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Football criteria (WP:FPL)

I've made a post at [1] relating to the references needing to support the criteria wording, and would welcome wider NSPORT views. Please post any comments you have there. Thanks. Eldumpo (talk) 07:59, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Why are players noteable merely because they played for a team?

There are a large number of stubs on players that never accomplished anything interesting with their careers other than occupying a bench or playing in a couple of games. This is ridiculous. All of these articles should be merged into lists rather than having dozens of stubs that will never be expanded. Jtrainor (talk) 23:14, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who does expand stubs, I would say you are incorrect. WP:NOTPAPER, WP:IDONTLIKEIT and the like. Resolute 23:42, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The premise of notability criteria is not (in this case) that someone is important because he plays on a professional sports team, but that someone who has played on a professional sports team is presumed to be able thereby to pass WP:GNG. The efforts of many over the years to refine notability criteria are not aimed at parsing out subjective importance, but with the GNG in mind. If it bothers you that athletes and athletics receive what you might believe to be a disproportionate degree of attention in society, you should take the matter up with society. Ravenswing 05:47, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

If they got so much attention, we wouldn't have so many perma-stubs only cited to some statistic book site somewhere. This subject notability criterion is broken, and completely out of line with what might indicate GNG satisfying coverage. Gigs (talk) 13:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The stubs exist because no one has gotten around to expanding them yet. There is no deadline and I believe it has been proven that most of these stubs can be expanded with some minimal effort. Spanneraol (talk) 14:06, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The existence of stubs only proves that current editors don't have time or inclination. Not lack of notability. -DJSasso (talk) 14:17, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

It proves that someone had the inclination to add these in a bot-like manner. One of the goals of notability is resource management. We don't have the resources to manage hundreds of thousands of articles on non-notable topics. If we had unlimited resources, we wouldn't even need notability guidelines, verifiability would be enough. Gigs (talk) 14:43, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Stubs aren't a harm and are generally better than no article on a notable person. Notability isn't about resource management. Equating the two is ridiculous. Just because something is a stub doesn't make it non-notable. -DJSasso (talk) 14:45, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

There are many that would disagree with you about the potential harm of having hundreds of thousands of stubs on living people that are poorly trafficked and poorly watched. Gigs (talk) 14:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

There certainly are. Doesn't mean they are right. I've seen numerous arguments about it when the whole BLP cleanup was taking place where people stated that. But the numbers almost always showed that it wasn't true that those pages were a problem. -DJSasso (talk) 14:57, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I cleaned up many personally, and I resented having to deal with thousands of abandoned non-notable and non-deletable sports person stubs. These articles are a burden on the entire community. Gigs (talk) 15:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

And there is the real argument you are making. WP:IDONTLIKEIT. No one made you clean up sports articles you didn't want to work on. Having to clean up articles and articles being a harm are two very different things. -DJSasso (talk) 15:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I think you may need to re-read what that shortcut points to. I don't like it because it's counterproductive to creating a maintainable encyclopedia. Not because of some arbitrary personal preference. Gigs (talk) 17:32, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec)In theory, everyone listed in the various baseball encyclopedias would have an article here. The line is drawn at the major league level. If someone is a career minor leaguer, they might make the list if they've been highlighted in publications about stars of the minor leagues. The baseball project decided that anyone in the majors, from Ruth on down to Joe Schlobotnik, is considered "notable". If you want to start excluding some major leaguers, where is the line to be (re-)drawn? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:15, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

You "resent having to deal with" sports stubs? I'm absolutely with DJSasso ... who forced you to do so? Does your paycheck get docked a dollar a week for every hundred stubs on Wikipedia? If the mere presence of stubs offends you, that suggests you're taking the project way too seriously. Ravenswing 16:04, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The GNG, plus the addition generalized criteria of NSPORTS for awards and top competitors, are sufficient; the baseball project (or any sports project) should not decide alone outside of global consensus for what is appropriate to include, else that creates a walled garden. Requiring significant coverage (this is more than just stats, box scores, and a simple biography) would easily keep the first and likely second-string players for most teams. --MASEM (t) 15:22, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I imagine you'd be badly dismayed by the result. You can find "significant coverage" in the way of solid articles, from multiple sources, for prominent high school athletes who would never come anywhere close to meeting NSPORTS notability criteria. Ravenswing 16:04, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Notability is about resource management as to maintain the facet that WP is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Stub articles on athletes that played a few pro games but otherwise had nothing outside of that career of note is indiscriminate. We want to put any topic in perspective of the larger world view, not to have a Who's Who of sports. It's well recognized that sports does get a disproportionate amount of coverage in sources, and it's about time that we address that issue to make inclusion for sports for appropriate for a general encyclopedia. --MASEM (t) 15:13, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

