Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of sailors at the Summer Olympics


 * 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   no consensus. .. but surely there must be a better way of organising this - it's almost the sporting equivalent of listcruft Black Kite (t) (c) 23:21, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

List of sailors at the Summer Olympics

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

I’m nominating the following article for deletion:


 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: A
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: B
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: C
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: D
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: E
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: F
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: G
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: H
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: I
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: J
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: K
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: L
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: M
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: N
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: O
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: P
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: Q
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: R
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: S
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: T
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: U
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: V
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: W
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: X
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: Y
 * List of Sailors at the Summer Olympics: Z

It appears an editor is attempting to create 26 alphabetical lists of every person who has ever participated in any sailing event in any Olympic Games. The majority of the athletes in these lists are not notable per WP:GNG, and there is no precedent for such a list on Wikipedia. The other Olympic athlete lists (many of which are featured lists) all differ with this list in that they are lists of Olympic medalists, not simply a list of every athlete who has ever competed (see List of Olympic medalists in table tennis, List of Olympic medalists in snowboarding, etc). In fact, there is already a quite complete List of Olympic medalists in sailing article, of which the nominated articles are clearly a content fork. Snotty Wong  yak 22:43, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete agreeing with nominator on this one that the medalists are notable while every single person that has every been an Olympic sailor is not. Due to the epic amount of redlinks, it really isn't helpful for navigation either. I'd say just stick to the medalists. Delete as a content fork. Tavix | Talk  00:16, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  -- Tavix |  Talk  00:18, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions.  -- Tavix |  Talk  00:26, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete The information should be sorted by Olympics and event, not by name. Reywas92 Talk 00:54, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi folks, this discussion has taken place a couple of weeks ago and the outcome was KEEP. NED33 (talk) 06:31, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep: WP:ATHLETE NED33 (talk) 06:35, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you provide a link to the previous AfD for these articles? I looked quite extensively before nominating these articles and didn't find one.  These articles were only created a few weeks ago.  Also, see my comments below regarding WP:ATHLETE.    Snotty Wong   gossip 13:54, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I found the previous AfD which was only for the index article (at a different capitalization), not for all of the articles. So, this discussion has not yet taken place.    Snotty Wong   confabulate 14:16, 7 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep A perfectly valid list, with clear inclusion criteria, that aids naviagation to the user per WP:CLN. The nominator is wrong is stating "The majority of the athletes in these lists are not notable". See WP:ATHLETE. Anyone who has competed at the Olympics is notable.  Lugnuts  (talk) 06:38, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That is entirely false. People who have competed at the Olympics are not automatically notable.  Here is a quote from the top of WP:ATHLETE which precedes the guidelines you are referring to:  "A person is generally 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." (My emphasis.)  In order to be notable, an athlete must have received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.  I just googled the first 3 redlinks in the "A" article, and the only sources I found were from lists of Olympic participation.  Not significant coverage.  These sources only prove existence, not notability.  I presume that I would find the same thing for most of the other redlinks, because these are all people who competed in the olympics about 100 years ago and lost.
 * All of the notable Olympic sailors are already covered in List of Olympic medalists in sailing article. How do you respond to the notion that this article is a content fork?  How do you respond to the notion that there are no other lists on WP whose inclusion criteria include every Olympic athlete who ever competed in a particular sport?    Snotty Wong   confabulate 14:08, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Per WP:ATHLETE - "People who have competed at the highest amateur level of a sport, usually considered to mean the Olympic Games or World Championships". Having no other like-for-like articles at the present time is a redundant and short-sighted arguement. WP is a work in progress.  Lugnuts  (talk) 17:53, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * With one exception (an athlete about whom nothing is known except that he placed rather dismally in just one event in one of the earliest Games), Olympians are considered equally notable as professional sportspeople; you'd have no better chance at getting an Olympian deleted at AFD than you would a nineteenth-century professional base ball player. You shouldn't expect to find too much online about nineteenth-century sailors; after all, the Internet wasn't around then, so sources on them should be in print rather than online.  Nyttend (talk) 19:53, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * So, you don't think that in a list of every person who has participated in an Olympic sailing event in the last 100+ years, there isn't going to be a huge pile of people who are totally unknown except that they placed rather dismally in one event of the Olympics? Those are the only people that we'd be losing if we deleted these articles.  The rest of the notable people are already covered (multiple times) in the myriad other Olympic articles and sailing articles.
