Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marino Nicolich


 * 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/Keep. this could legitimately be closed either way with !votes after the improvement not unanimous. With the outcome the same with either and given the era in which he played and the lack of consensus around sports guidelines, it is unlikely a relist would provide clarity to close this differently. Star  Mississippi  01:59, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Marino Nicolich

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

Completely unsourced article about a player with a few claimed professional football appearances in the 1930s. The only incoming links are from lists of people by name or nationality so it seems he isn't mentioned on any sports pages. The corresponding article in Italian has links to stats websites whose reliability I can't comment on, but also no GNG sources. This was a PROD, contested as "too controversial for PROD". —Kusma (talk) 10:12, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Sportspeople, Football,  and Italy. —Kusma (talk) 10:12, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related deletions. Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 10:21, 1 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment Sounds like it might be a notable player on the amount of games, firstly, why didn't you goto the article creator and ask where did he get his information from and ask for the article to be improved before nominating?? Govvy (talk) 10:49, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I did inform the creator (who is active) of the PROD, which in my view is an invitation to improve the article to prevent deletion. —Kusma (talk) 12:25, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete - no evidence of notability. GiantSnowman 12:00, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep following huge article improvement. GiantSnowman 14:07, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Weak keep I have expanded the article, I feel there are more sources out there to be found. Govvy (talk) 13:36, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * @Govvy: Not too convinced by the sources you use there (why reliable?). Best source I could find is at least half a page in this book, published by Newton Compton Editori. There are a few references to original news reports in that book that should help with verifiability. It is a bit concerning that we don't know when he died, though. —Kusma (talk) 14:39, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * My Italian is pretty much three words, you'd be better to ask editors like or  if they can improve the article, cheers. Govvy (talk) 15:09, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd rather draft it rather than deleting this. Maybe we find something of interesting? Dr Salvus 15:13, 1 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete. Stats sites are not suitable sources for a biography.—S Marshall T/C 09:22, 2 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks to @Govvy and especially @Struway2's expansion, the article does now have more content and better sourcing, including the book I found plus some newspaper reports from the 1920s/1930s. All a bit focused on his time at Roma, but this does mostly alleviate my lack-of-sourcing concerns (some of the other sources are questionable but this is not a GA review). Not fully convinced but I would not have nominated the article for deletion in its present state. @GiantSnowman, @S Marshall: what do you think of the new sources, notability-wise? —Kusma (talk) 14:03, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * looks good to me! GiantSnowman 14:07, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm a bit less impressed than Giant Snowman is, to be fair. Thanks to Struway2's expansion I can see ten sources in the article, and my view of each of them is:Source 1 is this, from what looks to me like a specialist sports newspaper. The article is about the team he played for, and it includes a small photograph of the team.  Nicolich is mentioned in one place on the page, in the image caption (he's second on the left).  When the coverage is about the team, are we meant to accept that notability is inherited down to the individual players?  I wouldn't say that's significant coverage.Source 2 is this, a different article in a different issue of the same paper.  Nicolich is mentioned in a block of text in column 6 -- he's actually mentioned in two places, although the first time they get his name wrong ("Micolich" instead of "Nicolich").  The first time is at the end of paragraph 4 of the piece where it says he played with exuberance and impetuosity.  He's also mentioned in a block of text in paragraph 11 which lists every player in the team by name.  I can't see how it amounts to significant coverage.Source 3 is this, which is routine coverage in a sports stats site.  This is a primary source that contains no critical analysis and displays no selectivity about what it publishes.Source 4 is this, a primary source that contains no critical analysis and displays no selectivity about what it publishes.Source 5 is this, an incredibly comprehensive book about everyone who's ever played in this team, and which I agree is one of the two sources needed to establish notability.Source 6 is this, and it mentions Nicolich several times in columns 2 and 3, and describes his footballing skills in glowing terms.  Nevertheless the article is about AS Roma, not about Nicolich as an individual, and it contains no biographical information about him, so it's a stretch to call it evidence of notability.Source 7 is this and it should be removed from the article because it doesn't mention Nicolich and contains no information about him at all.Source 8 is this, our old friend Il Littoriale again.  It publishes another long, detailed article about AS Roma in which Nicolich is mentioned in passing twice, once in column 1, paragraph 10, and once in column 2, paragraph 4.Source 9 is this, and I'd immediately ask, why do we think that's reliable?  There's no publisher named, no evidence of fact-checking that I can see, and looks like user-generated content to me.Source 10 is this, written in amateur-level html with no named publisher and no evidence of fact-checking.So all in all, to my eye this isn't all that great.  Source 5 is decent-ish but you need significant coverage in two independent reliable sources to establish notability.—S Marshall T/C 17:43, 2 May 2022 (UTC)
 * FWIW, source 7 verifies the statement that Volk was Serie A top scorer, so removing it from the article would leave that statement unsourced. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 20:59, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Relisting comment: As the article is in the process of expansion and there are claims that there are IRS to be added, let's give it a try. We do need more consensus on the subject. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Less Unless (talk) 18:08, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep clearly passes GNG.--Ortizesp (talk) 17:02, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per extensive discussion of sources above. I'd add that I don't think #5 counts. It is just the print equivalent of database coverage, which we deem not to be significant. agt x  17:48, 3 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. Not because the article as expanded demonstrates enough significant coverage to pass GNG; it probably doesn't, yet. I've only expanded up to the end of his Roma career, simply because I just don't have the time or eyesight required to search online newspapers of very variable image quality in a language in which I'm not remotely fluent. What it does demonstrate IMO is the likely existence of enough SIGCOV, as per WP:SPORTCRIT bullet 5. I think source 6 is mischaracterised above: it doesn't "describ[e] his footballing skills in glowing terms". It devotes a solid paragraph to an analysis of how he plays: what he does well, what he does less well; his style, in comparison to that of another player with whom the readers would have been familiar. It was pleasing to find something like that so easily: a sportsperson's biography needs analysis of how they play their sport. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:08, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Would the closer of this AfD please consider relisting it, to allow Struway2 more time to locate the sources that he believes must exist.—S Marshall T/C 13:14, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
 * That's a constructive suggestion; thank you for making it. However, what I said above is literally true: I personally don't have the time or eyesight or language skills required. The CONI archive is a great resource, but the print/paper quality of many of its newspapers doesn't lend itself to OCR and searches don't pick up every instance of his name, especially after it was Italianised to Nic(c)oli. I could fill in the rest of Mr Nicolich's career from database sources, so the article doesn't stop dead as soon as he leaves Roma; that would make the article look a bit less silly, but won't change anyone's mind about the existence of SIGCOV or not. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 14:23, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
 * In that case how about we draftify this article until the sources you mention are found? We shouldn't have undersourced biographies in the mainspace.—S Marshall T/C 18:02, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:SPORTCRIT, WP:GNG, and sources identified above. gidonb (talk) 23:58, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Weak keep - Some of the sources provided by Struway appear to be significant coverage (or nearly so). Given the difficulty of locating pre-internet era Italian language sources, I think it's reasonable to think GNG could be met here with some more time and effort by knowledgeable editors. Jogurney (talk) 03:52, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it.</b> 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.