No indiscriminate would be having articles on any person who ever played a sport at any level right down to the backyard. Our criteria here clearly discriminate the articles to only those athletes who meet it the criteria. Indiscriminant doesn't mean any articles that I feel are too minor in notability, indiscriminant means there are no discriminating factors. All of the criteria in this list are ways of discriminating who is notable vs who isn't. People like to through indiscriminate around far too easily.-DJSasso (talk) 15:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

"Played a pro game" is more discriminate than "any player ever", but it is still far too indiscriminate since we're talking on the order of tens of thousands of articles on athletes. This has been a problem with even the revised NSPORT is that this seems to be something decided by the various sports projects as the appropriate level but without consultation of the rest of the encyclopedia. Again, if it is recognized that this is supposed to be on the way to showing GNG coverage, I'm not sure this criteria works. Stats + simple bio are not significant coverage for a full article. --MASEM (t) 15:22, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually the vast majority of the criteria on this page was put to RfC with the entire wiki being involved/invited. Did many of them start as project guidelines, sure. But most have passed scrutiny of the wider community by being developed on this page. Just like any other guideline on the wiki. -DJSasso (talk) 15:25, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

It was this RFC, which only just passed based on !votes from under 50 editors, and looking at names involved, it clearly was pro-sports-based editors vs the more general crowd. Further, consensus can change and given that guidelines have been added to this for smaller sports since that RFC, its not clear if this guideline continues to have global consensus. --MASEM (t) 15:33, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

50 is large for a RfC and if people choose to not take part then that usually means they don't actually care or are fine with letting those who do take part figure it out. Yes consensus can change. And that is what discussion on this page is for. But most if not all of those new guidelines that were added were discussed on this page where anyone can take part. Lack of objection does mean consensus. -DJSasso (talk) 16:03, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Masem: To be clear, are you proposing that classes of articles that meet GNG but fails resource management (i.e. exceeds some TBD threshold of stubs) are not notable? Or are you saying that some athletes in some specific sports/leagues are not generally notable for playing a few pro games?—Bagumba (talk) 15:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm saying that most of these stubs can only be expanded to a point where they fail the GNG - they may give a bio of the player (hometown, school, amateur sports prior to pros) and then give some stats for the player for whatever pro game(s) they played. But none of this is secondary coverage that transforms the information into why this player is notable. We're an encyclopedia, and our purpose is to try to put into context why we cover a topic, not just to data dump information and say "there you go". --MASEM (t) 16:25, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

It might be true for some sports. However, for sports leagues I am most familiar with—NFL, MLB, NBA—1 pro game is a very reliable indicator that enough coverage from national news sources (ESPN, SI, CBSSports, NBCSports, USA Today, Sporting News, etc) is out there along with local newspapers that cover their hometown, college, and pro team to meet GNG. The fact that the article has not been expanded with said sources is a matter unrelated to notability. It could be that the "one pro game" is applied to other sports that dont receive enough coverage to presume notability. Those should be discusses on an individual basis.—Bagumba (talk) 16:37, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The only data guaranteed for being selected for a pro team like the MLB or NFL and playing one game is a short bio and box scores. That's not meeting our notability standards that we expect for any other BLP. In fact, this is completely against WP:BLP1E. --MASEM (t) 16:44, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

If the minimum bar is guaranteed notability and not presumed notability, then we would do away with all SNGs. For that matter, even GNG only presumes notability. It is a strong presumption that more can be written than a short bio on athletes in the the leagues I referred to if someone used both online and offline sources. Even for player that only played one game, there is almost always stories on their childhood and family, an overview of their career after some amateur award/honor/remarkable game/season, and writeups before/after a professional draft.—Bagumba (talk) 17:00, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

No, that's not what I'm saying. I am saying, first off, that if an athlete plays in a pro sport, they are likely assured exactly what you say: bio-like info such as hometown, schooling, etc, as well as their stats at the pro league and possibly amateur/college level leagues. That's great primary information but far from secondary. That is information appropriate for a "Who's Who", but not for an encyclopedia (WP:NOTWHOSWHO). We need to know what contribution that player did for the sport or his team - pro or otherwise - that is more than just being there and showing up and playing games - otherwise we're just repeating primary data that is not sufficient for the GNG. Certainly there's a good fraction of pro players where this isn't going to be a problem - typically those that play first string or leadoffs or whatever else as the team's forerunner players, who will get even further coverage. But this wouldn't be anywhere near all of the players of this type. The reason that SNG criteria exist is that, with some exceptions, meeting the criteria should eventually lead to meeting the GNG, and thus we can presume notability from that. With the current "played one pro game", that is not an assurance - the amount of players that fall outside that is beyond what would be considered exceptional cases. That's basically why it is a bad criteria that is far too inclusive. --MASEM (t) 17:29, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Except that what you call "primary" information (assuming it comes from non primary sources) is all that is needed to show why someone is notable. In these cases the "why are they notable" is that they made it to the major leagues. The rest is the information that fills out their bio. The schooling, amateur teams, endorsement deals or whatever. It is exceedingly rare that a player who played one game would not be heavily covered in various news articles or magazines etc. Heck even colour commentary is considered a reliable source and if they go in depth enough would satisfy GNG. Most athletes are notable looooong before they get to the one pro game point. If anything most of the standards should probably be lower. But I am fine with them where they are. -DJSasso (talk) 17:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

