Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mohamed Sy Savané

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:{{la|1=Mohamed Sy Savané}} – (View AfDView log | edits since nomination)

:({{Find sources AFD|title=Mohamed Sy Savané}})

Declined prod. Fails WP:SPORTSCRIT and WP:NOLY. LibStar (talk) 23:22, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Sportspeople, Olympics, Sport of athletics, and Africa. LibStar (talk) 23:22, 13 April 2025 (UTC)
• Keep, I just expanded the article with new sourcing. Subject was a multiple-time national record-setter covered in Seychellois media, and now also by American media by virtue of his brother. Subject actually passes NSPORT by virtue of his national championships and Francophone Games finish. --Habst (talk) 00:47, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• :Question: does the Francophone Games finish qualify for WP:NATH? LibStar (talk) 01:25, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::See comment. I also wanted to note that because this AfD was created at around the same time as the others, I think that the behavioral issue described here and here applies to this AfD as well. --Habst (talk) 15:12, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• Keep: His top-8 finish at the 1994 Francophone Games would appear to be a pass on WP:NTRACK#1. Dclemens1971 (talk) 02:19, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• Comment. No, the Francophone Games are not a pass, he did not finish in the top 8. I don't know why you would say that, Dclemens1971. Geschichte (talk) 04:41, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• :@Geschichte, I was actually going to ask you if the Francophones are a top tier athletics meet. LibStar (talk) 04:48, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::Crud, I misread the article. (He finished fourth in semifinals.) Striking. Dclemens1971 (talk) 10:54, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• :::There's an interesting situation where the top three advanced to the finals in his heat including a time qualifier and Sy Savane was fourth, and two of the finalists did not start meaning only six finalists were ranked. Yes, Sy Savane was not the next time qualifier in line had Franck Matamba declined his spot, but there is usually no clear way to define who the 7th and 8th competitors are in a case like this. Either way, WP:NATH was only ever designed to be an indicator, and it lacks nuance w.r.t. regional context and historical biases. --Habst (talk) 15:06, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::One thing I'll add is that Sy Savane did beat Mukudi Murenga in their semi-final together, and Murenga was awarded a time qualifier despite running slower than Savane. Usually this only happens in the case of a protest which implies some sort of foul play in his heat so I think there could be some argument that Sy Savane is a rightful finalist. --Habst (talk) 15:16, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• Comment sources 7-13 appear to be about his nephew and not the article subject, thus failing SIGCOV. LibStar (talk) 05:00, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• Redirect to Guinea at the 1992 Summer Olympics#Athletics. Fails GNG due to a lack of SIGCOV, even the sources added are routine and/or focused on the subject's nephew. As always, a redirect does not preclude merging some of the content from this page to the target, ideally with discussion at the talk page of the target article. Frank Anchor 12:36, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

