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. Rough consensus that the expansion is sufficient to merit a keep. (non-admin closure) Alpha3031 (t • c) 13:32, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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

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Fails WP:NOLY and WP:SPORTSCRIT. There appears to be a NZ police officer of the same name which could be him, but coverage doesn't satisfy WP:SIGCOV. LibStar (talk) 05:48, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete nope, doesn't meet criteria stated above. No sources found about this athlete besides Olympics references, and the WP:SPORTSCRIT concern above, delete. Tails Wx (they/them) ⚧ 10:17, 23 August 2023 (UTC) Eh, I think the expansion and sourcing is sufficient enough for me to vote Keep. Good work, Paora! Tails Wx 17:19, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Sportspeople, Sports, and New Zealand. NotAGenious (talk) 11:58, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, only database entries found - fails WP:SPORTSCRIT as stated above. NotAGenious (talk) 12:00, 23 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Clearly doesn’t meet any notability criteria. Easy delete. Go4thProsper (talk) 10:57, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep following expansion. Meets WP:SIGCOV. Paora (talk) 10:56, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting. Given the large expansion of this article, I've reverted my closure and am relisting this discussion. I'll let another admin choose how to close this deletion discussion.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 16:47, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Starting with the first independent source: #6, 8–14 (The Press), 7 (NewsHub): trivial mentions N. The 8 pieces in Taranaki Daily News covering his police career are routine local reporting expected for every police chief. Even if they were encyclopedic SIGCOV, they would count as one source and GNG requires multiple. Further, considering the extent of coverage afforded to other NZ bobsleighers in the same news articles that mention Telford, we have solid evidence that if substantial commentary on Telford existed we would have come across it already.

JoelleJay (talk) 17:43, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Joelle, I agree that his police career does not add to notability. LibStar (talk) 02:39, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Also competed internationally in surf lifesaving. Paora (talk) 10:11, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Is there SIGCOV documenting this? JoelleJay (talk) 16:48, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Story in the Melbourne Age. Some other cited references note his involvement in surf lifesaving in passing. Paora (talk) 05:35, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Paora's extensive expansion of this article to over 13,000 bytes of well-sourced prose demonstrates that this article passes the notability guideline for people, which states under WP:NBASIC, If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability; additionally we've got plenty of decent coverage from the Taranaki Daily News, which shows a pass of WP:SPORTCRIT, which makes no disqualifications for those which cover police careers (and several of those also cover his Olympic career as well), only for databases, which does not apply here. Pinging those who !voted delete prior to the substantial expansion and uncovering of sources: @Tails Wx, Go4thProsper, and NotAGenious: BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:13, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  It doesn't matter at all how much an article has been expanded if the sources it uses are trivial or routine or not IRS. Have you even read the articles from The Press on him? The most extensive coverage of him is Blair Telford, 4m clear at one stage for NPOB, appeared to slow up at the line and look over his right shoulder and South Brighton's Anthony Dorreen nipped in the left-hand side to steal the gold. Repeating a hundred such primary recaps and prosifying event stats is not an encyclopedia article.