But that fails our overall general notability guidelines. Just because there's a verified bio doesn't make a person notable. (otherwise, I suspect we could have several billion people listed on WP simply through verified information on their history, and that's certainly not going to happen). Bio + school + box scores does not make for secondary coverage.

The problem starts from the fact that sports are disproportionally covered compared to any other field. What we have to realize is that most of that coverage is extremely duplicative. Every major paper in one nation will publish box scores for every pro game for leagues in that nation, but typically only the local papers will give more commentary about the home team. A lot of sports coverage is primary, and thus not suited well for notability. If the end goal of allowing a presumption of notability by a criteria we need to expect that significant independent secondary coverage will come about. This is absolutely not an assurance granted by "the playing of one pro game". I can see more specific criteria such as "playing a majority of the games in one season on a team's primary roster" as being more applicable, but even then I'm not sure. --MASEM (t) 17:49, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

No one is saying box scores are enough. We are saying biographical articles are enough. Anyone who has played one game in the major leagues has had entire biographical articles about them at some point. Every player who has ever made the major leagues was a star at some lower league they were in which is why they made it to the major leagues. And when they were a star in that league it is very likely probably 99.9999% likely that they had an article written about them. That isn't primary. I am more familiar with the 4 major sports in North America, and I can say without question for current players anyone who is drafted into the NHL (and I assume its the same for the other 3 more popular leagues) get major coverage across the continent. Their local paper will have a bio article about them, the paper in the city whose amateur team they play on will have a bio article on them, and the NHL city they will have been drafted into will have an article on them. Not to mention the many national papers and magazines that cover the draft. This goes for every single player drafted. And that is only in regards to the draft. Nevermind their junior career or the minor leagues they play in after that before even stepping onto the ice in the NHL for a single game. At which point they probably have an article written about them in the NHL city for having been called up for the first time. (later callups probably don't get articles but the first one almost always does). So yes it is exceedingly rare that players in the top league in their sport don't already far pass GNG. Usually before they even play a game. -DJSasso (talk) 17:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Local papers are not independent in considering sports coverage (local towns/cities have a vested interest to cover players on teams in those towns). This is why NSPORTS explicitly excludes amateur/high school sport athletes that only have local coverage. And I've seen past articles from sources like ESPN and SI on the NFL draft lists, but outside of maybe the first round picks, most of the brief sketches they give are far from significant coverage. --MASEM (t) 18:02, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Local papers are most certainly independent. Their information is not written by the athletes. They are not owned by the athletes or their teams. There is absolutely no guideline that says local papers are not independent (though I know you have been trying to get that added to gng for some time.) What they are covering is notable in their area. We don't require things to be notable on a worldwide scale to be notable. They just have to have articles in multiple sources that are independent. Local papers are independent as they are not owned or paid by the players being covered. NSPORTS excludes it for highschool athletes because they often have a section called highschool athlete of the week etc which is usually just a puff piece and is considered routine. Very different from actual reporting. -DJSasso (talk) 18:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes they are dependent. If they give disproportionate coverage to the local team over all other teams, then they are intrinsically biased. This doesn't make them workable sources, but it does make them unusable for notability. And yes, we actually require more than local coverage for notability, otherwise, for the same reasons you are stating, any local restaurant that has been reviewed in a local paper is suddenly notable (which has been soundly denied). The same logic applied to local high-school sports works for local pro sports coverage. And I would consider the typical coverage of pro sports by local papers extremely routine, because it is simply is expected to happen, so that logic doesn't work either. --MASEM (t) 18:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't enter into it. Art magazines give more coverage to Art than they do to business, does that make all Art magazines dependant to artists? No of course it doesn't. Just because a paper covers happenings in its area more than others that doesn't mean they are dependant, that just means their scope is a certain subject area. (in the case of newspapers a geographic region). A single local paper reviewing a restaurant wouldn't be multiple sources now would it be? Enough strawmen already. -DJSasso (talk) 18:34, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(e/c) Djsasso, that's not really how notability works at all. Significant secondary source coverage is not optional. Gigs (talk) 17:50, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say it was optional. I was talking specifically about what he called primary. But a newspaper writing a biographical article about an athlete is a secondary source. He is claiming that isn't good enough. -DJSasso (talk) 17:51, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Third party source is not the same thing as secondary source. A secondary source provides significant analysis and commentary (more than trivial passing mention, but not necessarily an entire article devoted to the subject). Publishing of statistics or basic player biographical information does not make a source secondary. Gigs (talk) 17:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. Too many people make that confusion. Secondary sources require some original transformation of the information such as critical analysis or synthesis; for athletes, I would expect this to be why they are considered a good or bad player, or the like. A bio sketch from a source that simply repeats facts is either primary or tertiary, but not secondary. --MASEM (t) 17:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Again I didn't say a stats database or simple list of hometown etc. I said a secondary source. Don't assume I was confusing things. A bio article talking about a player is a secondary source. No critical analysis is required. We only require that it talks about the subject in detail. You may want it to do those things, but WP:GNG does not require it. -DJSasso (talk) 18:03, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

