Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Masters M85 triple jump world record progression


 * 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 Merge. There is consensus here that this is not viable as a standalone article. The arguments to keep are quite weak, with no evidence of notability being provided. The arguments to delete based on NOTDATABASE are stronger, but at the moment there is not consensus for outright deletion; the notability of the broader topic was only mentioned in a couple of comments. There were some suggestions that this be closed as "no consensus" to allow a merger discussion, but I think weak consensus for a merger exists; it only remains to determine the scope of this merger. Once that has occurred, if the notability of the broader topic remains in doubt, a new AfD would be necessary, and so I see no prejudice against renomination here. Vanamonde (Talk) 11:14, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Masters M85 triple jump world record progression

 * – ( View AfD View log )

We should have a discussion about this. Masters W85 weight throw world record progression was prod-deleted today, having been nominated with the rationale: "Unsourced article which lacks notability. The progression of this record (and most such Masters records) is not a subject that gets enough attention[1] to warrant an article, which also explains why it is so incomplete."

Personally I would like to see this go, because it violates WP:NOTDATABASE. Master's athletics, though it has its connaisseurs, gets very little coverage even on world-championship level. Even more so when it comes to world records - although there is the occasional press profile on a master's athlete here and there. Master's athletes don't become notable in the enclopedic sense through holding these world records, so the list is not a navigational tool between the athletes. Therefore I believe this list should be confined to another, statistical website. Geschichte (talk) 10:55, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * KEEP Data like this can be found nowhere, so it's a very good addition. I once started to make a combined page for all ages, but after the high jump I've stopped. See Masters_women_high_jump_world_record_progression. Someone able to do this for all disciplines can await my applause. WeiaR (talk) 11:21, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I meant: the data can be found, but not organised like this. That's what an encyclopedia is good for. The governing body by the way is World Masters Association, not World Athletics. WeiaR (talk) 08:36, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Correcting Weia, the organization is World Masters Athletics. This same information could also be derived from a chronological breakdown of their records over the years.  That would actually be the most accurate source since they are the official world governing body.Trackinfo (talk) 03:37, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If it is true that the data can be found nowhere else, it constitutes WP:Original research or WP:Synthesis and fails Wikipedias WP:V policy... Geschichte (talk) 11:40, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 11:59, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 11:59, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * I have no official position over this but there is a whole category of masters track and field records here: Category:Masters athletics world record progressions, so we will have to apply the name rationale to all other records articles in this category. And if they are certified by World Athletics, the official governing body of the sport, then there is good reason for them to remain. Ajf773 (talk) 10:49, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * KEEP The assertion that this is unsourced is unfounded. The source from Mastersathletics.net has always been on the page.  Other record progressions contain multiple sources, the one you chose to pick on, a lesser event in the M85 division is based only on the one source though if you push it, I can probably find some mentions in the historical archive of National Masters News reporting on mastershistory.org.  The point Weia made is this is the only place and the appropriate place the progression has been put into coherent chronological order, an improvement over the original source.  World record progressions, the historical sequence of world record achievements, is a common presentation for not only track and field records but for other sports as well.  Every record is a unique achievement, to that point in time, nobody had ever achieved it before. Such an achievement WP:NTEMP is notable in itself even after it has been surpassed.  Roger Bannister's 4 minute mile has been surpassed now well over a thousand times, but when he did it, he became legend.  These world records with the age qualifier are noticed by fewer people certainly but are still equivalent.Trackinfo (talk) 03:42, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Per WP:NOTDATABASE.4meter4 (talk) 14:33, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Natg 19 (talk) 00:17, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete I don't see any reason this article is more or less notable than the other record lists at Category:Masters athletics world record progressions; I'm not sure how to bulk-handle 400 possible follow-up deletion discussions if there is consensus to delete. This does seem to violate WP:NOTDATABASE; there isn't even a hint that these progressions are discussed anywhere else. User:力 (power~enwiki,  π,  ν ) 03:46, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOTDATABASE. Waddles 🗩 🖉 14:56, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge the 12 small age group pages Masters M35 triple jump world record progression, M40, M45, M50, M55, M60, M65, M70, M75, M80, M85, M90 to a new Masters men triple jump world record progression with a section per age group, like Masters women high jump world record progression by WeiaR. I suggested this for all Masters athletics events at User talk:Trackinfo/Archive 3. Trackinfo made the articles and opposed like here. I didn't pursue it. If it's not merged then delete as not individually notable. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:41, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I have created User:PrimeHunter/Masters men triple jump world record progression to show how a merger of the 12 articles could look. It's still a small article. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:03, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Mass articles with internal links makes the editing process and linking process more difficult. Those were my grounds on the previous objection.  The size of the small articles doesn't seem relevant.  Obviously you have an objection to it.  If it will save the content, I'll concede that point. Trackinfo (talk) 06:37, 26 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Merge as proposed by PrimeHunter. The progressions themselves are permastubs, and have a better claim to notbility as a single article collecting all subsets. BD2412  T 04:24, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * KEEP: The records are kept by an official governing body.  WMA has an official Records Chairperson, hence the records going through an official channel before they are ratified. Masters Track and Field is one of the first Masters sports. Masters competitions are held world wide.  Official record keeping of Masters Track and Field started in the late 1960s.  Masters Track and Field is officially recognized by World Athletics and USATF. Including the records in Wiki makes sense.  PlainDonut (talk) 15:40, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge somewhere, possibly as proposed by PrimeHunter (with sweet sandboxing). This discussion deserves broader attention, the outcome potentially affecting hundreds of current pages as pointed out above. Trackinfo has created a large number of accurate single-sourced stubs. Trackinfo has had a large say in how this material was organized because, well, they organized it. I appreciate that accomplished user's enormous contributions. These stubs are not about routine sports outcomes; they represent certified historic world records which will never change but always will be improved (until the limits of the human body are reached). I'm inclined to want to keep such data on Wikipedia. A reasonable argument could be made they belong at Triple jump world record progression or Masters triple jump world record progression. Looking at List of world records in masters athletics I can see something of why Trackinfo wants to keep them as they are. The (progression) link is a handy way of getting to the material from the overall list. However, if the age-grouping pages could be unified somewhere, anywhere, those links could be appropriately redirected. I'd like to see Trackinfo's concerns addressed, possibly in a more generic discussion elsewhere. BusterD (talk) 16:56, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment: After due consideration and looking at other sports groupings, I'd like to see all these (already created) progression by age group articles to be merged by individual discipline like the existing high jump page and the suggested triple jump sandbox. Redirects to appropriate subheads inside the new page. I'm interested in discussion from Trackinfo about why this has been suggested to them for several years (by folks here in this discussion) and never agreed to. I'd be interested in hearing the arguments against because they are not readily apparent to me. BusterD (talk) 20:31, 4 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Merge all the age classes to Masters triple jump world record progression with an individual table for each class. All these tables are quite short and are highly unlikely to grow significantly any time soon.  Together they make a substantial page and I cannot see any argument for a navigation problem when all the information is right there on the same page. SpinningSpark 17:36, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The women's records can go on the same page also with sections for men and women. No need for a separate page there either. Spinning<b style="color:#4840A0">Spark</b> 17:41, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I addressed my concerns about article size at User talk:BusterD, but I'll make that more public here and expand: The Masters world record progressions are a direct adjunct of List of world records in masters athletics. As in every other world record page that has progressions, the link is event specific, or in better wikipedia terms "subject specific," rather than a hodge podge of sublinks. When editing, you go directly to the article in question rather than a mass article and then needing to find the correct section to edit. For each sublink, all the targeting must be perfect or the user is taken to the wrong place. The user will be confused. Editing to articles is not limited to people who know what they are doing, anybody can edit meaning, in the process of adding new, relevant information, the linkage can be destroyed by someone who doesn't understand all this code. Yes it can be fixed once somebody notices, but that means somebody needs to notice. I'm monitoring 16,000 pages. Stuff slips by me sometimes.
 * Merge all to Masters triple jump world record progression, as per SpinningSpark. MrsSnoozyTurtle 08:53, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment It doesn't look like there will be consensus to delete. A merge will involve at least 12 articles for men's triple jump, 22 if women are included, 19+ if all M85 events are merged instead of triple jump, 28+ if all M85 and W85 are merged, and 400+ if the whole Category:Masters athletics world record progressions is treated similarly as I think should, no matter which way that is. Only one article was tagged for this AfD, and it had a total of 3 page views in the month before, 0 in the two weeks before. I suggest a close as no consensus to delete. Then we can have a centralized merge discussion about all 400+ articles with tags on all, and notification at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Athletics and Talk:List of world records in masters athletics. I suggest holding the discussion at the latter. I'm willing to set up the discussion with all the tags, and make all the merges (maybe spread over days or weeks) if there is consensus for a system. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:47, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I see no reason to wait on this one given local consensus on the specific topics addressed. I would keep separate pages for men's and women's records (which is a common point of separation throughout the encyclopedia), but otherwise merge all triple jump world record progressions into two gendered articles. We can separately discuss which other records also merit such treatment. BD2412  T 05:22, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