 * And Lugnuts, you can quote the same passage from WP:ATHLETE as many times as you like, but being an Olympic athlete is not a 100% guarantee of notability. It says so right on the same page you're quoting from.  If you're so convinced of the implicit notability, then why don't you find some sources which establish the notability (per WP:GNG) for the first 3 redlinks on the A article?    Snotty Wong   communicate 22:26, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:ATHLETE - "People who have competed at the highest amateur level of a sport, usually considered to mean the Olympic Games or World Championships." Those red links will be blue by the end of the day. I await your ill-informed deletion nominations.  Lugnuts  (talk) 06:44, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * first two redlinks un-redlinked.  Lugnuts  (talk) 18:17, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep There's lots of precedents for lists of this kind. For other Olympic sports such as swimming, you not only have the lists but also articles for each competitor too.  The information at list level is certainly notable as the Olympics are well-reported. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:33, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I can't find any of these other lists you describe which set a precedent. Can you provide a link to a list whose inclusion criteria specifically includes every Olympic competitor in a particular event?  I see List of swimmers which has nothing to do with the Olympics (and presumably doesn't include every Olympic swimmer in history), and I see List of Olympic medalists in swimming (men) and List of Olympic medalists in swimming (women), which only includes medalists, but I don't see List of swimmers at the Summer Olympics or List of swimmers at the Olympics or List of Olympic swimmers.  Please enlighten us with concrete examples of the "lots of precedents" you describe.    Snotty Wong   comment 19:15, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * For example, see Swimmers at the 2008 Summer Olympics which lists numerous articles like Todd Cooper who came 22nd in his event. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:35, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you are confusing lists with categories. Sailors at the 2008 Summer Olympics and many other categories like that also already exist. The question at hand is if we also want a set of list articles in addition to those categories, which nobody disputes are useful. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 22:49, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Please see WP:CLS which explains that lists and categories are both useful, and complement each other, rather than being rivals. The point here that we have numerous articles, let alone lists and categories, each about individual Olympic athletes who are there by virtue of qualifying, not because they were medal-winning.  There is therefore abundant precedent for this. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:58, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I understand WP:CLS perfectly well; in fact, I linked to it in my first comment to this discussion. The point here is that Snottywong asked you to provide a "link to a list" and you replied with a link to a category, so clearly you are misunderstood about something. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:44, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * How can you possibly argue that articles on individual athletes set a precedent for the creation of a list of every Olympic athlete? That logic is absolutely baffling to me.  That's equivalent to suggesting that since we have an article on Ann A. Bernatitus, we should be able to have a list article which includes every nurse that has ever existed.  I'm not convinced that you understand the definition of the word "precedent".  Here's the first one I found: an example that is used to justify similar occurrences at a later time.  So, assuming that is a correct definition, then we'd need to see an example of a similar occurrence in order to see a precedent.  By "similar occurrence", it is meant that we'd need to see another list whose inclusion criteria includes every Olympic athlete who has ever competed in a particular event .  I hope I've spelled that out clearly enough this time.    Snotty Wong   chatter 19:09, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That would be List of nurses, to which I have added Ann A. Bernatitus. Q.E.D. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:22, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Ahh, but notice that the list of nurses is not an indiscriminate list of every nurse that has ever existed. It is a list of prominent, notable nurses.  Also notice the absence of redlinks.  Olympic athletes are not automatically notable, despite what many people think.  WP:ATHLETE clearly states that "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."  So, the list under discussion is an indiscriminate list of both notable and non-notable athletes.  Many of these redlinks will never go away, because many of these athletes are not notable.  WP:INDISCRIMINATE is your Q.E.D.    