You are very mistaken. Secondary sources require transformation of information, and is required by the GNG. This is not saying all bios are not secondary; if, as part of a bio, a reporter interviews a player and asks what their inspiration was for playing the game, that's becoming secondary. But listing hometown, parents, schools, etc. does not for secondary information. --MASEM (t) 18:06, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

A Q&A is different than a biography. -DJSasso (talk) 18:13, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(e/c again heh) Critical analysis is the defining characteristic of secondary source. WP:PSTS puts it roughly like "makes analytic or evaluative claims of information from primary sources" (paraphrased). Gigs (talk) 18:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

No critical analysis is different than making analytic or evaluative claims. Writing about a person's career would be analytical. And things like "inspiration was for ..." are primary. -DJSasso (talk) 18:13, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Hahaha. Here come the usual whiners with the usual WP:IDONTLIKEIT arguments! Gigs - there are Hall of Famers with stub articles. The mere fact that an article is currently a stub is not evidence of a lack of notability. Resolute 16:11, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem isn't stubs, it's non-GNG-notable sports people. The articles are often. but not always, stubs, but that's not really the issue. Gigs (talk) 17:32, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

A point to be made here is that even if we accepted that the criteria of playing one pro game would lead to GNG coverage, this fails WP:NOT, as we are not to be a Who's Who-type directory. In considering all other BLP notability criteria, the inclusion is nearly always for the exceptional - not every actor, not every musician, not every politician, not every academic, etc., even considering what the "top tier" is for those professions. There are more people of said professions left out of WP than what are included. But this is completely opposite for NSPORTS due to this one statement. The "exception" are rare cases of players brought to the pro level but never step out on the field (like third-string pitchers or special teams). That simply doesn't fly. As WP:NOT is policy, it outweighs the GNG, and stresses why this is a bad criteria. --MASEM (t) 18:11, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

You mention "the inclusion is nearly always for the exceptional - not every actor, not every musician, not every politician, not every academic, etc., even considering what the "top tier" is for those professions. There are more people of said professions left out of WP than what are included.". To use hockey numbers since I know them. 572,411 in Canada and 500,579 in the USA play hockey in an organized fashion every single year (not to mention other countries). The NHL only has 750 players in a given year. That is 0.0007% of people playing ice hockey in a single year are able to have an article on the wiki. That is extremely exceptional. -DJSasso (talk) 18:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I just edit conflicted on the very same point. But Masem knows this. He's been told it before. That has never stopped him from wasting everyone's time with his disruptive WP:IDHT attitude. Resolute 18:29, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing disruptive about pointing out that your guideline is incompatible with community-wide policies, and continuing to point that out until it's changed to match community consensus. Gigs (talk) 18:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

