Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Valery Kopayev

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The result was keep/nomination withdrawn. • Lawrence Cohen 14:16, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Valery Kopayev

Valery Kopayev (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

An athlete, notable for coming in at 7th place in a lone Winter Olympics event. two links on Google--I think the last two of four are based on Wikipedia content. News searches: nothing. Delete. • Lawrence Cohen 06:09, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

• Keep/withdraw Per the great reasonings and examples below of other Olympians that previously have been kept at AfD with similar statures as Mr. Kopayev. I'll also move this to the correct spelling, that was found. Sorry for the trouble, guys. Maybe we should encode this at the People notability policy page? • Lawrence Cohen 14:09, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

• Speedy keep the olympics is considered the highest level of amateur sports. It doesn't matter if he came in 7th or 70th, he is per WP:BIO notable.Balloonman (talk) 06:32, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

So if a country sends 500 athletes to the Olympics, each of them gets an article even if they don't win a single thing, only participate in a lone event, and never return to any notable professional or amateur sport? If any Olympian is automatically granted notability (note again; this person literally has no independent coverage for his sporting achievements or lack thereof) where is that recorded as a standard for notability? I'll happily withdraw this, if that is the documented standard. But I thought independent coverage established notability. Otherwise, how do we know this person is even a 7th place one-time Olympian? • Lawrence Cohen 06:35, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Are olympians notable? In a word Lawrence, yes. Nick mallory (talk) 09:38, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Even as past outcomes are not dispositive, I would suggest that the Lecomte, Christine Robinson, and Albert Baumann AfDs go toward the proposition that anyone to have been sent as a competitor to the Games of the Olympiad or the Winter Olympic Games is necessarily notable (funnily enough, I argued against that proposition in the Baumann AfD, but I have long since jettisoned my deletionism). To be sure, policy is not made at insular AfDs, and these three especially are not all that revelatory of the consensus of the community since many of the editors partaking of one partook of the other two as well, such that the three might properly be viewed as one discussion, but it appears to me that the disposition of those AfDs is consistent with the guidelines for notability of athletes (the "who meet the general criteria of secondary sources published about them" provision of which would tend, as Lawrence says, to suggest that non-trivial coverage in secondary sources might also be required to demonstrate notability but which might otherwise [and in consideration of precedent] be read simply to mean that secondary sources attest, even if in just a few words, to their having competing at something). In the Lecomte AfD, the inestimable Wknight94 initially !voted "delete...[u]nless including every Olympian ever is some kind of precedent" and subsequently !voted keep, having concluded that there exists "an include-all precedent like in other sports"; I'm inclined to think that his analysis of the views of the community was correct then and that "anyone ever to have competed in the Olympics, irrespective of his/her having done anything else, is necessarily notable" (of course, if all that we can say about an individual is that he/she represented his/her country in a given event at a given Olympics, we might properly redirect his/her name to our article about that event or the sport or disciplined that comprises it) may properly be regarded as a standard commanding general community support. Joe 07:33, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment The Official Report from the '76 Winter Olympics spells his name as Valeriy Kapaev. [1] (go to Combined Jumping). Zagalejo^^^ 06:38, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Still not notable, unfortunately: see here, and here. • Lawrence Cohen 06:39, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Your links prove that he IS notable, not that he isn't. Nick mallory (talk) 09:40, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I just wanted to point that out. And now we at least have some verification that this guy competed in the Olympics.

Of course, I'm not sure how much more you expect to find online. We could barely find anything about Mzoli's, a contemporary restaurant in an English speaking country. Mr. Kopaev is a Soviet skier from the 1970s! We'll need some real library research before we make a decision about this guy. Zagalejo^^^ 06:46, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Sure, we're not in any hurry. If there was precedent for Olympians to be notable in general, we could close this out. I'm sure someone is an expert, and might hold old newspapers or whatnot as well.• Lawrence Cohen 06:48, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Once again, Olympians clearly are notable 'in general' because they're by definition competiting at the highest level of their sport. Nick mallory (talk) 11:41, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Balloonman and the excellent Joe are entirely correct. The Olympics is the highest level of sporting competition and therefore, by definition according to Wikipedia's policy, every Olympian is notable. It's not the winning, it's the taking part. The only thing to decide is the spelling of his name. It's incredible to me that someone can think coming seventh in an Olympic event isn't a notable achievement. This nomination should be withdrawn. The principle of Olympic notability is clear. Nick mallory (talk) 09:37, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Per WP:BIO on notability with the athletes on the criteria of "Competitors of who have played or competed in the highest levels of amateur sports (who meet the general criteria of secondary sources published about them)." Extra references have also been added about them. If the last name is incorrect, then we can always move the article to the correct spelling on this. Chris (talk) 13:53, 21 November 2007 (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.