Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mathias Logelin

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. Although opinions are divided, the "delete" arguments are significantly more convincing in the light of applicable guidelines. These guidelines have recently been revised to make it clearer that mere participation in high-level sporting events is not a guarantee for inclusion at the article level if a search for sources does not establish notability to WP:GNG standards. In this case, FOARP has conducted a thorough analysis of the available sources to establish why, in their view, the GNG requirements are not met. The arguments for keeping the article do not address, let alone rebut, FOARP's convincing analysis. It is argued that there must be better sources somewhere, given the high number of passing mentions, but the WP:BURDEN to find such sources is on those who want to keep the article. Other people merely assert that the person is notable without developing arguments as to why; these opinions cannot be given much more weight than mere votes. Sandstein 09:14, 6 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Mathias Logelin

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Logelin was an Olympic competitor who did not win a medal. The sports.reference.com source is essentially a sports table, and does not constitute significant coverage. My search was not able to find significant coverage on this indivual. I did find some sources that were at least significant on an early settler of Minnesota of this same name, and also a lot of sources about someone with this name, who may or may not have been the early settler of Minnesota, making claims from the US government for a military service pension payment. Becauase of these sources I am not convinced this is even the most likely search term for this name, and do not believe we should preserve this as a redirect. Plus, since he was in the Olympics twice there is no simple redirect targer. John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:14, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Sportspeople and Luxembourg. Shellwood (talk) 15:18, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep won a silver medal at the 1934 World Champs. This article has the info of "For ten years (1927-1937), Metty Logelin dominated his competitors head and shoulders in the fight for the highest step on the podium. He also took part in the Olympic Games in Amsterdam in 1928 and Berlin in 1936" indicating that someone who was one of the best gymnasts of their time for a decade should have other coverage somewhere. Alas, I'm not fluent in Luxembourgish and/or French. Worst case, redirect to List of men's artistic gymnasts, per WP:ATD, WP:PRESERVE, WP:R#KEEP and WP:CHEAP. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 16:27, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Having a look at Luxembourg press, I've found coverage here [1], [2] and [3] for starters. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 17:07, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: This record shows that he competed in two Olympics. He therefore deserves to be included with an article in his own name.--Ipigott (talk) 16:53, 29 March 2022 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Ipigott (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)[reply]
@Ipigott: - thanks for this. However, WP:NOLY has been updated in recent times to only include medal winners. I don't know if there's any extra coverage of this guy in the Luxembourg press, for example. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 16:58, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

He has also been recognized in the local press, e.g. here. I visited the exhibition and saw photos of his achievements. No doubt many other references in the local press at the time.--Ipigott (talk) 17:10, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment, I have done some searching on this myself too (possibly coming across some of the same articles aforementioned) and expanded the article with some of this historical content. It isn't my native tongue and I am relying on google translate, but he did seem to be recognised as being a top-class gymnast of his time in Luxembourg (I think it's worth noting that someone who participates in multiple Olympics is likely to be among the best in their country also). I don't know if it's enough to retain the article and i'd suggest that it could do with some sigcov if available, but I'd probably lean keep based on the fact of his national recognition (even in later years also). Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:47, 29 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Let's review the sources:

