Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hank Frierson


 * 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. ✗ plicit  14:12, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Hank Frierson

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Frierson was an Olympian who won no medals. You would not know it from this article, but he was also a soldeir who recieved some decoartions for service in World War II, but his decondarions and service were not at a level to pass notability. The only source I can find that says anything even half substantial on him is sportsreference.com. There is another Hank Frierson who was an academic active in the early 21st-century, who I do notthink is notable either, but clearly makes this not a good redirect since we do not know that people would be looking for this person. I have to admit that we clearly are not doing Wikipedia right if its articles are more focused on the sports aspects of a person's life than sportsreference.com. Wikipedia has an over-emphasis on sports and politics in its biographies, to the point where many people who are really more known for their non-sports or non-politics actions are highlighted and governed in Wikipedia only based on those aspects of their careers. Frierson was a non-notable soldier, and he received no coverage for his minor role in the Olympics either. Deletion is the way to improvement. John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:59, 16 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep Lambert please see WP:ANYBIO - "The person has received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for such an award several times" - as he has been decorated with FOUR military honours. A quick WP:BEFORE found a bio on him, so I reckon there will be other coverage of this guy. I'll see if the military projects can help find more!  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 13:22, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * It's definitely a nice collection of medals, but none of these are the highest level of valor, which is what that's typically interpreted to refer to. I'm having trouble independent sources in my WP:BEFORE. -Indy beetle (talk) 13:34, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * These "significant awards" were the Silver Star (which has been awarded to between 100,000 and 150,000 recipients, so not all that good an indicator of notability, since clearly there are not anywhere near that many military figures - all across the world, ignoring the fact this is a US award - whom we'd expect to actually be notable enough for genuine encyclopedic articles); the Bronze Star and the Croix de Guerre are even worse (if this, based on this paywalled source, apparently; is accurate, there has been upward of a million of them; the Croix de Guerre has been awarded to millions of individuals...). On top of that, even if those awards were significant enough (they clearly aren't) WP:ANYBIO is not an "auto-magically notable"; it's a People are likely to be notable if they meet any of the following standards. Failure to meet these criteria is not conclusive proof that a subject should not be included; conversely, meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:43, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Does your blog source also mention how many people got honoured with all four of these medals?  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 14:54, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Neutral I don't see evidence of GNG level of sourcing; and looking rapidly I find plenty of hits for another "Hanks Frierson" (some US university professor, Henry "Hank" Frierson; who doesn't really appear notable given the only sources are non-independent like ); and of course the usual database hits for Olympians, but not much in the way of SIGCOV from RS. If Lugs has "found a bio on him", he should show proof of it instead of assuming that others have the same results as them. Opposed in principle to a redirect as the only logical target has no coverage on him; and since there is no generalised exception from "no redirect if subject isn't really notable and there's nothing at the target about them". In this case, the subject is notable neither for their military career (colonel was not even enough in the long-since deprecated NSOLDIER) nor for their sports career (since we have no evidence of such notability...) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:50, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment, a detailed obit here, so that's SIGCOV piece number one. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:44, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Article on him being awarded the Silver Star here, so that's SIGCOV piece no. 2. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:48, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * SIGCOV piece number three. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:54, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep, meets GNG, see  and . BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:55, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The obituary about this person from El Paso in a newspaper from El Paso... The same page also contains a similarly detailed obit about some local doctor; I'm not sure this would count as either significant (obituaries in local news are routine) or independent (since, well, its probable the information was supplied by people close to the subject...). The google books result is from the "United States Military Academy. Association of Graduates"; which I would very much tend to assume Frierson would have been a member of; and its in an album of similar profiles, which suggests it is not a very selective work either (and wide-sweeping all-inclusive works, like alumni albums or databases, are not significant coverage). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:10, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Even if you do exclude the bio from GBooks, there is still two pieces of SIGCOV, still enough to pass GNG. (I'd like to note that ROUTINE does not apply to people, so the El Paso article still counts as it addresses the topic directly and in detail.) BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:16, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Since you're citing essays, I'm going to one up you with WP:ROTM. The El Paso obituary is still routine (and yes, routine definitively does apply to people: routine news such as sports play-by-play match reports, and, yes, routine obituaries [the routine nature of it being obvious from the presence of a similar one on the same page for another non-notable person], are generally not accepted as significant coverage) and more importantly there is no evidence it is truly independent. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:08, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * First off, how is competing at the Olympics (and being awarded several important medals) run-of-the-mill? The participants at the Olympics are the best athletes in their country (in this case, the US), so saying its ROTM is... nonsense. Secondly, the fact that a non-notable person has an obituary next to Frierson has no effect whatsoever on the latter's notability (and whether the coverage counts as SIGCOV). Are you saying that if someone has an obit in NYT, but someone who is nn also has one, that the former obit is automatically disqualified from being SIGCOV? Also, how is this not independent? You have not shown me anything that points to the El Paso article being not independent. (BTW, the obituary on Frierson was not on the main obituaries page. Page 1 says that the obits were on page 4-c; Frierson was covered on page 3-b). BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:20, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * important medals would be less laughable if they weren't of the kind that have been awarded to hundreds of thousands or even millions of recipients. As for Olympics, you're well aware of the not-so-recent changes to NSPORT and also aware of the fact that notability is neither inherent or inherited. He clearly is not notable as a sportsman (because otherwise you'd be able to find more than "X participated in the Olympics once" about this). As for "obituaries in local newspapers" (the El Paso Times is not the NYT) [no matter which page they might happen to be on]; have you read ROTM? Many people have one or more obituaries published detailing the fact that they died, information regarding their deaths and often information about their families and lives. This information is published in a newspaper, a reliable source. But in a single major city, there will be dozens of obituaries published each day. An obituary, especially a short one which takes up not even half a column like this one, is simply not significant coverage (as it is routine) and its independence is very dubious, as obituaries in local newspapers are usually based in information from people closely associated with the subject. Very different from say something like this. Anyways, people seem to have found maybe better sources and I'd rather not be wasting more time arguing with you, since obviously we're not going to change the other's position on the suitability (or lack thereof) of obituaries as sources. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:49, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Some of the comments above about Olympics participation are really poorly informed. Were the Jamican bobsled team the best bosleders in Jamaica? They did not do any bobsledding at all until they left the country with a plan to go compete in the Olympics. At least in the time frame we are talking about the qualifying requirements for the Olympics were less clear. Also, since you had to be fully amateur at the time, for lots of competitions the best people in that particular sport were excluded from the Olympics. Before World War II especially it would be whoever the local Olympic committee chose, and that was not based on merit. The depth of the amateur rules meant that you had to basicly be well off to compete in the Olympics, at least to the point where you did not have to work daily for a living or could afford to take large amounts of unpaid leave. Sponsorships and broken time payments and travel reimbusements were officially not allowed, and the best evidence is for the most part even under the table such deals did not emerge until after World War II, so no, being in the Olympics in this time period does not say you are the best in the sport in your country, and some of these sports get no real attention, so it does not matter if you win national championships, because no one was paying attention to that.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:33, 16 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment - It may be productive to search for him by his given name, "Andrew Allison Frierson" or "Andrew Frierson", than by his nickname, Hank. Jacona (talk) 18:12, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment. Have a look at this . Jacona (talk) 18:17, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Appears to be sometimes known as "A. A. Frierson," see here. BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:27, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Found another detailed obit here. BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:31, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Help needed I can't see this behid a paywall., but it looks like probable SIGCOV. Jacona (talk) 18:30, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Here it is on ProQuest. BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:33, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * thanks. I see the problem-my library card is expired. Ill have to take care of that.Jacona (talk) 18:40, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Sportspeople, Olympics,  and Tennessee.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 18:54, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep Although medals may be common, this history of the WW II campaign mentions Frierson by name 26 times, giving SIGCOV to his military career. And while I agree that obituaries in a home-town paper are not great for showing notability, there are quite a few articles about his equestrian accomplishments listed above, including in the New York Times. In addition, his divorce  was big enough news to be carried in newspapers across several states, including this  and several others. This meets WP:ANYBIO and WP:GNG. Jacona (talk) 18:22, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep The sources engaged in the article and the discussion meet a reasonable interpretation of WP:N, and I do not find the explanations of why those sources are not sufficient convincing. Canadian   Paul  01:36, 18 May 2022 (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.