It is when its been continuously pointed out by numerous people over and over again that it does actually match community-wide policies. -DJSasso (talk) 18:35, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Have you taken a look at WP:BLP, WP:NOT, WP:OR, WP:RS, and even WP:N lately? These things aren't completely static, and from some of your earlier claims about what you thought a secondary source was, I think you may be surprised at what you find. Gigs (talk) 18:42, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Have you? You seem to quote them without actually knowing them. -DJSasso (talk) 18:44, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:IDHT, WP:TE, WP:POINT, WP:DEADHORSE, WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Resolute 18:45, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Dude, this isn't the first go around with either of you. Masem especially likes to waste everyone's time re-arguing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again because he simply won't accept that Wikipedia is not bending to his personal world view. We have several alphabet soup acronyms to describe this, and most involve the words "bad faith". Especially since we all know that when he fails this time, he's just going to be right back whining about it again in a couple months. Resolute 18:45, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Well then maybe we should have a widely advertised RfC to settle it. I don't think anyone here is acting in bad faith. Gigs (talk) 19:02, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not playing "I don't hear that". I'm heavily involved in notability throughout WP, and that means I know how it should be normalized across all topics. NSPORTS is the only area that has a disproportionate coverage because of these claims that playing a pro game makes one notable. That would fail every other bio topic area (eg: acting in one movie, playing at one concert, etc.) were it applied there. WP is exceedingly disproportioned to sports coverage, which is far from its academic goals. I'm not saying we remove it all, that would be stupid and coverage of sports can be academic. But there are very valid reasons to readdress why the amount of athletes that are included is way off the mark. --MASEM (t) 18:50, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

But playing one game isn't the equivalent to acting in one movie or playing at one concert. It is the equivalent of being nominated for the Oscar to use your movie example. You make it to the NHL you are the top of your field just like an Oscar nomination. Acting in one movie would be the equivalent of playing in some 8th level from the top hockey league. -DJSasso (talk) 18:55, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you most certainly are playing "I didn't hear that". And yes, I know you are heavily involved in debating notability criteria. But that does not make you an authoritative source on it. Nor does it make your personal POV on the matter any less of a personal POV. I'm sorry that the world cares far more about sports than you do. But your disappointment with society's priorities in this regard does not justify all of this time wasting. Resolute 18:57, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

To be clear, my goal isn't to reduce our coverage of sports people, it's to reduce the number of articles we have on non-notable sports people. They can continue on as redirects to merged articles as far as I'm concerned. Gigs (talk) 19:05, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Sure. And if you (not you specifically, but the "we have too many athlete bios" crowd) start applying arguments using a fine point rather than a broad brush, then productive debate might become feasible. But it should be obvious by now that I (and likely most) simply will not accept an argument that making it to the very top levels of a sport is not notable. It's like saying not every president/prime minister is notable. Resolute 19:14, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

How is it anything like that? My argument is that "being on the roster for at least one fully professional game" is not an accurate indicator of GNG satisfying coverage. Being elected president of the United States is clearly a 100% accurate indicator of GNG satisfying coverage. Gigs (talk) 19:26, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry Gigs, I didn't see this given Masem's blather. I would note that for most sports, the criteria is not "being on the roster for at least one fully professional game." If that were the case, we could create many thousand more hockey bios - let alone other sports (cough, baseball, cough). We've typically set the bar at one game at the highest levels of the sport. Likewise, being elected to the top post in a nation is the pinnacle of for a politician. The farther down the ranks one goes politically, the less likely one is to have articles. In both cases, all at the top are notable and have articles, but the level of coverage drops the farther you get from each profession's pinnacle. Resolute 20:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

We have to filter what sources are available to make an academic encyclopedia. Sports are very low tier on that, though certainly not excluded, while on the other hand, world politics is pretty damn high. We are not saying that athletes shouldn't be covered, but the metric for inclusion needs to be on par with all other professions, and the problem is that is completely opposite with the metric far too easy for athletes whereas every other career can't, based on the reasoning that there's past sources pre-pro career that can be used. But that's part of the systematic bias of available sources that we need to fight against to maintain the academic work - we know sports is covered up and down the entire career spectrum because it's popular, but that's doesn't make it academic. --MASEM (t) 19:21, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually we don't have to. We are supposed to reflect reality. We write about what the world writes about. If they write about 10 athletes for every 1 scientist then we are supposed to write about 10 athletes for every 1 scientist. To do otherwise goes against our very core mission statement. We aren't supposed determine what we include based on our own personal view. We are supposed to reflect how the subjects are covered outside the wiki. That you want an academic wiki is obvious and admirable, but we aren't just an academic wiki. We also cover pop topics that are notable. -DJSasso (talk) 19:26, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually yes we do, per WP:BIAS. Within a notable topic, we should reflect what sources give us about that topic, but in organizing the entire WP, we need to counter whatever bias we can. And yes, we are an academic wiki, designed to provide education content. Certainly overall concepts of sport are academic, and certainly there's a lot of players that are appropriately notable from an educational standpoint. But it is very hard to accept that any player that has touched the field once in a pro game is an educational topic. --MASEM (t) 19:35, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:BIAS is an essay. Neither a policy nor a guideline. And you realize that link doesn't say anything about being an academic wiki right? That being said I said we aren't just an academic wiki. -DJSasso (talk) 19:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Good effing god, Masem. The mission statement is to educate. Not to educate only on what you personally prefer. Resolute 19:43, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

