Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Nevens


 * 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 delete per consensus. Doczilla @SUPERHEROLOGIST 23:17, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Robert Nevens

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

Nevens competed in the olympics, but did not win a medal. A few months ago it was decided through an RfC that those who did not win medals in the olympics are not default notable, they need to pass other criteria. The one source here is a low quality, broad inclusion source that cannot be used to show passing of sports notability. It did every search I could think off, google, google news, google books, google scholar, and came up with no outher sources about this person, although I did come up with passing mentions of other people who lived more recently, or much earlier. The Dtuch language Wikipedia article as far as I can tell uses the one same source. There is just no enough sourcing to justify having a biography on this person. John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:52, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 15:56, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Belgium-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 15:56, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete - Whilst this is a technical pass of WP:NATH that standard ultimately assumes a WP:GNG pass but once challenged GNG has to be shown and it just doesn't appear to be present here. As JPL says the only source fails WP:SPORTCRIT. No point redirecting this as it is not a plausible search term for any redirect you might want to name - only an average of three visits per month for this page in 2021 most/all of which will have been WebCrawlers/bots/people looking for other Robert Nevens. FOARP (talk) 16:27, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete - Delete per nom. The nl:Robert Nevens article contains more information but simply shows that he could break 3 hours for a marathon and gives no sign that he was in any way notable. Nigej (talk) 16:50, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete: Even by the standards of the time, this sub-stub was a garbage creation. Unlikely search term, no SIGCOV proven to exist, complete failure of the GNG.   Ravenswing      19:37, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * To be fair before October 2021 being the olympics was treated as an absolute show of notability that meant an article could stand as long as we had enough sourcing to show the person was really in the olympics.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:46, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Which doesn't mean we were compelled to create such sub-stubs, or prevented from improving them to viable articles.   Ravenswing     20:29, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Athletics at the 1936 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon, per WP:ATD. His Dutch-lang article suggests some notable achievements, such as several top three marathon finishes too.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 20:19, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Having won a marathon in my younger days, I can assure you that his performances are quite mediocre. Unless we're pursuing a policy of having an article for every person in the world, this is the sort of article that needs deleting. Nigej (talk) 21:44, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Were you also born in 1914? And was your win in a marathon of note?  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 18:02, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I may be missing something -- and kindly enlighten me if I am -- but I don't believe that there's any notability guideline where whether an athlete is born in 1914 (or not) is relevant.   Ravenswing     03:42, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment. He also competed at the 1938 and 1946 European Championships. I believe there were only 3 international athletics events at the time; the Olympics, the European Championships and the Commonwealth Games. A Belgian not being eligible for the latter, Nevens competed in all international events he was eligible for. His placements were bad though. Geschichte (talk) 23:25, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * That Nevens ran in other races for which we also have articles on Wikipedia, where he performed equally non-notably, indicates that this should not be a redirect to a specific race. FOARP (talk) 08:09, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment From a quick look at Google, this particular Robert Nevens is mentioned in these books: United States Olympic Book, 1936; King Albert's Book; and Report of the American Olympic Committee. I haven't read any of these books, and they do admittedly look like entries in lists of results rather than substantive discussion, but its clear that this guy's name at least shows up in records from the period; local French/Flemish sources from the time may be available. I'm not going to offer a full-voiced 'keep', because I tend to feel that if we have no more than a sentence to say about a subject, then the reader is better served by a redirect to a list of similar subjects than by lots of different articles. However, I don't think we need to be using language like 'garbage' in a discussion of this nature: like it or not, we have thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, of articles which are like this or worse. Let's just discuss neutrally whether this is worth retaining or not. Girth Summit  (blether)  00:04, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty comfortable with my characterization of an article that was created with seventeen words in the text, whose only edits from the article creator involved changing "http" to "https" and the name of a template, and remains at seventeen words now, nearly five years later. That thousands of articles exist that are as bad or worse is cold comfort.   Ravenswing      00:20, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't doubt that you're comfortable with it, else you wouldn't have written it. Other people might not be so comfortable. I draw your attention to the banner atop your own user talk page. Girth Summit  (blether)  00:26, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's necessarily helpful to describe articles that were technical passes of an SNG that was in place when the article was created as garbage. This is the case even if they have been the subject of dummy edits made right after the edits of another editor apparently to assert ownership of the article (1 2), dummy edits of a type that the editor in question is making still to this day (see, e.g., here).
 * Turning to the sources raised by Girth Summit:
 * United States Olympic Book, 1936 - lists Nevens in 24th place in the marathon on p. 137.
