Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oscar Blansaer


 * 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. There seems to be consensus to keep this article per WP:NOLY. The general argument for deletion was that WP:OLY only offered a presumption of notability. However, it is worth noting that WP:GNG also uses the word presumed, and that the ultimate standard of notability is consensus in a deletion discussion. Special notability guidelines exist to complement the GNG in fields where coverage may be more sparse. (non-admin closure) &#x2230; Bellezzasolo &#x2721;   Discuss  19:24, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Oscar Blansaer

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A total lack of WP:RS giving significant attention to this person. There are a few databases and results listings,but nothing that would come close to meeting WP:GNG. Meets WP:NOLY as an Olympian, but this only gives a presumed notability which, when challenged (as here), needs to be substantiated to show that the person indeed at least meets the GNG. Just like with many athletes who competed in the early Olympics, which received a lot less attention, this is not possible with currently available sources. A single listing in Google Books, and nothing substantial in the 48 Google hits. Fram (talk) 10:11, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. Fram (talk) 10:11, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Belgium-related deletion discussions. Fram (talk) 10:11, 28 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:NOLY. A couple of recent similar discussions for Olympians at AfD can be found here and here. Both were kept.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 10:11, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * One closed as no consensus, and the other is not comparable as the athlete had many more accomplishments, and finding sources for a North Korean was considered harder than usual. At the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports), most commenters agree that WP:NOLY indicates presumed notability, but that in the end (e.g. when challenged at AfD) the subject must meet the general WP:GNG rule of multiple indepth sources, not just some database listings or mentions in sports results. Fram (talk) 10:32, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. SNGs are useful rule of thumb, but not carte blanche to create an article based only on database entries. Athletes such as Blansaer should be listed at List of competitors at the 1920 Summer Olympics or similar. buidhe 03:17, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. A perfunctory Google search is nowhere near sufficient to overcome presumption of notability here. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 18:40, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. Meets our notability guidelines. Besides, just because Google doesn't give you enough hits, doesn't mean there no further information on the person. I am pretty sure our Belgian Wikipedians could help find some real, printed, sources.--Darwinek (talk) 18:35, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I am a Belgian Wikipedian, I can read the sources in Dutch (and French, German and English). They are sorely lacking for this athlete though. Fram (talk) 05:27, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Going to basically copy and paste my response from the other AfD: WP:NOLYMPICS doesn't exist because someone decided out of nowhere that all Olympians are notable or to override general notability guidelines. With arguably the exception of the earliest editions, but certainly by 1920, people who attended the Olympics were not just picked out of a hat, they were elite athletes at the national level. In 2020 on Google, yes, the only thing that is readily available is that he participated in one event at the Games, but the fact that he was there in the first place suggests that he had at least some success in his home country, which is probably difficult to find information about unless you have access to Belgian publications from the 1910s and 1920s. WP:NOLYMPICS exists, therefore, because consensus determined that if the individual was at the Games, there is a significant likelihood that sufficient sources for a biography exist that may just be difficult to access. My work is on pre-1952 Egyptian athletes, and information beyond their Olympic appearance is difficult to find in Arabic online, let alone in English. But I happen to have access to newspapers and sports journals from that era and there is plenty of coverage on all of them that would satisfy WP:N with ease. For a country like Belgium, which at the time had a better-developed press and sporting infrastructure, there must exist coverage of all of their Olympians that would easily satisfy WP:N, I just can't access it (or at least read it). WP:NOLYMPICS represents that consensus that these sources likely exist for all Olympians, even if we cannot find them, and so we can avoid discussions such as this and presume notability unless there is convincing evidence otherwise. Canadian   Paul  06:46, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * "presume notability unless there is convincing evidence otherwise. " One cannot prove such a negative. This is why the burden is always on those claiming that something is notable: they have to produce the evidence for it, not just claim that it exists and demand that others have to show (how?) that it doesn't. Fram (talk) 09:37, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * No. WP:BURDEN relates to verifiability, not notability. SNGs create presumption of notability which means that the burden is one those arguing for non-notability to demonstrate that. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 21:41, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete The over application of the olympic notability guidelines has become absurd. The source here in no way shows notability, and no one has identified any other source that does so or not. The SNG were supposed to suggest what cases it is worth looking deeply for sources, they are not supposed to force inclusion of articles in the total absence of sources.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:11, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Obviously POINT-y nomination. This has been litigated to death. Olympians are notable. Period. If you don't like it, get consensus to change the guideline, don't disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point. Smartyllama (talk) 23:39, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep Per WP:NOLY. Because the subject competed a very long time ago, it's important to avoid a recency bias. KaisaL (talk) 08:13, 7 March 2020 (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.