One of the bigger problems here is that what you desire Wikipedia to be is not what Wikipedia is in reality. It is not an academic encyclopedia. It is a general encyclopedia. Which, per WP:5, "incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers". And let me tell you friend, I have an impressive collection of sports almanacs. Not to mention books, magazines and miscellaneous materials. Your argument that Wikipedia is an "academic encyclopedia" is personal POV. Your argument that sports are a "very low tier" is personal POV. Your view that the metric is not reasonable is personal POV. As always, these arguments come down to the plain, simple fact that you just don't like it. Resolute 19:32, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(ec)And as for our mission from WP:5P "It incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopaedias, almanacs, and gazetteers." So part of what we are is an almanac. You know what is a popular type of almanac? Sports almanacs which cover lots of stuff about players. There are also specialized sports encyclopaedias which do the same. -DJSasso (talk) 19:45, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

To both, we include elements of almanacs, so no, we are not an almanac but can include the approach to material they do. So it is completely reasonable for a notable player to include their career stats, a common almanac piece. But we're not including a full sports almanac as we are a tertiary source and should summarizing the major points of such works. Furthermore, you may think I'm placing sports too low, but if that, you are placing it on a pedestal - when you compare getting into the pros as equivalent to winning an Oscar, that's a bogus argument. We need our coverage of sported to be aimed to educate and direct people to additional sources, not to be the only place they have to look. For athletes we need to explain why they are culturally significant, and not just a who's who, which is what most of these articles look like now. The only way to get away from that is to apply stricter standards than just stepping out onto the field for a pro game; we do that for every other biographical article, sports are not exempt from that. --MASEM (t) 19:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we include elements they do. Such as articles about players which you seem to want to cut down to almost nothing. In terms of coverage, yes getting to the major leagues is the equivalent of being nominated for an Oscar. You are considered the top 0.0007% of athletes in your sport if its hockey. That isn't a Who's Who. A who's who would be having an article for anyone who has ever played hockey including your neighbour down the street. In most cases athletes are culturally significant because they play in the NBA, NFL, MLB, or NHL. Just look at how much our culture is affected by players who play in those leagues. Really its clear that you just don't like sports and would rather they be stripped from the wiki. -DJSasso (talk) 20:00, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

No it is not. Getting a starring role in a major release motion picture would be the closest equivalent, while counter, the equivalent of getting an Oscar would be receiving an MVP. Every professional career has a great deal of work behind it to get to the top tier; the only difference with sports is that because of its entertainment value, there's coverage of the lower rungs of the ladder to get to the upper one. But we have to recognize that most of that coverage is routine and local, and itself rarely suitable to meet notability by itself. I'm not interested in removing sports coverage form WP, I'm interested in moderating it to the level which every other topic in WP has figured out how to do. (for example, if we were to succumb to our readers' wishes, we'd have full-bore coverage of fictional works - every episode, every character, every plot device its own article. But the various fiction projects know how to recognize what is actually notable and reduce the coverage to a more academic level to explain how the fiction influences culture, instead of just filling as much space as they can). There is plenty of room for athletes on WP, but we have to look to what their significance is on the overall sport and culture, and not just include them because they happened to be on the field. --MASEM (t) 20:10, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Again, your entire argument is your personal POV. If you want to fork this project and start Masempedia with rules that suit your personal viewpoints, go right ahead. The rest of us would like to get back to improving this encyclopedia. Resolute 20:02, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I did say "Top tier" yes? That means, of the 750 current NHL players, how many have articles. I suspect that the number is close to 700 if not near 750. That's far from exception. --MASEM (t) 18:50, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The NHL is the top tier. There are many levels below it. The exceptional people are the people who make it to the NHL. That is the problem you seem to be having. For sports you want the exceptional of the exceptional to only have articles. That isn't how it works. Just making it to the NHL is the exception. Its the equivalent of having a Top 10 billboard hit to use musicians as a comparison. You wouldn't call someone who had a top 10 billboard hit not-notable because there was someone who had a #1 hit. -DJSasso (talk) 18:55, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

What constitutes the "top tier" of United States Presidents? What percentage of those have articles? Your ridiculous arguments can be applied to anything. Resolute 18:57, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:NOTWHOSWHO says "Even when an event is notable, individuals involved in it may not be. Unless news coverage of an individual goes beyond the context of a single event, our coverage of that individual should be limited to the article about that event, in proportion to their importance to the overall topic." While the SNG criteria for an athlete is based off of an event such as playing a pro game, the implication is that the person's career is notable and that there are multiple sources of significant coverage from independent secondary sources beyond just trivial or routine coverage of that one game.—Bagumba (talk) 18:23, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that there is no reasonable assurance that playing a pro game will lead to significant coverage of secondary sources. Constrast this to, say, winning a major award like a Nobel or Oscar, where we know there will be coverage of why they won that award, and furthering that, what their career had done to lead up to that award.

