Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yi Sun


 * 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 of the debate was delete. Mailer Diablo 14:59, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Yi Sun
Will probably be notable someday but fails now per WP:BIO :) rehpotsirhc 05:51, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment only extremely rarely are someone's accomplishments or interests "unprecedented". Mak (talk)  06:02, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your time, and a response to both: first, with regard to the rules on notability, I think this article qualifies in one important respect: it mentions amateur sports (and indeed, amateur sports players are fairly well represented on wikipedia). Now, calling high school math and science competitions "sports" might seem a bit of a stretch, but I can assure you that there is a significant culture (by a conservative estimate, upwards of 50,000 students each year) that considers them to be just this. Sure, we can't include every minor bit player in these kinds of competitions (like we would with the NBA), but considering that he is a dominant figure for this year (certainly in the top 5 overall, and best overall by most measures), I think it is reasonable to have an article about the best competitor from the class of 2006 in this enormous field.
 * Delete. Being smarter than me isn't grounds for an article on wikipedia.  Tomb Ride My Talk 06:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

And yes, I think the label of unprecedented is generally thrown around too sloppily. However, many of these competitions haven't been around for very long, and I can say that qualifying for 4 math/science olympiad camps (and all 5 olympiads, although that is not mentioned in the article) is in fact unprecendented. slightlyconfused1 06:15, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * edit conflict Comment this article would fare far better if it had sources for such assertions. In fact, if you could find some news coverage for these competitions it would be great. Mak (talk)  06:19, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I would also like to mention that there is precedent for this: Tiankai Liu was placed on wikipedia (and has had a page for some time) with accomplishments of similar overall magnitude. slightlyconfused1 06:17, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm a bit too tired to come up with a huge array of references at this point, but (to answer your request at least slightly), I'll note that searching for "Yi Sun" right now on google news provides 107 hits, basically all of which seem to refer to him (this is mainly with the STS contest, which is most recent and preeminent). slightlyconfused1 06:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment - I get 134,000 hits referencing many different Yi Suns. I found one reference, but it still falls short of WP:BIO. rehpotsirhc 06:33, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Answering Saforrest's comment, I'd refer again to the page on Tiankai Liu, which has been around for some time and was created at a time when he had individual accomplishments of similar magnitude. More currently, however, there is the article on Michael Viscardi, a current high school senior whose only "claim to fame" is in science and math contests, and who isn't as accomplished as Yi Sun.
 * Delete These accomplishments, while impressive, don't make it over the notability bar. In my opinion, Tiankai Liu is also overdue for an AFD.  --Hyperbole 07:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete --Ter e nce Ong 08:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete, does not meet WP:BIO in my opinion.--Isotope23 15:30, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. First place in an international academics competition?  What's NN about that?  RGTraynor 16:28, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. Whether or not it should, Wikipedia historically doesn't contain articles on similarly notable math/science students, e.g. the IMO contestants from across the world, or Putnam fellows.  --Saforrest 17:56, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete it seems like they trow these gold medals around, acording to the offical site, 31 contestants won the gold the same year Yi Sun won his. --Eivindt@c 18:43, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. It's something to be proud of, but winning high school level competitions just isn't very notable.  Heck, I won one, and I'm not on here.  --UsaSatsui 02:01, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

EivindFOyangen, yes, the definition of "Gold Medal" is very different in math/science international olympiads from its meaning in the conventional olympics: it is set to be given to a specific fraction (although a small one) of the international competitors, who are already a fairly select group. And it's important to remember that he isn't notable merely because he won an International Physics Olympiad gold medal - it's because, first, he did it as a sophomore (which hasn't happened in the recent history of the US team, and possibly never), and more importantly, because he has been at the top in so many other competitions.

UsaSatsui, I'm not sure what you won in high school level competitions, but I think the basic principle here should be this: this general "area" is certainly not notable for us to start creating hundreds (or even dozens) of bio articles on its best students. However, I think that it is entirely reasonable to create articles on the *one* or *two* best individuals each year. And if we're willing to do that, this definitely qualifies.

Note: by "best individuals" I implicitly mean "best individuals in English-speaking countries." While there can certainly be articles on extremely, extremely accomplished individuals from across the world, there can't possibly be an "equal standard" of notability on English wikipedia - there are plenty of articles on Congressmen in America, MPs in Britain, etc., but there aren't nearly as many on, say, Duma members in Russia. slightlyconfused1 04:59, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yet, this is high school, and unless either the competition itself is highly notable (it's not), or they're going around winning dozens of these things (the article mentions only three), it doesn't strike me as notable. There are hundreds of these competitions in the United States alone.  As someone else said, this person will most likely be notable someday, but that day is not today...and think about it, when they are notable, these accomplishments probably won't even be mentioned.  --UsaSatsui 10:16, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are "hundreds" of math and science high school competitions. But things like the Intel STS (which has delivered millions of dollars in prizes in its lifetime, receives extensive news coverage, etc.) are certainly at a level entirely different from random local contests. Using this logic to establish that his accomplishments aren't notable is roughly analogous to saying that an NBA championship isn't notable because there are thousands of rec league games taking place.

My reasoning has two distinct (and equally important) steps. First, I think that math and science competitions in high school are notable enough that the dominant *one* or *two* performers (across the full spectrum of contests) at any given time merit wikipedia articles. Second, I'm asserting that Yi Sun is, in fact, the dominant competitor in this year. I'd be interested in knowing where disagreements with this inclusion lie: is it the first or the second? Does this area so completely lack any notability that the dominant performer for a year doesn't merit inclusion? Or is he not, in fact, the dominant performer? I think that once we clear this up, we can get at the heart of the disagreement. slightlyconfused1 05:18, 18 April 2006 (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.