 * King Albert's Book, A Tribute to the Belgian King and People from Representative Men and Women Throughout the World - I cannot see the mention in here of Nevens. He is not mentioned in the index of contributors, and since this is a collection of poems/paintings/tributes to Belgium and it's King written in 1914, it seems highly unlikely that he is mentioned here.
 * Report of the American Olympic Committee - identical to United States Olympic Book, 1936.
 * Is it possible that there are more sources out there? Well yes, of course, it is always possible that there might be sources out there that significant coverage to the subject of this article. But we don't have these sources. I did of course search all sources that are reasonably available online before !voting delete. Searches in Flemish are not helped by the fact that "nevens" appears to be the word for "besides" in Dutch (and Flemish?), but what sources I can reasonably access (Google Books, Internet Archive text search) I searched. One thing these searches highlighted are that there have been actually a great number of people called "Robert Nevens", including a prominent American Pharmacist and an officer in the US War of Independence who are at least as (non-) notable as this Nevens. I am therefore highly dubious that it is at all likely that people will be searching the name "Robert Nevens" looking for this specific Nevens, and indeed the existence of this article even as a redirect may discourage the creation of an article about a more notable Robert Nevens. FOARP (talk) 08:33, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * With regards to the sourcing, you are quite correct - these are trivial mentions, and it's clear that the 'King Albert's Book' was a false positive (it came up in the Google Books search for "Robert Nevens" + Olympics, but your Internet Archive link makes it clear that neither the words 'Nevens' and 'Olympics' don't actually appears).
 * On the matter of what is helpful, or relevant, I don't see why the second sentence of your post is either. The existence of minor edits in the history of a page; speculation as to the motivations of the person who performed those edits; the current editing habits exhibited by that person: none of these have any bearing on whether a subject is, or is not, notable. I'm fine with this discussion reaching a consensus to delete, but please keep it focussed on the subject itself. Girth Summit  (blether)  10:02, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * The issue of the quality of the page was raised. The edit history of the page, and why particular edits were made, is part of that, if only a minor aspect. FOARP (talk) 10:25, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * They're a non-aspect - they have no bearing on the notability of the subject, or on the overall quality of the article. Occasional gnoming in the editing history, whether constructive or otherwise, simply isn't something we need to consider in a deletion discussion. Girth Summit  (blether)  11:03, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's a rather strange rationale to use - hasn't been edited/expanded in X timespan somehow impacts on the notability of a given article.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 18:03, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Not at all; it is strong evidence that the article is unimprovable. For surely, of course, you attempted to do so, right?   Ravenswing      18:17, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * "Strong evidence" - no, it's irrelevant.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 18:24, 7 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete; fails GNG due to lack of SIGCOV and there is no realistic expectation that any exists. There is no valid ATD because there is no suitable article to redirect or merge to, and it's probable that equally notable people of the same name exist. wjematherplease leave a message... 11:30, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * There is an ATD - the Athletics at the 1936 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon article, as mentioned above.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 18:04, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Not per XY, when there is evidence that Nevers competed in other notable competitions, with an equal (un)likelihood of a relevant search.   Ravenswing     18:17, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I do not regard that as a suitable ATD because the target is not suitable for several reasons, including: it is a very unlikely search term so the redirect would not be useful; it's not the only race he ran, and it's very unlikely to be the one he'd be most recognised for if he had any kind of career as an athlete; there are other people of the same name; the proposed target contains virtually no information on him (WP:R #10); etc. wjematherplease leave a message... 18:25, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect per and as user:Lugnuts. Meets WP:NATH and is deleted just because the Belgian sources are not yet online (although rules are rules, no problem with that). The following Dutch sources testify to the importance of Nevens:
 * Vele groten nemen deel aan Marathon-Enschede. [Many great participate in the Enschede Marathon]. Arnhemsche Courant, 09-08-1949. Via Delpher, 09-01-2022.
 * Het Athletiekfestijn in Enschede. [The Athletics Feast in Enschede]. Athletiekwereld, vol 13, 1947, no 11, 01-06-1947. Via Delpher, 09-01-2022.
 * gidonb (talk) 03:04, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Neither source is more than a mere namedrop, saying that Nevers (among several others) has registered for a particular marathon; the most either one accords Nevers is a single sentence.   Ravenswing     03:39, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * That's exactly why I said: "testify to the importance of Nevens" and not "prove that he is notable". The lower bar is sufficient for a redirect. It's all there. Look again. gidonb (talk) 03:55, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Above, I listed several guideline-based reasons why a redirect is a bad idea, but I'm interested to know why anyone would consider the Olympics article to be a suitable redirect over and above 1946 European Athletics Championships – Men's marathon or 1938 European Athletics Championships – Men's marathon, where he is mentioned equally (i.e. name-dropped in a list of results)? Now, if something like List of Belgian marathon runners existed, then we'd have a suitable target, but it doesn't. wjematherplease leave a message... 11:13, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * What Wjemather said. We'd both already mentioned why, per XY, redirect wasn't a valid option.   Ravenswing     11:20, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I saw the objection to redirects but it does not make sense. This person meets the professional standard and is now being deleted because the Belgian newspapers are not yet online. I'll think about the targets you asked about. gidonb (talk) 19:28, 9 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. Cbl62 (talk) 11:59, 9 January 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.