Let me point out a problem here that I now see. As per Djsasso, the claim is that playing a pro game assures there will be past coverage of the player's career to that point. Wouldn't that occur as soon as they were signed onto the player's team? What act does stepping onto the field change that puts that line over the threshold of notability? Some pro-level box scores? Nope. Absolutely nothing new to the sourcing of the player has been guaranteed to have changed. The criteria is already flawed to begin with; it needs to be based on the pro career and not just being a pro. --MASEM (t) 18:50, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

It would likely also apply to just being signed. That is why we make it playing a game. The idea is to make the bright red line past the point where people are going to have enough coverage. That way we are closer to the 99.99999% accuracy we aspire to. As you are well aware the line isn't about being notable or not. They were chosen for the best possible bright red line to when GNG sources are almost 100% likely to be there which means likely a number of people who are notable are below the line.-DJSasso (talk) 18:59, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think the "playing a pro game" guideline is the key issue; the problem is a disagreement on what comprises notable, reliable, independent, non-promotional coverage. Although I can understand the desire to limit coverage of sports figures to those who are notable within the context of the sport's history, rather than compared to the population at large, for better or worse, Wikipedia's version of consensus is not well-suited to reach an agreement on matters that require nuanced judgment. Your average non-baseball savvy reader, for example, won't be able to tell who has truly made a historic impact on the game, and even among baseball fans, there is a wide divergence of opinion (just look at the arguments on how big the Baseball Hall of Fame ought to be). isaacl (talk) 19:05, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

That's why we use the standard of having significant coverage in secondary sources. It's somewhat objective, and it limits us to the subjects that experts in the field have taken the time to publish analysis of. A side effect is that ensures that we will have material to write an actual verifiable encyclopedia article on the subject. NSPORT throws that standard out the window, and creates an arbitrary new standard that doesn't ensure we have source material to write a non-trivial article. Gigs (talk) 19:13, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

This notability guideline is not intended to throw the general notability guideline out the window. However, it was written with a specific interpretation of "significant coverage in secondary sources" in mind (that reflected consensus views at the time), and I understand that you disagree with this interpretation. If we can determine that there is a new consensus on how to interpret which secondary sources comprise significant coverage, then this guideline can be adjusted accordingly. isaacl (talk) 19:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Masem and Gigs simply think sports isnt as important as other subjects and thats fine.. but this is not an "academic" encyclopedia... and the page views of run of the mill athlete pages I am sure are significantly higher than those of even the most well decorated scientist. There are people who want to research the history of their sports teams and find out about the people that played for the team.. Having a complete record of the players is desired and notable. I don't know why we have to keep debating the same thing with the same people over and over again.Spanneraol (talk) 19:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Notability cares not for page views or popularity or usefulness. --MASEM (t) 19:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

If you just want a boring elitist academic encyclopedia that no one reads or cares about except academics, which does seem to be your goal, perhaps you should go somewhere else? Spanneraol (talk) 20:02, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The irony here is that when Masem isn't attempting to destroy the work of others and actually edits productively, his personal obsession seems to be video games. I would love to know why we need over 20 articles on Guitar Hero when not a single one would fit an "academic encyclopedia" on the extreme end of his POV, while even the most liberal application of Masem's arguments would necessitate the deletion of all but one or two. Resolute 20:09, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Because... each happen to clearly meet and surpass the GNG, explaining why they are important to the culture of video games and beyond, and don't rely on a trivial criteria to include? --MASEM (t) 20:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

In short, because you like video games and hate sports. Gotcha. Resolute 20:17, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

That is absolutely not what I said. They pass the GNG clearly. Ergo, an article on them is appropriate. The situation here is different because no one has shown how "playing one game" assures GNG passage eventually. If a sports player clearly passed the GNG, I'm not going to stop its inclusion. --MASEM (t) 20:29, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Given you have also tried to argue above that GNG is irrelevant since you feel athletes also fail NOT, I'm not about to take that statement at face value. But face the facts, Masem. If this really was the "academic encyclopedia" that you claim when trying to hold athlete bios to your personal standards, there would be no room here for most of what you do either. Also, this situation exists here because you have failed to show that the guidelines actually are set too low. We've had RFCs, we've established consensuses. But, since you prefer to ignore anything that doesn't fit your world view, here we are, barely three months after the last time you whined about this. Resolute 23:03, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

