person because they haven't signed up to an account is changing the goal posts. I have just googled Siobhan Hoey. As a track and field athlete she seems to have a long jump best of 6.02m and a triple jump best of around 12.38m. The Olympic standard for 2008 in each event is 6.72m and 14.2 m respectively. Therefore her p.b is 70cm shy in one case and 1.8m shy in the other. This discrepency strikes me as indicating an athlete who shouldn't be on wikipedia. The marks just referred to are the minimum required to get to the Olympics- to progress it would be normal to exceed what is asked of you in qualifying once you get there. I know little about the bob sleigh but I doubt that someone so average in one event suddenly becomes an Olympic standard athlete when they change to winter sports. And the fact is she didn't qualify in that either. Taking her argument at its height its basically she should be here because she came 16th in olympic qualifying when 15 were to go. She still missed it and we have no objective information on the difference between 15th and 16th place. The Irish Sports Council guy is spinning the story. Unless more bona fide objective information is given she really doesn't deserve to be here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.202.154.56 (talk • contribs).— 213.202.154.56 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • I'm not attacking them at all, and I'm very sorry if it comes across that way. They are of course welcome to continue to post and edit anonymously (as are you), there's nothing wrong with that at all. I just think that if one is going to issue dire warnings of dangerous inclusion precedents on AfD and talk pages, then one tends to have a little more credibility if one has a user account and signs their posts. Whatever... the standards the two of you are drawing are subjective and in opposition to Wikipedia's primary notability policy, that's all I'm saying. --Canley 12:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I disagree. Objectively one can say she jumped certain distances in the long jump and triple jump, that are quite average, and did not qualify for either the 2002 or 2006 winter Olympics. In track and field her performances were 10-13% shy of the present Olympic 'A' standards. A man at the same standard who ran the 1500 metres would be running 4 minutes 15 seconds or so instead of the required time of around 3 minutes 37 seconds. Someone of that calibre evidently lacks notability and shouldn't get on wikipedia because they missed qualifying for the Olympics in winter sports also.

She is also not well known- I have just googled her again and 26 references came up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.202.149.105 (talk • contribs) — 213.202.149.105 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

  • OK, so is Olympic qualification your only standard for notability? Where do you stand on Eddie 'the Eagle' Edwards, who is widely noted as a terrible ski jumper, but qualified for the British Olympic team as the only applicant? How about the Jamaican Bobsled Team, also the only applicant, but notable as plucky lads giving it a go? How about a football player who plays in the FIFA World Cup, but doesn't qualify for the Olympic soccer team? Do you agree we should delete athletes who no longer meet your arbitrary "Olympic standard", but once were the best in the world in their time? As I keep saying, they meet the notability standard easily, full stop. Notability does not equal athletic prowess, or Google hits. --Canley 07:11, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • There is a big difference between Hoey and Edwards the latter qualified for an Olympics as did the Jamaican team. Edwards was also extremely well known in the UK for some time in the late 1980s and there was a movie made about the Jamaican team. You keep deciding without any basis in fact that I am being arbitrary and subjective. I am not factually Hoey did not qualify for the Olympics either at track and field or winter sports. In the former situation she compted in any event that women had not done before. Whilst Triple Jump has been around for men since 1896 it was only introduced for women in the early 1990s. The standard in Irish athletics varies from year to year and event to event. Someone has to win the national championship each year. Jumping 12.4 metres or thereabouts really does not merit further comment. There are 25 perhaps more unmemorable Irish athletes who have won 5-10-15 multiple national titles because they were competing in a small country at a time when the standard of competition was low and have little relevance for an encylopedia like wikipedia. Hoey is one of them. On its own it is also irrelevant to be told Hoey finished 16th when 15 qualified for the Olympics bob sleigh. She could have been 16th by the proverbial mile. We just don't know from the information given. The google rating is relevant in one way- it indicates some validity to the statement that was made earlier that she is unknown. Google hits on Siobhan Hoey 26, Eddie Edwards 80,000, Jamaican team 3,00/, Cool runnings 1/2 million. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.202.149.105 (talk • contribs) — 213.190.141.210 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • I see that Siobhan Hoey did not win a medal in the America's cup event her sister and another women are said to have done. I tried to find these results online and can't. Does anyone have a link to this bronze medal win other than a provincial Irish newspaper. Other results for the Hoey's show them coming 17th/19 teams and 22/23 teams etc so this entry seems most odd. Very strong delete on track and field credentials. Doubtfull for inclusion as a bob sleighter until more information given. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.190.141.210 (talk • contribs) — 213.190.141.210 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
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.