Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Moujhed Fahid Khalifa

Moujhed Fahid Khalifa

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Declined prod. All the sources are databases/results listing.

WP:NATH. LibStar (talk) 02:13, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply

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Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Sportspeople, Olympics, Sport of athletics, and Iraq. LibStar (talk) 02:13, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Specifically, today the Arab Championships have a C-class rating from WA. Geschichte (talk) 13:10, 12 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Geschichte, do you have an opinion on notability of this athlete? LibStar (talk) 06:43, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: inelig for soft deletion
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 08:51, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep – The athlete has a consistent career and not just a random Olympic competition. Svartner (talk) 16:31, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
With all due respect, "having a consistent career" isn't included in any notability guideline. Let'srun (talk) 15:59, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment From some forums, he does seem to be at least the best-performing all time track and field athlete from Iraq, do we call that best? To the point of searches, his name has been transliterated from Arabic in various other ways - and I'm not entirely sure the (OR?) Arabic rendering at our article is accurate. In quick search I've seen the first name also spelt Moujahed/Moujahid/Mujihid (generally, it does have a vowel in the middle), and the middle name spelt Fahd and Fahad. The Olympics website has him as Mujihid Fahad Khalifa [1]. Kingsif (talk) 09:23, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- What Arabic names have you used to search? BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:33, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  I've been using English Kingsif (talk) 21:44, 27 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  English forums calling him the greatest? Could you point me to any of them? BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:28, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CycloneYoris ^talk! 09:33, 28 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - We still need SIGCOV for a
WP:NSPORT pass, and none is present here. The Eastmain MENA database
has newspapers from this era, including Arabic-language newspapers, and covers this region, and there is no significant coverage of the subject in it. As has been discussed many times, news coverage in the newspapers of a dictatorship, which Iraq most definitely was in 1979-80, is very very different to the kind of coverage that US-based editors who have never experienced a dictatorship might expect.

And yes, the fact that even the name of the subject of this article is unclear is a good reason to be suspect both of Olympedia and the entire methodology behind the creation of these articles. It is the precise reason why articles should never have been created en masse based on what is ultimately a single source (albeit one repeated in many different places). We need significant coverage, in secondary sourcing, where people who know what they're doing have checked the facts already for us. FOARP (talk) 08:18, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"suspect both of Olympedia and the entire methodology behind the creation of these articles. It is the precise reason why articles should never have been created en masse based on what is ultimately a single source (albeit one repeated in many different places)." The original version of this article didn't cite Olympedia. Lugnuts didn't use Olympedia for his stubs. He used Sports Reference. Here is a 2020 Olympic article of his. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 12:48, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Olympedia is Sport-reference.com's Olympics database ported to another site. They are the same source. FOARP (talk) 13:11, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, he didn't cite Olympedia, he still cited Sports Reference. Sports Reference isn't reliable? ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 13:21, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The name is as equally unclear on Sport-reference.com as it is on Olympedia - these are the same source, the mistakes found on one typically being in the other. The Olympic Journal has their name down as "Khalifa, Mujhid Fahad" (see pages 57 and 611 of the pagination here) so why exactly they decided to second-guess that transcription of the name of the subject is not clear. Similarly it is not clear where the Arabic name came from (the suspicion is that possibly this might have been generated using Google translate or a similar tool by one of the volunteer contributors for sports-reference.com/Olympedia based on the romanised name). FOARP (talk) 14:42, 2 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. This has been up for almost a month, no one has been able to track down any SIGCOV or even settle on the Arabic name for him. JoelleJay (talk) 18:21, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Kingsif has apparently found modern sources calling him the greatest Iraqi athlete ever. He meets
WP:NATH multiple times over and set Arab records in his event. This is very clearly an instance where coverage exists: the issue is that we haven't even found his Arabic name – i.e. the name all coverage would be under. But assuming that Iraq wouldn't cover its greatest athlete ever is absolutely ludicrous. There's a source I located that appears almost certain to mention him: Al Batal Al Arabi's 80-page report discussing the 1979 Arab Athletics Championships, where Khalifa broke the Arab record and won gold. The thing is that the source doesn't allow for the text to be copied accurately, so we will need an Arabic speaker to find his name. I've also contacted the Iraq Olympic Committee about him, so hopefully they might be able to help. However, at the moment, deleting the article on Iraq's apparent greatest athlete who meets multiple points of NATH when we haven't even looked for coverage under his name is not a benefit for Wikipedia. Remember that regarding NSPORT, Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. This should be an exception – deleting this is not an improvement to the encyclopedia. BeanieFan11 (talk) 19:07, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply
]
I don't see anywhere that Kingsif claimed to find sources calling him the "greatest Iraqi athlete ever"??? JoelleJay (talk) 00:23, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Kingsif found internet forums, which are certainly not IRS. Let'srun (talk) 15:59, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: I had closed this as no consensus, but following a request on my talk page have relisted to allow further discussion of the sources presented. For closer, please allow a week for complete discussion.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Goldsztajn (talk) 08:38, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Thanks for re-opening Goldsztajn. Beanie has posted a source above, however this does not say what they claim it says: it is the in-house magazine of the Arab Amateur Athletics Federation (and so not independent of the topic), and it does not report on the 1979 Arab Athletics Championships. Instead it reports on a range of other minor competitions (e.g., school, police, military, marathons etc.) in the years 1979-80. It both doesn't have SIGCOV of the subject and wouldn't show notability even if it did.