Luxemburger Wort, 2012: Reliable, independent source, but only a passing mention ("Mathias Logelin, the gymnast born in Differdingen, who participated in 1928 in Amsterdam and 1936 in Berlin at Olympia"). Not significant coverage.
Luxembourg: Journal du Matin, 1940 - Reliable, independent source. Only a passing mention ("The productions of the gymnasts and cells of our champion Mathias Logelin in particular. enthusiasm to all assistance, as the culminating points of the meeting, in the course of which one vit in general a sport of excellent billing").
Luxemburger Wort, 1930 - Reliable independent source, but the total mention of the subject is "Mathias Logelin, the gymnast born in Differdingen, who took part in the 1928 Amsterdam and 1936 Berlin Olympics". Not SIGCOV.
Sports-Reference.com - This is a wide, catch-all database excluded from showing notability per WP:SPORTCRIT. There is no mention here of any medal.
Obermosel-Zeitung - Reliable, independent source. A passing, one-sentence mention in a local newspaper ("The best is indisputably the diffeidingel Logelin Mathias. After this magnificent gymnast had been fired in Lyon, he has rapidly risen to become one of the highest international clefs in Lurner over the past few years: he can easily stand alongside the best of the tournament"). This is not evidence that Logelin was considered "the best" generally or internationally, it is only the view of a local paper in Luxembourg, a small country with a population smaller than that of an average-sized city.
L'indépendance Luxembourgeoise - Reliable, independent source. A listing of results for the Luxembourg national championships. Not significant coverage.
Escher Tageblatt, 1932 - Reliable, independent source. Not SIGCOV, the only thing it says about the subject is "In the individual ranking, our master Mathias Logelin will inevitably win the palm. Logelin represents our colours in 1928 in Amsterdam and 1930 in Luxembourg for the first time". It does not give you any real detail about the subject.
Luxemburger Wort, 1962 - Reliable, independent source, but it just doesn't say anything about the subject - his name is merely included in a long list of names of people receiving awards.
l'Espérance Differdange - Appears to be the blog of a local Luxembourgish gymnastics society in Differdange. Arguably not independent, not clearly reliable. Only a passing mention of Logelin ("During one year's design (1927-1937), Metty Logelin dominated the head and the eps her competitors in the fight for the highest march on the podium. He also participated in the Amsterdam Olympic Games in 1928 and Berlin in 1936, without forgetting the World and European Championships").
Luxemburger Wort, 1958 - Only a passing mention in a photo caption ("The old master Metty Logelin").
Luxemburger Wort, 1975 - Another bare mention in a photo caption, one name in a list.
Escher Tageblatt, 1947 - I cannot find where Logelin is supposed to be mentioned here.

There are a lot of references here, so this took a long time to do, but every single one of them is just a passing, one-sentence mention. To be significant coverage per WP:SIGCOV, the source must be one that "addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content" Furthermore "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention". None of the above newspaper sources does so because none provides any real detail about Logelin. Instead each is simply a trivial, one-sentence mention that tells you nothing really about the subject. Logelin might well have been the best gymnast in Luxembourg at that time, but there is no evidence here that anyone thought that a sufficiently notable thing for them to actually write something substantial about him.

There is also no mention of a silver medal at the World Championships in these sources, but even if there was, a World Championship medal is not an automatic pass for notability. Our article on the 1934 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships (is this the same as the actual world championships?) lists Logelin OR Eugen Mack as having received the silver at that competition, and states that there are "discrepancies" in the records, so it appears that we do not actually know whether Logelin won silver or not - in fact it is not clear at all that he won a medal there.

Delete it is then. FOARP (talk) 08:11, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@FOARP: This is tricky for a number of reasons, not least because it is nearly 100 years ago, but also as many sources will not be in English. It can already be hard to find historic English language coverage on English-speaking subjects, let alone non-English. I tend to take a view that if there are multiple mentions of an individual which indicate they were noted in their profession (awards or other recognition), then in all likelihood there will be better coverage if you know where and how to find it. With that said, I know it sounds a bit like I am implying WP:SOURCESEXIST, which may be true, though where someone has numerous mentions over a wide timeframe, it's plausible. I implied in my comment that sigcov would be highly desirable and, in part aligning with your own feelings on this, I did not feel strong enough to !vote but felt it was worth adding what I found. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:09, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Bungle - if the sources exist then go and find them. Until then, all we have here is evidence that local newspapers in Luxembourg, a very small country, occasionally mentioned this person fleetingly and in passing when talking about other things, never discussing the topic in detail or in depth. This man died in the 1990's, if he was truly notable, one would expect that at least some kind of obituary would have been written then - where is it? If he was considered a notable sportsman, then where is the retrospective? The Olympics he competed in were long ago, but then so was Lidell and Abrahams' run in the 1924 Olympics and that was the subject of countless news coverage, a film, [book], a stage production, and a hit album.

Ask yourself: how many Luxembourg citizens may have been similarly mentioned in passing? I would wager that a great many such people were mentioned in passing in Luxembourg papers at the same level, including minor local politicians and minor non-notable actors, none of whom rise to the level of being sufficiently notable to cover in an article on English Wikipedia.