Snotty Wong   verbalize 19:38, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete We already have Category:Olympic sailors by year and Category:Olympic sailors by country, and notwithstanding the pros and cons of lists versus categories per WP:Categories, lists, and navigation templates, I think it is a bad precedent to create lists like these. There are a couple of hundred thousand past Olympic competitors, so these lists would be incredibly unwieldy if completed for all sports.  Every Olympic competitor is already listed elsewhere, such as individual event results (e.g. Sailing at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Finn class etc.) and on per-country articles (e.g. Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics) so I'm not sure we need a third way of listing these people. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 19:12, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep, these lists seem to be helpful in a way that other lists aren't. They have clear inclusion criteria, and those being listed are notable, so there's no problem with the idea itself.  While categories are helpful, they don't provide as much information as these pages do — one can find for which country a sailor competed, and one can find which year in which a sailor competed, but one can't find country and gender and year all put together anywhere else.  Moreover, these are apparently intended to be strictly alphabetical lists of those who competed, without bothering to note results; the per-country and per-event articles give more details, but only at the expense of splitting up the names.  I don't see how lists like these, even if they're completed and extended to all Olympic Games, will be unwieldy.  Nyttend (talk) 19:48, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * If consensus is to keep them, there really ought to be a discussion at WT:WikiProject Olympics about the format and style conventions for these pages. They violate the MOS in several ways as now written. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:13, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Folks, as I already explained a couple of weeks ago when this discussion came to a close (keep) was that this list is in build-up as spin-off of the upgrade of the article series sailing at the Summer Olympics. At this moment I'm finishing 1960. During the upgrade I'm checking all the names as well for multiple enties (same sailor under different names or countries, Multiple olympics, correct names and so on. As soon as I have finish the upgrade this list will be complete and we can discuss the layout of it. Meanwhile I suggest to leave it like this. Furthermore I took the basic layout of baseball players and added a flag for the country and the Olympic year to it. So my advise is to wait till the list is complete and then lets discuss the best possible and useful layout. Finally I like to add a personal note: to participate in Olympic sailing ask a great effort of each of the competitors. Most of their actions, and not only the winning, made a difference in the sailing world in their time and their country. For more than a century sailing is on the Olympic program and sailing at the Olympics is the highest level of competition in open boats you can find in the world! Each of those sailors is notable. The fact that they were there proves it. Regards NED33 (talk) 22:10, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Firstly, the previous AfD was for the index article only, not the entire collection of articles. That was not the same discussion as this one. Secondly, this discussion is not primarily about the formatting of the articles.  The articles were not nominated for deletion because they are incorrectly formatted.  They were nominated because they are not useful articles, and they do not contain any useful information that doesn't already appear somewhere else in Wikipedia.  Most if not all of these people already appear in Category:Olympic sailors by year, Category:Olympic sailors by country, Sailing at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Finn class (and all of the other classes), Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics (and all the other combinations of countries and years), and finally we have List of Olympic medalists in sailing.  There is just no need for yet another layer of articles on top of the pile that already exists.  I think I speak for everyone when I say that we appreciate the amount of work you've put into this thus far, but my opinion is that these articles are unnecessarily redundant.  I would suggest holding off on putting any more work into these articles until this discussion is complete, if only to save you from wasting any more of your time if they end up being deleted.    Snotty Wong   squeal 22:20, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your concern about my time, but making this list is an aid for me to get the sailing at the ... article series right. Putting the list on wiki gives the reader an extra handle to find the information, in my humble opinion this extra handles are one of the major advantages of an electronic encyclopedia. Furthermore the "lists" Category:Olympic sailors by year, Category:Olympic sailors by country, Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics are far from compleet or correct. Not even all medalist are listed here. Moreover these list are easely completed as soon as this list is ready. Also my remark above was not only on layout but also on notability. RegardsNED33 (talk) 05:56, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * And Snottywong has missed the point completly - these articles aid navigation and highlight the missing articles (redlinks encourage creation). You can't have redlinks in categories.  