::Changed to Navify per Dclemens1971 below, though my reasoning remains the same. Frank Anchor 13:36, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• Redirect. Clearly zero sources meeting SPORTSCRIT #5. @Dclemens1971, even if the subject met NTRACK, NTRACK still requires the subject meet GNG and a source of SIGCOV be cited in the article, which has not been achieved. JoelleJay (talk) 20:58, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• :The SNG means significant coverage is likely to exist when certain conditions are met. But if we can't rely on them and must also demonstrate GNG is met, then we might as well not have SNGs at all. Dclemens1971 (talk) 21:08, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::@Dclemens1971, the SNG states {{tq|The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline. [...] All sports biographies, including those of subjects meeting any criteria listed below, must include at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject, excluding database sources. Meeting this requirement alone does not indicate notability, but it does indicate that there are likely sufficient sources to merit a stand-alone article.}} This follows from the close of NSPORTS2022: {{tq|Proposal 5 had a substantial amount of support and participation, and there is a consensus to add an inclusion criterion for sports biographies requiring that they have at least one reference to a source which has significant coverage of the subject (which is slightly different from the original proposal 5).}} Note that NSPORT has always required subjects meet GNG, but pre-RfC only had to demonstrate this with sources "eventually"; this resulted in the proliferation of athlete stubs that were very hard to remove due to the expectation that lack of coverage must be "proven".{{pb}}Nowadays, the SNG is still a weaker immediate requirement than establishing GNG in that in practice it often permits sports bios of athletes who meet one of the sport-specific criteria, like NATH, to escape initial deletion if a SIGCOV source is actually identified. WP:N also states that the SNGs are merely presumptions of notability, and that establishing notability does ultimately require IRS SIGCOV: {{tq|Because these requirements are based on major content policies, they apply to all articles, not solely articles justified under the general notability criteria.}} {{pb}}I'll also note that, like several other SNGs, NSPORT can be interpreted better as a guide to article creators on which topics are most likely to be notable rather than as post-creation inclusion criteria; an editor can be more confident they're choosing a notable topic before they put in the effort of searching for sources to build the article. The SNG also helps NPP by providing quick proof that a subject has a valid claim to notability and thus doesn't warrant CSD A7 tagging.{{pb}}Thank you for coming to my TEDx talk... JoelleJay (talk) 15:17, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::: {{tq|NSPORT can be interpreted better as a guide to article creators on which topics are most likely to be notable rather than as post-creation inclusion criteria; an editor can be more confident they're choosing a notable topic before they put in the effort of searching for sources to build the article.}} – Honestly, I don't know anyone who does that... BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:31, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• ::::I mean, people definitely use it to choose which topics to create articles on...they just maybe don't care about the whole "effort" thing once they feel assured the page won't be deleted. JoelleJay (talk) 16:52, 15 April 2025 (UTC)
• Weak Keep. Look, this athlete was clearly one of the most accomplished in Guinean history, having several still-standing national records across varying distances, including 800m and then 10,000m, which is unusual. He competed at a number of international tournaments as one of the only Guineans selected. I've researched thousands of athletes and thus I know, athletes like this get coverage. Now, where would the coverage be? In Guinean newspapers. And has even one page of any newspaper in the history of Guinea been searched? Nope. Its ridiculous to delete so many star African athletes for whom all common sense would indicate have coverage when no one is looking in relevant archives where the coverage would be – its especially ridiculous that these mass nominated articles are almost all in much better shape than the average Olympian article. Honestly, I feel like we should just IAR and keep this – I don't think deleting this improves the encyclopedia. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:20, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• Navify as an AtD. There's a new template ({{Navigation page}}) for an alternative to disambiguation/redirection that I think we could try here, particularly since there are multiple pages that discuss this athlete. It would serve the same function as a redirect but would provide more visibility for the page should future SIGCOV become available to support a standalone page that complies with WP:NSPORT. Sample:

{{tq2|Wikipedia does not have an article on Mohamed Sy Savané, but you can read about this topic in the following articles:

:*Guinea at the 1992 Summer Olympics

:*Athletics at the 1994 Jeux de la Francophonie – Results

:*List of Guinean records in athletics}}

:Thoughts? Dclemens1971 (talk) 13:15, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

::I like this idea. JoelleJay (talk) 16:53, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

::@Dclemens1971, thank you for breaking up the monotony with a new idea. I would prefer this to a redirect, the only issue is it doesn't list some things like date of birth, familial relations, etc. Is there any way to link a page like this to a Wikidata item? (Another idea: In theory, all pages without SIGCOV could be written with no loss of information as Abstract Wikipedia articles...) --Habst (talk) 18:01, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Don't know why not? Turning the article into a navpage would not break the link to the Wikidata item; even redirects retain their Wikidata links in the left hand nav (see Mohamed Ould Brahim / [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q20676088] for one of the recent outcomes of these discussions). @LibStar, what do you think of this as an alternative to redirection? Dclemens1971 (talk) 18:11, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:::: {{re|Dclemens1971}} Is there any reason not to include at least the year of birth of the subject? We do routinely include birth and death years on disambiguation pages. BD2412 T 02:17, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::I think the idea (and it's an active discussion over at the Village Pump) is that if we include more and more pieces of information it might as well be an actual article, and then we're right back at a notability debate. Restraining the page text only to the basic navigational function fulfills the purpose of a navpage without creeping back into standalone page territory. Dclemens1971 (talk) 02:59, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

::I like it. There are other active AFDs for which this could work as well (e.g. a less than notable athlete who competed and did not advance in multiple Olympic games). Frank Anchor 13:36, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• Navify: Subject does not have the WP:SIGCOV to meet the WP:GNG. Navify as an WP:ATD. Let'srun (talk) 13:11, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• Navify: I like this new ATD a lot. Rather than redirecting to one particular article, we are able assist a future editor by pointing them to all of the relevant pages with some information on the subject. Hopefully, it also preserves the article history/attribution? Cbl62 (talk) 16:46, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

{{clear}}

: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.