  None of the Taranaki Daily News pieces are about his sports career. If we were to go off the secondary sourcing that actually has substance, this would be an article about the administrative changes across four years in the career of a rural police chief. Should we also have articles on Telford's predecessor Fiona Prestidge, who has received at least as much coverage[1][2] for her own career transitions? Or Telford's successors? JoelleJay (talk) 20:57, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Per WP:NBASIC, If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability; i.e. the sources do not have to be SIGCOV to demonstrate notability, provided that the sources we do have are enough to write a decent-sized biography. I wasn't arguing notability based on The Press sources alone, but them combined along with all the other sources, which provide enough to paint a detailed picture of his life and fulfill the purpose of being an encyclopedia. As for None of the Taranaki Daily News pieces are about his sports career, I would disagree; the first one I clicked on, actually has 200 words on him and mentions how he has returned to the pinnacle of world sports ... Telford, appointed area commander in January 2011, is one of a handful of New Zealand police working at the Games. He was a New Zealand representative in the bobsled at the 1988 Winter Olympics which were held in Calgary – of course, the coverage covering someone doesn't have to cover a certain aspect of someone's life to count towards notability, as long as there's a topic that's reasonably encyclopedic. Additionally, you state that If we were to go off the secondary sourcing that actually has substance, this would be an article about the administrative changes across four years in the career of a rural police chief, but there is no requirement anywhere that we must only get text from sources that cover someone in-depth – that's what WP:NBASIC is for. Also, on your point Should we also have articles on Telford's predecessor Fiona Prestidge, who has received at least as much coverage for her own career transitions? Or Telford's successors? – See WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:10, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  NBASIC does not accept trivial coverage, which all of the pieces from The Press are. Do you seriously think it's encyclopedic to write an article entirely from stats and rosters?? And the TDN article you cite has one sentence describing his time as an athlete--that is trivial. And the point of mentioning other police chiefs is to highlight the utter absurdity of applying your exact standards of coverage (and ignoring of NOTNEWS) to all subjects. JoelleJay (talk) 21:45, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  We're just going to have to disagree on whether the coverage is trivial or not, and that's OK :) – but anyway, collectively we've got several hundreds of words of coverage on Telford and some sources alone have 100-200 words focusing on him (i.e. more than that "In high school, [Bill Clinton] was part of a jazz band called Three Blind Mice"), so this does still in my opinion equal a pass of NBASIC. Also And the point of mentioning other police chiefs is to highlight the utter absurdity of applying your exact standards of coverage (and ignoring of NOTNEWS) to all subjects – I'm not applying the same standards of coverage to all of them; in fact, I would probably suggest deleting some of the other police chiefs if all the notability they had was holding said position: the thing is, were they all Olympians too? BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:19, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  And yet not a single source has anything more than a couple sentences on him about his sporting career, so why would it matter whether these police chiefs were Olympians? JoelleJay (talk) 22:12, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Because the Olympics is the pinnacle of athletic competitions and thus a topic on a competitor there is reasonably encyclopedic. BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:36, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  We have two global community consensuses that merely competing in the Olympics is not presumptive of SIGCOV and is not a valid guideline-based justification for keeping an article, and this is readily evident here where all of the newspaper coverage of Telford's bobsleigh and surf life-saving combined amount to ~150 words in contemporaneous sports news reporting. Presuming notability from being an Olympian when all (allegedly) GNG-contributing content comes from routine local coverage wholly unrelated to his sports career is not appropriate and predictably leads to a wildly imbalanced biography. JoelleJay (talk) 23:05, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  You're misunderstanding my comments: I'm not saying we should ignore consensus by keeping all Olympians solely for being Olympians; I'm suggesting that we should consider SIGCOV on an Olympian SIGCOV in accordance with SPORTCRIT and that the additional coverage can be counted towards NBASIC as explicitly called out by our notability guidelines (NBASIC). And this biography looks pretty well-balanced and high-quality to me – I'd say several times as good as the average non-medaling Olympian article; I don't understand why you try so hard to get the actually decent articles with some substance deleted rather than the many low-quality stubs that can't be improved. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:04, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep (e/c) Telford was notable under old Olympic participation criteria but those got changed a while ago. He's represented New Zealand internationally in bobsledding, surf lifesaving, and he held a high rank in the Police. None of those things by themselves make him notable, but when it's all combined, notability is shown. I suggest this is a perfect case study how WP:BASIC can apply. Schwede66 22:23, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  None of those things make him notable alone or combined in the absence of non-routine non-trivial coverage... There isn't a single non-trivial source on his sports career, so the emphasis on that is not DUE in this article. JoelleJay (talk) 22:16, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - I looked into Blair and it also turns out that he also played for New Plymouth Old Boys Rugby (here) and may have represented New Zealand rugby in some fashion abroad - see here and here.KatoKungLee (talk) 01:05, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Playing for some old boys team hardly adds to notability. is a 1 line mention. LibStar (talk) 00:20, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per BeanieFan. There is certainly enough non-trivial coverage to pass NBASIC. Frank Anchor 18:11, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Here is the coverage of his sports achievements:
  The Press, "The New Zealand Team" (routine announcement/roster):

  Blair Telford: Aged 22. New Plymouth. Four-man bob, crewman, two-man bob, reserve. Former leading surf life-saver.

  "" "Chch women surfers shine" (stats):

  3. Junior: B. Telford (New Plymouth Old Boys), 1

  "" "Six from Canterbury picked for surf test" (routine announcement/roster):

  B. Telford (N.P.O.B.)

  The Age, "Experience pays off for surf team" (routine event recap):

  But the close runner-up in both the sprint and flags events was World representative, Blair Telford, from New Plymouth in New Zealand. Telford, 18, had never before competed at the senior level in the flags event, but missed the Gold medal at Ocean Grove by a whisker. In the sprint, he pushed Peters closer than anybody else has for several years and led him for most of the 100 metres.

