Talk:Nina Williams (climber)

Is she notable

This subject has never won any material competitions in bouldering and was never a first (or second, or third) female climber to reach a new boulder grade (i.e. she does not appear on this list). She is now past the peak of her career. Her refs are passing mentions for doing a female ascent of a non-notable boulder. Not sure she should have a blp. 78.18.240.139 (talk) 18:24, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

OK, I'll make the notability argument as I put up the original of this page a couple years ago. I think the source of disagreement lies in what the notability criteria are: namely your judgement of what makes an "important climber" as opposed to using Wikipedia:Notability for a person. The basic criteria are "received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject."

Your second statement, about her "refs" (coverage) gets at the heart of the matter: Is the coverage received significant, reliable and independent of the subject? Certainly the final two criteria are met. "Rock and Ice", for example, is not the personal publishing platform of Nina Williams and there are clearly multiple climbing journalism outlets that have covered her climbing career or featured her in some way (R&I, Climbing, Gripped, Outside). It seems obvious to me that the coverage is significant and more than a passing mention (which I would consider along the lines of "so and so did this awesome thing. Nina Williams was also there.") I'll point to this article as an example about Williams' FFA Ambrosia climb. Is Grandpa Peabody the non-notable boulder you were talking about (described by others as "iconic", with "world-class problems")? If so, I think you are downplaying the nature of the Ambrosia accomplishment, since it isn't a straightforward V11. Her work here was described in climbing media as potentially "one of the hardest free solos ever done by a woman" or "basically a 5.13 free-solo". She was also the featured climber in the REELROCK film, which seems like reasonably substantial coverage to me.

Overall, your criteria are too restrictive and counter to Wikipedia guidelines. Climbing is a diverse discipline and people become well known in the sport (thereby receiving media coverage) for many reasons, including pushing grades, first ascents, first female ascents, competitions, new route development, exploration, featured in advertisements and climbing films, and particularly daring acts (like free soloing or highball bouldering). Unless I am reading you wrong, you seem to think only comps and grades are relevant, even if there is significant coverage elsewhere for other activities.

...And if I still haven't convinced you :-P there is a formal process for arguing that an article should be deleted through Wikipedia:Articles for deletion where perhaps some more people could weigh in. Be4waugh (talk) 23:35, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks user:Be4waugh. When I came across this BLP by accident (I do a few climbing BLPs), it mentioned her being the "strongest climber of her generation". She would never be considered in this category, and would not even feature in a top ten list "of her generation" in the boulder category. The best RS (i.e. Outside, a proper climbing magazine) I could find on her that could approach WP:SIGCOV (for AfD), would be this: "Finding Flow: Nina Williams", but I notice that the article is a sponsored article by her sponsor Addidas (other interviews are lower-grade RS, small papers etc.)? The best RS I could find from a strong climbing magazine (interview aside), is this from Climbing: "Nina Williams Makes First Female Ascent of Ambrosia (V11) Highball", but that is by a climber/writer called James Lucas, who has been Nina's partner since 2013 (per "MEET THE POWER COUPLES OF THE OUTDOOR INDUSTRY"). In fact, a lot of Nina's other RS comes from Lucas' Climbing magazine, often under the authorship of "climbing staff". There is some other stuff, but it is smaller, and probably fed off the Climbing magazine copy (which is the most extensive on her). However, there are mentions of her highballs in other climbing RS like PlanetMountain, and she did feature in Reel Rock (who are a pretty popular video series). For some reason, females rarely appear in highballing (or free soloing), so she could be distinctive in that sub-category? In summary, I think there are enough threads here for a trimmed article, and how knows, she may do harder highballs that could attract further attention (Lisa Rands did her hardest climbing at 32, and Angie Payne was similar). If Nina highballs a V12 (or god forbid, a V13), then she will get a lot of independent national coverage. I'll come back and do some tidying up on this and let us see how things develop. 78.18.240.139 (talk) 21:38, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Good reply, I didn't know about the connection with Lucas/Climbing mag and agree that does put a dent in things. I'm learning all the time and getting more careful as I work on Wikipedia more. I'll look around, too, if I get some time and see what else there might be that is more independent.If I remember correctly, the "strongest female climber" was a quote from gripped mag (possibly referring to combination of mental and physical toughness as opposed to grade pushing). Highballs do tend to get some coverage for sheer daring and she is one of the few women doing those that I know of. The reel rock film got pretty wide coverage when it came out. This quote from them contextualizes how she stands out in climbing world "She is among the only women who climb elite-level problems that are 30, 40, even 50 feet tall", which gets at what you were saying about distinctive sub-category (side note: saw the film, thought it was pretty cool). Be4waugh (talk) 17:31, 10 February 2022 (UTC)