The claim that the subject is considered Iraq's "greatest" just because they didn't make the finals in the Olympics in triple jump is the absolute purest OR. Online discussion forums are hardly a more sound basis for this claim.

WP:MUSTBESOURCES

is not enough.

pinging all previous participants so their aware of the relist: @LibStar, Geschichte, Svartner, Kingsif, BeanieFan11, WikiOriginal-9, and JoelleJay: FOARP (talk) 09:16, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If people remember him today as the greatest, that is an incredibly strong indication of coverage existing. Also incredibly strong indication is that he meets NATH multiple times over and set national records, Arab records, etc. Even if the magazine doesn't count, it does include his name, and if we can get an Arabic speaker to transcribe it then we'll know what to search for. As I said above, NSPORT makes it clear that it is a guideline that can be treated with common sense. Everything points to coverage existing. We haven't even looked at any newspapers from his era and haven't searched anything with his Arabic name, despite that being where all the coverage is. Would deleting this improve Wikipedia given how very little has been checked and how extraordinarily likely it is that he has extensive coverage? No, it would not. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:42, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just for clarification, aren't the modern sources that identified him as the "best-performing all time track and field athlete from Iraq" forums per this comment? Aviationwikiflight (talk) 18:47, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, reaffirming my delete position. The article is required by global consensus to cite a source of IRS SIGCOV, and that has not been identified. JoelleJay (talk) 00:21, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The Baghdad Observer is digitalised, although is not available via the Wikipedia Library; possibly accessible via US universities. Would likely have coverage of Iraq's participation at the 1980 Olympics. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 10:10, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In lieu of immediately identifiable sourcing, and given Baghdad hosted the 1979 Arab Athletics Championships where it would be extraordinary that there would be no coverage of a gold winning performance of an Iraqi athelete, redirect to Iraq at the 1980 Summer Olympics and once/if sourcing found, the redirect can be removed as the history will remain. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 10:19, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Unfortunately, I was unable to find any
WP:GNG. Let'srun (talk) 13:04, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply
]

Keep: Per found sources the person seems notable, with most of the sources in Iraqi offline sources. 95.98.65.177 (talk) 13:40, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What sources have you found? The source from BeanieFan is not independent as it was published by the Arab Amateur Athletics Federation. The only sources currently in the article are primary and do not provide
WP:SIGCOV. We cannot assume the sources exist, we must actually prove that they in fact exist. Let'srun (talk) 15:34, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply
]
There are no sources, it's just the continuous repeating of the same "there must be sources" mantra. Even if Beanie's source were independent (it isn't), it doesn't say anything about the subject anyway. FOARP (talk) 15:42, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What you have said is incorrect Let'srun. Sources need to be verifiable, yes, but they are not obligated to provide access or specific citations.
WP:NEXIST Ike Lek (talk) 01:50, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply
]
"Sources need to be verifiable" - OK, so what verifiable sources have been produced showing notability? Again, the answer is "none". We're not even clear what this guy's actual name is. FOARP (talk) 07:20, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is specifically not true for athletes, for whom there is a strong global consensus to require citation to a notability-contributing source in the article. JoelleJay (talk) 15:56, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Sportspeople, Olympics, Sport of athletics, and Iraq. Let'srun (talk) 15:36, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – In my opinion, closing it as no consensus was the correct decision. It may be renamed once more in a few months, but I'm against a forceful deletion. Svartner (talk) 04:18, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How does it meet the required citation to an IRS SIGCOV source? JoelleJay (talk) 15:57, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]