Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tom Ölander


 * 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. With the additional references, consensus appears to indicate notability. (non-admin closure) Ifnord (talk) 17:03, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Tom Ölander

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Article, completely unreferenced for ten full years without improvement, about a person notable primarily for "bridge-building between far-flung corners of international fandom". This could get him into Wikipedia if he could be shown to clear WP:GNG for it, but is not "inherently" notable enough to exempt him from having to have any sources for it. Bearcat (talk) 06:58, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 08:55, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 08:55, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Popular culture-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 08:55, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Finland-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 08:55, 23 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete - I can't find anything on this guy. Wikiman5676 (talk) 04:08, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Wikiman5676: I've started adding some information. What's been written about Ölander in English has typically been published in print; the available sources I'm aware of online are in Finnish or Swedish, for good reasons. /Julle (talk) 18:06, 24 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep While the article is still a stub and fairly poor quality, i think you have provided enough to keep the article from being deleted. I also managed to find a mention of him in the book Science Fiction Rebels here . Wikiman5676 (talk) 04:21, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. The majority of all sources will be in Finnish, some in Swedish, but there are some available in English as well. Toni Jerrman wrote an essay called "It All Started with Tom Ölander" in the souvenir book for the 75th World Science Fiction Convention, which I don't have access to now but will have again in a couple of weeks. (The reference to Mike Ashley's work that I've added is more of a passing mention.) In other languages than English – in addition to what Leena Peltonen wrote in in Aikakone, and Ahrvid Engholm's obituary in Dagens Nyheter, both added as sources, Juhani Hinkkanen wrote another longer text about Ölander in Aikakone back when he died, and just for contextualisation I think this text from the Turku Science Fiction Society is worth reading. /Julle (talk) 17:51, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Added a reference to Jerrman's text now. /Julle (talk) 04:41, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Randykitty (talk) 09:40, 30 January 2019 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 18:14, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment : This is a supposedly notable person in Finnland, yet the Finnish Wikipedia does not have anything on him. (Yes, I know. I'm simply pointing it out.) -The Gnome (talk) 06:15, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * There are plenty of things Finnish Wikipedia, being a mid-sized wiki (English Wikipedia has 72 times the number of active editors), doesn't have articles on yet. /Julle (talk) 07:26, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * That's entirely irrelevant. It is reasonable to expect many articles in the English Wikipedia not to have their counterpart in the Finnish one. But we're talking about a subject that's supposedly notable (per Wikipedia's standards) in Finnland and not in the English-speaking world. Yet, there is no entry in the Finnish Wikipedia about him. Do you happen to have some explanation for that? Sizes don't matter! -The Gnome (talk) 10:47, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Size does matter – and is an important part of the explanation – in that article creation is far slower. I don't know how much cross-wiki article creation experience you have, but this is hardly unique. There are phenomena in Finland that lack articles in Finnish but have them in English, partly because you'll find editors from Finland who'll opt to edit in a more widely spoken language (e.g. English) instead of Finnish. There are Icelandic writers who have articles in Swedish Wikipedia but not in Icelandic, not because they lack notability but because Swedish Wikipedia has 20 times the number of editors, and sometimes that matters more than being the most likely language. Etc etc. Also, notability is global; a subject not more or less notable because one is active in a specific language area – it is notable or not. We're writing a global encyclopedia in English, not an encyclopedia of the English-speaking world. Additionally, it's a stretch to assume that only the Finns should care: the sources in this article include a British writer (Mike Ashley (writer)) published by a British publisher (Cambridge University Press) and a Swedish newspaper (Dagens Nyheter).
 * (Also, Finland is bilingual. The country has two official languages: Finnish and Swedish.) /Julle (talk) 11:21, 13 February 2019 (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.