  The Press, "Surfing" (stats):

  Blair Telford (NZ)

  . "" "Taylor's Mistake takes third at surf titles" (routine event recap):

  Blair Telford, 4m clear at one stage for N.P.O.B., appeared to slow up at the line and look over his right shoulder and South Brighton's Anthony Dorreen nipped in the left-hand side to steal the gold.

  News Hub, "Beijing Winter Olympics: New Zealand at Winter Olympics 1952-2022" (list):

  Blair Telford (bobsled)

  The Press, "Nine chosen for Calgary" (routine announcement/roster):

  Blair Telford

  . "" "Sprinter in bobsled team" (list):

  a leading surf life-saver, Blair Telford

  "" "Kiwis finish training" (announcement/roster):

  ...the reserve team of Owen Pinnell and Blair Telford

  "" "Caribbean Cup to NZ pair" (event recap):

  Pinnell and crew, Blair Telford, thirty-first

  So please tell me how these ~150 words of independent coverage, almost 1/3 of which are just straight stats/rosters with the rest exclusively from primary event recaps, justify the nearly 600 words dedicated to Telford's sports career?? JoelleJay (talk) 22:54, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have never seen anywhere that states that you can only get content for articles from sources that are very in-depth on said subject; that would make NBASIC–our notability guideline for people–useless! BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:07, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. For example, a description of isolated events, quotes, criticisms, or news reports related to one subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. This is a concern especially for recent events that may be in the news. This is policy. Namedrops and passing mentions in a series of rosters/stats/recaps, especially when they're almost all from one newspaper, emphatically do not deserve coverage in an article. JoelleJay (talk) 16:33, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    • Competing at the Olympics and other major sports events is most certainly not a "minor aspect" of Telford's life... BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:10, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

      proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. If we don't have IRS to support the importance of this aspect relative to other aspects, it is not acceptable to emphasize it in the article. If all the sourcing says about his Olympic appearance is

      Blair Telford: Aged 22. New Plymouth. Four-man bob, crewman, two-man bob, reserve. Former leading surf life-saver.

      Blair Telford (bobsled)

      Blair Telford

      a leading surf life-saver, Blair Telford

      with all but the second from one local publication, then clearly we do not have sufficient coverage to warrant more than a brief mention in the article. JoelleJay (talk) 19:11, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

      • Then that's an editing issue and not a deletion issue. But considering the fact that we have enough to write a lot of decent content based on independent, reliable sources, then that shows that it satisfies the quote you listed. BeanieFan11 (talk) 19:26, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

        Material verifiably existing does not make it encyclopedic. The fact that no journalists have written secondary prose directly on him and his sports accomplishments is strong evidence that those aspects are not noteworthy and should not be the basis for his inclusion in Wikipedia. The coverage of his police career is further too routine to contribute to notability, since it's standard for that position to receive such local human interest/announcement coverage. Plus even if it was SIGCOV, it's all from one source. JoelleJay (talk) 01:32, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

        NBASIC exists for a reason... but we're getting nowhere here, so let's just leave it to other participants to determine whether Telford is notable. BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:36, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

        Again, NBASIC does not apply to trivial mentions. Every Olympics source above is a trivial mention. JoelleJay (talk) 02:56, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

        The fact that no journalists have written secondary prose directly on him and his sports accomplishments is strong evidence that those aspects are not noteworthy - that is one very big assumption. And it's likely a wrong assumption. Telford had his sporting peak in the late 1980s. There is exactly one New Zealand newspaper available online - The Press based in Christchurch (online up to 30 December 1989) - that covers that period. That The Press doesn't have anything extensive about him is of little surprise given that Telford was from New Plymouth; that's not even on the same island. There may very well be lengthy stuff available for him; we simply don't know about it as it's a matter of going to the relevant library and searching through microfiche records. I would be very surprised if the Taranaki Herald did not do some in-depth reporting on Telford back in 1988. Schwede66 01:47, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

        Even if Taranaki Herald did have in-depth reporting back then, it's still only one (local) source. SPORTSBASIC is also very clear that GNG be met and at least one SIGCOV source be cited in the article for any presumption of GNG to apply, with no exceptions for subjects that might have been covered by currently-inaccessible sources. This has been the norm at hundreds (thousands?) of AfDs on historical athletes in the last 1.5 years. Without such a source we shouldn't be making any presumptions about coverage existing. JoelleJay (talk) 02:55, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

        BTW the Taranaki Herald and Taranaki Daily News appear to be different papers. BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:57, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

        I agree with Schwede66's analysis. Paora (talk) 03:38, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• I'd note that The Age article goes on to say:

• "Telford's tenacity exemplified the enthusiasm and determination of the World team, despite their lack of experience in Australian conditions."