In the case of the article under attack, yes the number of instances of improvement have been few. There are very few athletes qualified to attempt such a record, the requirements being male, 85+ years old and still capable of jumping in the very specific fashion required for triple jump. I've got decades before I can attempt it.

Let me ask you, why the concern about the size of the article. Yes the server has size limitations on large articles because it slows things down. On the List of world records in athletics we had to pare things down to make spacing work and its still slow to load. Another one I'm involved in is List of deaths due to COVID-19 which has been revamped multiple times to reduce size and its still huge. On the List of high schools in California, it used to include Los Angeles County and even Los Angeles City Schools in the master list (same for San Diego County) through sublinks. That got so screwed up repeatedly, we've just given up and post a link to the county list and it then links further to List of Los Angeles Unified School District schools.

Small articles do not cause the same problem. We use small templates constantly in our articles to make repetitive functions work. Mixed 4 × 400 metres relay world record progression is a small article because it has a short history. I don't see that under attack. Small articles only look like low hanging fruit to deletionists who want a new something to target. Deletionists are the cancer that will destroy wikipedia from the inside.Trackinfo (talk) 00:32, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Commentary aside, the technical point is intriguing and if I read your evaluation correctly, unavoidable. Why have you not raised this point in the discussion, where knowledgeable folks are engaged? For my part, I'm not sure of the limitations of the software. When I see a wikipedian with lots of years and loads of essential page creations in an important content arena, I presume they know why they do things, so I'm here to help. Is there some diff in the examples you've provided here which helps make your case? BusterD (talk) 21:16, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
 * More simply put, we have unexperienced editors making contributions to these articles. was this week to a related records article.  Yes, I noticed and fixed it.  Other like  languish for years until they were essentially bypassed with less efficient displays of information .  By keeping the editing simpler, without the complex links, this requires less editing technique from the freelance editors.  And stub articles don't hurt anything.Trackinfo (talk) 16:42, 7 October 2021 (UTC)
 * You created List of world records in masters athletics which is 267 kB with 66 sections but you think User:PrimeHunter/Masters men triple jump world record progression with 8 kB and 12 sections is too large and should be 12 separate articles to be manageable. I don't quite understand that. If section links like Men 85 break in the future due to renamed sections then readers are taken to the top with a TOC where it should take seconds to click the age group they were looking for. If section headings are removed then it's a little harder but easily reverted, and it's easier to watch one article than 12. List of world records in masters athletics has bigger problems with section navigation because 31 section headings are duplicated against MOS:SECTION. For this and size reasons it should be split by gender. We write for the readers. I think it's interesting to follow the decline with age in User:PrimeHunter/Masters men triple jump world record progression and see the same people often setting smaller and smaller records. Masters M85 triple jump world record progression gives no context and as mentioned, had three page views in a month. It's difficult for readers to navigate to the other age groups from it. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:16, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

<div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment: I'm glad User:Trackinfo has reposted this quote here (aside from the deletionist commentary which I find distracting and wish was struck). In a case where an article is massive like List of world records in masters athletics (a case where splitting isn't yet being discussed and seems impractical), does the article benefit more from smaller linked articles like the nominee here or from adding almost 400 lengthy more complex redirects from our imagined "merged by discipline" targets? Is this a criterion appropriate to apply in a deletion discussion? This is a baby/bathwater situation; I have no reason to doubt Trackinfo's good faith expression of experiences with similar situations. Is this an issue? Should we urge close as "no consensus" as User:PrimeHunter suggests and then have a more centralized discussion? Where would we raise such a discussion? BusterD (talk) 17:12, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, jp×g 12:24, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge per Primehunter and Spinningspark. Agletarang (talk) 17:53, 13 October 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">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.