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. ✗plicit 00:10, 28 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

William Msiska (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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declined prod with added source only being a database. Still fails WP:SPORTSCRIT and WP:NOLY. LibStar (talk) 22:36, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Sportspeople, Olympics, Sport of athletics, and Africa. LibStar (talk) 22:36, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep based on WP:NEXISTS in a similar vein to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Moustafa Matola. I believe in using NEXISTS sparingly, but I think this is a valid use case because 1) We know that the subject accomplished something of note (was a sprint Olympian) in reliable sources, and 2) the subject comes from a place (Malawi) where we have no newspaper archive access from his time period, and there is no access in WP:LIBRARY. Do sources exist? I would say yes, but we have no way of accessing them. Maybe we can reach out to offline sources in Malawi for contemporary coverage, but that process would take weeks at least. --Habst (talk) 15:10, 21 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  "Do sources exist? I would say yes" WP:MUSTBESOURCES. LibStar (talk) 00:33, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  (Although I personally would not !vote keep in this case), it is not unreasonable to say that sources likely exist for an accomplished athlete when zero evidence has been provided that any Malawian news search has been performed. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:25, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Zero evidence that this person has had SIGCOV in reliable sources. LibStar (talk) 22:36, 25 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @LibStar, do you have any policy-based reason to delete the article? WP:MUSTBESOURCES is an essay. --Habst (talk) 16:13, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  It's an essay which describes you perfectly. Article fails WP:BIO, WP:GNG, WP:SPORTSCRIT and WP:NOLY. LibStar (talk) 22:02, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @LibStar, I have great respect for your contributions and I hope you can extend me the same grace. All of the guidelines you mentioned are subordinate to WP:N, including NEXIST which says that sources don't have to be present in the article. Failing a binary test has never been an adequate reason to delete an article devoid of context. --Habst (talk) 13:40, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: per nom FuzzyMagma (talk) 20:19, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete or Redirect - I echo User:Habst's frustration... and in the future, when sources are uncovered that verifiably provide significant coverage, I am eager for Wikipedia to have a standalone article on Msiska. As an ATD, could be redirected to Athletics at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metres. Suriname0 (talk) 22:50, 26 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, articles should not be created until the significant coverage exists. Geschichte (talk) 08:13, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sure it exists, its just that no one has gone looking for it... BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:17, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    or found it. Have you found any? LibStar (talk) 22:00, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    • No one has found it because no one has looked... BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:20, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

      Have you? LibStar (talk) 22:22, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

      I have looked at " news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR". The best I could find is a namesake working at the Malawi law commission which might be the same person but not SIGCOV in any case. LibStar (talk) 22:24, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. No evidence that SIGCOV exists, let alone identification of a specific SIGCOV source that can be cited in the article, as required by SPORTSCRIT. JoelleJay (talk) 18:53, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @JoelleJay, WP:N doesn't require any of that. I suspect that SIGCOV would exist in contemporary Malawian newspapers of the 1970s, given the subject's accomplishments. --Habst (talk) 20:24, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  WP:N says The common theme in the notability guidelines is that there must be verifiable, objective evidence that the subject has received significant attention from independent sources to support a claim of notability. No subject is automatically or inherently notable merely because it exists: the evidence must show the topic has gained significant independent coverage or recognition

  In your tortured interpretation of NEXIST, the achievements of the athlete suggest that SIGCOV exists and we don't even need evidence of this existence; however, basing the presumption of SIGCOV on those achievements was explicitly deprecated by two global consensuses. Your opinion is therefore no more valid than "ILIKEIT". JoelleJay (talk) 21:50, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Agreed with Joellejay. Habst keeps recycling the NEXIST argument when no sources have been identified. LibStar (talk) 21:59, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  @JoelleJay, I'm basing my !vote off a plain-faced reading of WP:N that also has current community consensus. I have never argued that an article should be kept merely because it exists; qualifying for the Olympics for a country that traditionally hasn't had many Olympians isn't the same as merely existing.

  I'm aware of the RfCs related to this topic, and none of them invalidate this plainly obvious reading of WP:N (and many in fact reinforce it). If you think this is improper, can you provide an example of any valid application of WP:NEXIST where no sources are referenced in an article, then? --Habst (talk) 23:33, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Note that this AfD has now been semi-protected due to "persistent sockpuppetry" including at least four attempts to sneakily prematurely close it as delete while impersonating an admin. It's sad, because it does prevent new accounts from weighing in instead of the same few voices each time. --Habst (talk) 23:42, 27 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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.