  Further, I'd note that the article "Kiwis finish training" says:

  "...the reserve team of Owen Pinnell and Blair Telford finished five days of official practice runs yesterday afternoon and will wait until the draw for the competition is made this morning. It is now likely that the second bobsleigh team will be allowed to compete in the actual two-day competion this week-end after providing satisfactory results in recent days."

  Moreover, the article "Caribbean Cup to NZ pair" discusses in some depth the discarded third run of Owen Pinnell in the two-man bobsled event at Calgary. It should be noted that Pinnell was the driver of the two-man bobsled in which Telford was the brakeman, so that the following excerpt also applies to Telford:

  "Pinnell was bemused, the victim of a draw which, in normal circumstances, should have been of great benefit to him. Starting last on the first day, he bore the brunt of a deteriorating track and lost at least two seconds. On Monday, he slid down the track in a time of 58.86 seconds to record the fastest time of 27 starters before the day’s competition was cancelled. Yesterday, when the competition was restarted Pinnell was again first away in the field, but ironically the ice track was slower than usual at the start and his time was almost three seconds slower, a problem the first dozen or so sledders faced before the track began to get faster. Pinnell says this is one of the oddities that sometimes happens in bobsledding, and it was most unfortunate that it had to happen in the Olympics. He says that while he is disappointed in finishing thirty-first, he is happy to have finished where he did considering the track conditions."

  Paora (talk) 10:51, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  None of those sentences are discussing Telford directly, as required by SIGCOV. JoelleJay (talk) 16:26, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  That's your opinion; I disagree. Paora (talk) 03:38, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  What do you think "directly" means? Because it certainly does not include passages where a subject isn't even mentioned. JoelleJay (talk) 17:17, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  That's your opinion; I respectfully disagree. "Telford's tenacity exemplified the enthusiasm and determination of the World team, despite their lack of experience in Australian conditions" directly mentions Telford. The passage "...the reserve team of Owen Pinnell and Blair Telford finished five days of official practice runs yesterday afternoon and will wait until the draw for the competition is made this morning. It is now likely that the second bobsleigh team will be allowed to compete in the actual two-day competion this week-end after providing satisfactory results in recent days." directly mentions Telford and explains how he got to compete in the two-man bob main event. While the passage from "Caribbean Cup to NZ pair" does not mention Telford by name, it is all about the two-man bobsled team of which Telford was half. That all seems pretty direct to me! Paora (talk) 09:28, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep I have just come back into the country and noticed this deletion discussion. Schwede66 is correct in stating that there will be more extensive coverage in national newspapers from the era about Telford that will need to be researched through micro-fiche. Even in a quick Google search he is still being mentioned in the media, Newshob ZB and Stuff for example. He will easily meet significant coverage, but this will require more time than I presently have available. NealeWellington (talk) 10:02, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  That sounds like a reason to draftify, because per global consensus his level of achievement cannot be used to presume coverage exists, especially when there is no single source of SIGCOV to meet SPORTSBASIC. JoelleJay (talk) 17:19, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep Good AFD nomination, probably a weak edge case at best regarding wp:notability but the amount of work done and sources found after the AFD nomination tips me towards a pragmatic weak keep anyway. North8000 (talk) 17:38, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  @North8000, which sources do you consider SIGCOV? Whether the subject is notable should be completely independent of the state of the article. JoelleJay (talk) 02:18, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  @JoelleJay: After an (only) medium depth look, none. So my pragmatic opinion violates the guidelines. I'm tired of people who can't be troubled to find and put in sources and instead do procedural wp:before whining at AFD. So when there is lots of work and source-searching and article-building done on an edge case article I tend to be biased. The closer should feel free to ignore me on that basis. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:42, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: JoelleJay has shared this AfD at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports) Garuda3 (talk) 19:04, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep This is really good expansion. And it appears that there already exists enough coverage to write a comprehensive account of the subject. --Enos733 (talk) 21:54, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  @Enos733 I'm curious whether it would matter to you if an expansion was done almost exclusively out of trivial/passing mentions? If an article can be constructed out of RS, does the fact that the coverage in sources consists only of the subject's name in a roster or next to a bare statistic then become irrelevant? JoelleJay (talk) 02:35, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  JoelleJay, this is your 16th reply, and you've now replied to six out of nine who !voted keep. BeanieFan11 (talk) 03:26, 12 September 2023 (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.