Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samba Fall

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 redirect‎ to Mauritania at the 1992 Summer Olympics. ✗plicit 13:56, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Samba Fall

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Declined prod. All sources are databases/results. Fails WP:SPORTSCRIT and WP:NOLY. LibStar (talk) 03:12, 10 May 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) 03:12, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
del no significnt coverage. --Altenmann >talk 04:10, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not all sources are databases, there are over a dozen newspaper hits listing his Olympic results. I agree that additional sourcing is needed, and I expanded the article to include the subject's Arabic name just before it was nominated as part of a controversial series of hundreds of AfDs and PRODs by the nominator that in the vast majority of cases do not end in a delete outcome. The subject was one of only six athletes from Mauritania (population 4.3 million) to qualify for the Olympics in 1992, and the sources that would have covered him, without exception, have not even published their 1990s daily archives online yet per BBC,

Chaab: No publications before 2020
Free Horizons: No publications before 2020
alakhbar.info: No publications before 2017
essirage.net: Seems to only archive publications from this year
lauthentic.info: No archives before 2023

The issue here is clear that sources aren't available to us, but notability is always determined by the existence of sources, never by the state of sourcing in an article. --Habst (talk) 13:32, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where are the existence of sources to meet NEXIST? You haven't demonstrated that like in at least 50 athlete AfDs. LibStar (talk) 08:26, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@LibStar, the sources would exist in any of the Mauritanian papers I linked above. Per comment, "At some level, we all know that there is local coverage on every modern Olympic athlete, because (a) local newspapers always run the 'local kid does well internationally' kinds of stories, because articles that combine national pride, local people, and good news sell well, and (b) every time someone has actually done the work of getting access to paper copies, they've found these sources". --Habst (talk) 19:23, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please provide actual sources instead of conjecture that they exist. LibStar (talk) 00:56, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Right. What you see here is a list of assumptions about how Mauritanians think that, as far as I can see, not true. For example, the official Mauritanian News Agency carried zero stories about either the 2024 or the 2020 Olympics. The editions of Chaab that followed both the opening ceremony and involvement of Mauritian competitors in the 2020 games also did not mention the Olympics.

But back in 1992, just as it was merging from a military dictatorship, with censorship still in place, a war on its border with Senegal, drought and famine threatening, and literacy rates at ~35% in a population of just 1.7 million, Mauritania definitely would have had local newspapers outputting "local hero" stories about the Olympics?

Let's have some perspective please. FOARP (talk) 11:04, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@FOARP, what modern Mauritanian Olympic competitor (2020 or 2024 as you mention) has not been covered? See for example Camil Doua who was their only swimmer at the 2024 Olympics, and is clearly covered significantly. Why wouldn't the same type of news sources that covered Doua have covered the only Mauritanian Olympic competitors in 1992? There is no difference in how Mauritanians think than people from other countries like the U.S. that have significant coverage accessible to us. On Wikipedia, notability is always determined by extant sources, and never by the state of sourcing in an article. --Habst (talk) 12:53, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Why wouldn't the same type of news sources that covered Doua have covered the only Mauritanian Olympic competitors in 1992?" - Let's start with the reason why Doua gets a lot of coverage: he's French and the IRS SIGCOV coverage in that article comes from French sources like Sud Ouest. Of the other sources, Tamasoul is 404 and Essada covers a publicity event organised by the Bridges of Goodness Association (i.e., WP:PROMO) and a non-SIGCOV report of him taking part in a swimming competition. This is particular to Doua and cannot be generalised to other Mauritanian olympians.

Then let's move on to most of those sources not even existing in 1992: Mauritania was a military dictatorship until 1991 and the law was only changed to allow non-government press (but still strictly censored) in 1992. These sources simply didn't exist then.

And again you're bludgeoning with the failed interpretation of WP:NEXIST. FOARP (talk) 13:11, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@FOARP, OK, if Doua is not a good example, then can you provide one example of a Mauritanian Olympic competitor (never mind one in athletics, which is the marquee sport of the Olympics) from 2020 or 2024 that hasn't received SIGCOV? Every one I've searched I've been able to find plenty on.

During wartime or times of conflict, news production generally ramps up because of increased demand. There were dozens of newspapers in the region that would have covered Fall in that era, but we don't have access to any of their archives. I agree that bludgeoning is a major problem, which is why I haven't responded to others' !votes and have kept my responses shorter than yours. --Habst (talk) 13:54, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Who "would" do what is pure conjecture Geschichte (talk) 16:02, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Mauritania at the 1992 Summer Olympics – As WP:ATD. Svartner (talk) 14:26, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Mauritania at the 1992 Summer Olympics: to be honest this debate about sources is becoming similar to discussions about God existence FuzzyMagma (talk) 09:56, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Mauritania at the 1992 Summer Olympics: not SIGCOV in RS. Doesn't meet WP:NTRACK — Itzcuauhtli11 (talk) 19:45, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect, strong failure of WP:SPORTCRIT Geschichte (talk) 16:02, 14 May 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.