Lugnuts  (talk) 18:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you guys are seriously underestimating the amount of coverage of Olympic sailing that is already on Wikipedia. As an example, see Sailing at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Qualification, which has plenty of redlinks for athletes, as do the individual country articles like Great_Britain_at_the_1992_Summer_Olympics.  Presumably, the majority of the redlinks in the list under discussion already appear in at least one other Olympic sailing article.  It is completely unnecessary to create yet another monstrous list on top of the wealth of coverage that already exists between all of the "Sailing at the xxxx Olympics" articles, the " [Country] at the xxxx Olympics#Sailing" articles, the "List of Olympic medalists in sailing" articles, all of the different categories, etc. etc. etc.  There are already hundreds of articles that cover olympic sailing, cross-referenced by year and country and medalists, etc.  Do we really need 27 more?  And do we really want to set this precedent for the rest of the olympic events?  It seems that the author's main reasoning for this list is that the "Sailing at the xxxx Olympics" articles have not all been created/finished yet.  Why don't we finish the rest of the olympic sailing articles first, and then decide if this is really necessary.    Snotty Wong   soliloquize 19:27, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * This is essentially my position. I am unconvinced that we need a third method of listing Olympic competitors.  Many of the keep comments here claim that these lists are useful navigation aids, so I would ask "how?"  Once these lists are so big that they must be split into alphabetical sections, they lose almost all of the supposed navigational benefit.  How is it useful to group together a list of names whose shared attribute is the first letter of their last name?  If you want to find all the Olympic sailors for a certain country, you could browse all the "Nation at the year Olympics" articles (which we already have), or you could browse lists like these, but in both cases, you have to look at multiple pages. Therefore, no benefit.  If you want to find all the Olympic sailors for a given Games, you could browse all the "Sailing at the year Olympics" articles (and per-event subpages), or you could browse through all 26 letters.  Again, no benefit to these additional lists.  — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:44, 8 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:NOTDIR, which prohibits the listing of non-notable people. See, as a parallel case, Articles for deletion/List of organ scholars at British cathedrals and parish churches. Claritas § 19:22, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I see the same argument coming, and I just want to preemptively head it off before it even starts: every olympic athlete is not automatically notable.  They're not.  You can quote WP:ATHLETE all day long, but when you do, be sure to include this passage from WP:ATHLETE in your quote: "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."    Snotty Wong   chatter 19:30, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Notability is a red herring in this discussion, in my opinion. Even if individual Olympic sailors are not notable, a list of them would be. Not every item on a list has to be blue linked. I believe this discussion should be focused on the purported usefulness of these lists, not on the notability of their members. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 20:44, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
 * "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." is not a passage of WP:ATHLETE. It is stated in the basic criteria of Notability (people). Then they start describing how to interpreted this in several categories like Atheletes. There is stated clearly and without limitations:2.People who have competed at the highest amateur level of a sport, usually considered to mean the Olympic Games or World Championships..
 * On the navigation. Suppose you hav a name of an possible Olympic sailor: Jorge Emilio Brauer, you do not know if he really participated, you do not know in what boat he competed nor do you know in what year. Than this list kan be a entry point to find him and the situation how he competed. Countries will not alway help since these are not complete and several sailors have competed for different countries. If you start investigate something ant you know all the parameters and answers it is easy to find. But in most cases you need all the aids you can get.
 * Again guys, for me this list is an aid to get the articles about sailing at the .... summer olympics right. In my opinion this discussion should be done at the and of that process and not now. Deleting is always easy and at this moment no blood is comming out of this list.