The reason why this article exists is not because anyone ever thought the topic would ever pass GNG. The reason why it exists is because a previous, now-defunct SNG said that everyone who ever competed at the Olympics was automatically notable, and the creator then proceeded to create many thousands of articles exactly as problematic as this one, but we have since decided that this was wrong. FOARP (talk) 16:18, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@FOARP, I am largely not disagreeing with you on this and as noted, I did not feel confident or strong enough about retaining the article to expressly !vote as such. Rather, I am suggesting that someone who represents their country in the Olympics (and twice), coupled with the multiple (albeit, fleetingly-mentioned) coverage which has been found (up to now), would generally imply a degree of notability. I am not advocating keep on this (though leaning that way), but offering what I can to allow others to make an informed decision. Regarding your very last point, I have made an effort to expand many of these stubs (though limited to English-language individuals) in recent times and I have found, in nearly every case, that notability is established. I think focus for deletion should be on individuals where there isn't even implied notability, and there are many of those. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:29, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Bungle - Personally, I have been involved in a number of these discussions and what I have seen in them does not convince me that notability is being established in anything like the overwhelming majority of cases. Typically what is instead seen is what is happening here: a large number of "It's notable" !votes with no actual basis in sourcing, some passing mentions found in the sources and added to the article in the hope that the closer will buy the idea that the article has been improved sufficiently to pass.

This article is in fact a poster-child to the kind of articles that we should be focusing on: pre-war Olympians who did not win a medal and for whom there is no significant coverage. FOARP (talk) 16:35, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

PS - also, WP:REFBOMB. FOARP (talk) 13:15, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep on balance. Clearly a long-term competitor at a high level. Deb (talk) 15:28, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: This appears to me to be against general notability assessment. If someone is mentioned even fleetingly in so many publications, there is a clear establishment of notability. Since the person in question is no longer living, there may well be many other references from newspapers and journals in French and German which have not been mentioned. Please consider keeping as I already called.--Ipigott (talk) 15:31, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- I totally agree. Deb (talk) 09:09, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - If someone/something is mentioned only fleetingly, even if they were fleetingly mentioned many times, this still means they are not notable. You cannot simply pile up many instances of fleeting mentions of something and say "this means they must be notable", because none of them show that the subject was ever considered sufficiently notable to write in detail and in depth about.

WP:GNG is very clear on this: "A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.". We need multiple instances of significant coverage. We don't even have one here. This is a clear WP:NSPORTS fail since it cannot pass WP:GNG nor can it pass any other standard.

Saying "But there must be sources!" is an argument long recognised as a logical fallacy at AFD. If the sources exist then go and find them - I cannot find any such sources. FOARP (talk) 16:09, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Olympics-related deletion discussions. Ingratis (talk) 16:32, 30 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. WP:GNG requires multiple examples of WP:SIGCOV, and we have none here. BilledMammal (talk) 20:30, 31 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A note on redirecting - If there were an obvious redirect I would consider it, but there is no obvious redirect here. Logelin competed non-notably in a number of different competitions, so no single one is an obvious redirect. List of men's artistic gymnasts is not a list simply of every gymnast but only those with FIG profiles, Logelin is not presently included there, and the only listing for someone with that name on the FIG website for someone born in 1970. As has been noted above, this Matthias Logelin is just one of a number of equally non-notable Matthias Logelins, so it is not immediately obvious that people are really looking for him. The average number of pageview each month in the year to February was 8, most of which will have been bots, and in some months the number was zero, so the idea that this is a likely search term is dubious. FOARP (talk) 08:21, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The evidence and sourcing provided satisfies WP:N by my estimation. Canadian Paul 20:11, 3 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Canadian Paul - I think it might be helpful to explain what exact pieces of coverage you believe do actually show notability, and how exactly they do so. Particularly, it would be helpful to say which pieces of coverage you believe provide significant coverage of the subject. Otherwise this is likely to be interpreted as just an WP:ITSNOTABLE !vote. FOARP (talk) 09:05, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Per Ipigott's reasoning. Best, GPL93 (talk) 22:51, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

GPL93 - What exactly do you find convincing about Ipigott's reasoning? It might help to expand on this otherwise your !vote may be interpreted as a WP:PERX argument. FOARP (talk) 08:05, 6 April 2022 (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.