 * In any case I do not waste time on this discussion no more.NED33 (talk) 07:26, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Firstly, WP:ATHLETE is a subsection of WP:Notability (people). Therefore, the quoted statement above applies (and specifically refers to) the subsections below it.  Secondly, if you know the name of the olympic sailor, and his name appears in one of the other hundreds of olympic sailing articles, then you can just search his name and the appropriate "Argentina in the xxxx Olympics#Sailing" or "Sailing at the xxxx Olympics" article will show up.  These articles do not make navigation any easier.    Snotty Wong   express 15:44, 9 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete WP:NOTDIR per Claritas. Can be easily handled by the category system which would restrict membership to notables. The topic of the list, and much of its content, fails the WP:GNG and WP:ATHLETE. Verbal chat  13:34, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * But they're ALL notable. Categories can't handle redlinks and should work hand-in-hand with lists, per WP:CLN.  Lugnuts  (talk) 14:36, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * No, they are not all notable and not every category needs a list. This is an example of that. Verbal chat  14:49, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There already are plenty of lists of olympic sailors to go along with the categories.   Snotty Wong   babble 15:39, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Wonderfull idea, Snotty! Just search 100 incompleat category lists and articles in stead of one.:-)NED33 (talk) 09:28, 10 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep I'm saying keep primarily BECAUSE the list is not up to date. It says it's "up to date until 1952", in other words, it lists those who competed 50 or more years ago. It will be almost impossible to substantiate individual notability for athletes from that period, but in fact they all did sail for their countries and almost certainly received newspaper coverage at the time, so I think notability can be assumed. This list could prove to be the only online resource where these older names are readily available. --MelanieN (talk) 18:07, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That sounds more like a delete rationale to me, per notability. What policy are you basing the keep on? Verbal chat  18:12, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It's clear you (MelanieN) didn't read the arguments above, as it's been shown multiple times that there are hundreds of olympic sailing articles already in existence, and these names appear in their respective country/year/medalist article.  Snotty Wong   spout 18:13, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Snotty, please try not to earn your nickname. Just because I disagree with the previous arguments, doesn't mean I didn't read them. --MelanieN (talk) 20:56, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's try a few of Snotty's hundreds of lists that contain the information: Germany at the 1960 Summer Olympics ... empty, Lebanon at the 1960 Summer Olympics ... empty, United States at the 1960 Summer Olympics ... empty, Japan at the 1960 Summer Olympics ... empty, France at the 1960 Summer Olympics ... empty, Soviet Union at the 1960 Summer Olympics ... only medalists.NED33 (talk) 18:30, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * So, fix those articles instead of creating a whole new mess that will also need to be fixed. If all of those articles you mentioned were complete and not empty, the lists under discussion here would become even more redundant and useless.  I think your time and energy would be much better spent completing the incomplete olympics articles (or even just the incomplete olympic sailing articles) rather than creating more incomplete ones.    Snotty Wong   comment 17:00, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Bingo. We have consensus at WP:WikiProject Olympics from the beginning (several years ago) to have complete "Nation at the year Olympics" articles, with lists of all competitors and results. But this is still work-in-progress, with about 3500 of those type of articles to complete. We also have consensus for per-event articles, which is another 15,000 or so.  Let's get that work finished before starting something else, especially something with content overlap! — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:52, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
 * How about: let's get that work finished, and THEN talk about deleting this list which already exists (so don't argue "you should spend your time working on the other project instead of this one"; that's a false choice, because the work of creating this one has already been done). It really makes no sense to say, we should delete this list now because somebody, someday, might put these same names into another format. --MelanieN (talk) 03:29, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I like my way better, especially since it coincides with the consensus and plan formulated by WikiProject Olympics, as mentioned above by Andrwsc. The fact that someone worked hard on the list isn't a rationale to keep it.  How is it logical to decide, in the face of nearly 20,000 incomplete olympic articles, that it is better to add another 27 redundant articles to the list of the incomplete ones, and in the process set the precedent for the creation of a couple thousand more redundant, incomplete ones (since if this list is kept, what's stopping anyone from creating List of curlers at the Winter Olympics and List of 100m hurdlers at the Summer Olympics and List of pole vaulters at the Summer Olympics and List of Nordic Combined athletes at the Winter Olympics, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.), rather than work on finishing the incomplete ones which, incidentally, would contain all of the names in this list.  I am truly baffled by that logic.    Snotty Wong   confess 04:57, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * @MelanieN: the work of creating this one has already been done is not true. These lists are only through 1952, and only for sailing. There are a couple of hundred thousand Olympic competitors not listed in this form. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 05:28, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I like my way better, especially since it coincides with the consensus and plan formulated by WikiProject Olympics Care to link to this consensus (if it exists at all)? And how do you get to the total of "nearly 20,000 incomplete olympic articles"?  Lugnuts  (talk) 06:38, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Just going off of Andrwsc's comments above (the comment that starts with "Bingo") for both of those pieces of information, as he is a member of the wikiproject, whereas I am not. I cannot link to the consensus nor can I prove there are 20,000 incomplete articles, but I have no reason to not trust Andrwsc's information.  Do you?    Snotty Wong   converse 13:56, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * to Snotty: RE: "How is it logical to decide, in the face of nearly 20,000 incomplete olympic articles, that it is better to add another 27 redundant articles to the list of the incomplete ones..." We are not deciding whether to ADD another batch of articles; we are deciding whether to KEEP a batch of articles that already exist. And they are not redundant, not now. Finish all those other articles you keep talking about, and THEN claim this list is redundant. It certainly isn't now. --MelanieN (talk) 16:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * to Andrwsc: RE: "These lists are only through 1952, and only for sailing." Half a list is better than none. Would you change your argument to "keep" if this list was complete? If not, your comment is irrelevant. --MelanieN (talk) 16:14, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * An incomplete list of a deterministic complete set of members is most certainly not better than nothing; it is misleading at best. And the list is redundant as it now stands because the sailing events through 1952 are some of the pages that aren't just stubs (e.g. Sailing at the 1952 Summer Olympics - Finn, thanks to NED33!!). And no, I would not change my argument if all ~200,000 Olympic competitors were listed this way. I don't think there is value in a third method of navigating these names, especially if the common attribute of the names on each individual page is the first letter of their last names.  The existing methods of navigation (by event and by nation) are more helpful, and that's what we should continue to work on first. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:54, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * An incomplete list of a deterministic complete set of members is most certainly not better than nothing; it is misleading at best. And the list is redundant as it now stands because the sailing events through 1952 are some of the pages that aren't just stubs (e.g. Sailing at the 1952 Summer Olympics - Finn, thanks to NED33!!). And no, I would not change my argument if all ~200,000 Olympic competitors were listed this way. I don't think there is value in a third method of navigating these names, especially if the common attribute of the names on each individual page is the first letter of their last names.  The existing methods of navigation (by event and by nation) are more helpful, and that's what we should continue to work on first. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 17:54, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep This list clearly defined and consists entirely of notable people. Edward321 (talk) 00:00, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

This list rolls, without any work, out of my spreadsheets that I have to build anyway for checking purposes for Sailing at the year Summer Olympics, weater or not you want to keep it. That sheet, it now up to date till 1964, can, when reached 2008, be uses to create the additions to the lists like Country at the year Summer Olympics or Olympic Sailors from Country just by sorting it a little different and using some of the other available fields. So again do not worry about my time spent on the list.NED33 (talk) 05:47, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete - Per Claritas and Snotty, many, if not most, of the listed athletes are not notable. Per WP:NOTDIR, this type of list is not WP material. Novaseminary (talk) 02:40, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete As nominated.  My 76 Strat  01:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep all Lists of people that are all notable, with a clear inclusion criteria, are both useful and supported by policy. Courcelles (talk) 03:56, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * These people aren't all notable. Verbal chat  05:38, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes they are, as per the policy.  Lugnuts  (talk) 07:14, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There is no policy which states that "Any athlete that has competed in the Olympic Games is 100% guaranteed to be notable, no matter what." Many are likely to be notable, but not necessarily all of them.    Snotty Wong   confess 22:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete WP:NOTDIR and I don't see encyclopaedic value; it is not possible to create an entry regarding the actual topic of e.g. letter 'a', and I doubt it is possible to create one for the entire thing; unless there is published data specific to 'all Summer Olympic sailors' (rather than specific ones / specific years) as it would constitute original research - lists are not exempt from basic requirements. If this were accepted, then I can think of over 9000 other 'lists'. If it is just a list of names, then surely that is what categories are for?  Chzz  ► 21:37, 15 July 2010 (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.