There's been exactly one RFC (which was not a significant majority), and every discussion since is slanted towards the sports project by the very nature of this page. I didn't say athletes failed NOT, I said that the criteria as given creates a situation where the whole fails NOT because there's no discrimination outside of "playing pro sports". The standards for bios of athletes are no different for the bios of any other person that we expect to be notable - it's not just being verified details on the person, but a statement of impact of what that person has on their field and putting it into the larger context of mankind's knowledge. I don't think I've failed, because there are people that agree me here, it's just that I see no budging of the sports-interested people to meet the rest of WP's notability requirements which are much stricter. NSPORTS is broken in this aspect with the rest of the encyclopedia and it does need to be fixed. --MASEM (t) 23:20, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Yet more IDHT. It is funny that no matter how many times I tell you that your statement that NSPORTS sets the bar higher than "just played pro sports" is wrong, you keep ignoring it. But then, having to face reality and argue against reality would really ruin your argument, wouldn't it? When push comes to shove, NSPORTS isn't one SNG, but a collection of many. For WP:NHOCKEY, one of the bars is "played one game at the highest level", not simply "played pro". Though I am sure you will just pretend, yet again, that this fact was never stated to you and continue with your tedious, disruptive and disingenuous arguments. Resolute 23:41, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

We are trying to develop a boring elitist academic encyclopedia; if you've followed the trends, we've dropped coverage of more popular topics in favor of building an academic work. --MASEM (t) 20:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Maybe that's YOUR objective.. but I find it hard to believe that the majority would be in favor of such a thing.Spanneraol (talk) 21:08, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

We don't use majority to decide what to include, we use consensus. It is very interesting to read through "suggestion box" new feature and find a lot of things that readers want to see that is completely contrary to WP's goals.

The overall problem is here is that compared to any other Wikiproject, all the sports projects have is a walled garden. The involved editors appear to want special coverage for the sport that excites them - I would expect that true for all volunteers, but I look to one of the projects I'm heavily vested in, video games, and I see editors trying to keep coverage with the norm of all other fields on WP, covering the topic with appropriate academic impunity. Yet, here, there's tooth and nail fighting to keep a line that is far above any other field. Everything else about sports coverage is generally well in-line with the rest of the work; it is simply the aggressive inclusion of athletes that gets in the way. --MASEM (t) 22:25, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

If a majority of people support a particular viewpoint, then that is a consensus. Spanneraol (talk) 22:48, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

No it does not. These discussions are not votes. --MASEM (t) 22:55, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The definition of consensus is "majority of opinion." Are you suggesting to redefine words now too? If 10 people have one opinion and 2 have another opinion, then the consensus is with the 10 not the 2, even if the 2 yell louder. Spanneraol (talk) 23:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(res to Jtrainer) I'm quite content with the sports notability criteria. As a gnome, if I were fully involved with sports bios, I'd relish the oportunity to expand all those stubs. GoodDay (talk) 22:26, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion for cleanup

I'd suggest any cleanup, if needed, be proposed on a sport-by-sport basis with supporting evidence presented that the criteria in this SNG for a given sport does not reasonably presume GNG being met. Throwing generalities around on either side of the argument for all sports has not been productive IMO.—Bagumba (talk) 19:27, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Thing is most of these have gone through that kind of discussion. But I am all for it. If there is one that people think isn't up to snuff lets take a look. I know that people who disagree with the guidelines are often asked to find articles that meet our guidelines but don't meet GNG and I can't think of a single time where we haven't found sources for whatever example they used. I think that is why many of us are tired with the constant complaining that they are too loose when people haven't been able to find examples to back up their case. That being said I am sure there are the odd one out there. -DJSasso (talk) 19:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

At least one of the AfDs that was started after the last flare up was kept on extremely weak sources. I can dig it up if you want. Gigs (talk) 19:33, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

So what you are saying is it had sources and was kept. Hmm sounds like exactly what the guideline said would happen. That sources would likely be found. -DJSasso (talk) 19:37, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

No, it was kept because of this guideline, not because of any significant secondary sources. Gigs (talk) 19:47, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Of course that is your opinion, but that says to me the article got saved from an over zealous deletion attempt when there was sources that could be found or were found since it appears to have had some. Thus if what you say is true the guideline did its job. -DJSasso (talk) 19:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

This guideline makes it unnecessary for anyone to search for sources. Gigs (talk) 19:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

One would be a start, but since NSPORTS is a presumption and not a guarantee of notability, one or even a few failed articles is not an indication that the presumption is invalid. A fair question, before getting into specifics then, is what minimally needs to demonstrated for an entry to be added or remain included in an SNG?—Bagumba (talk) 19:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

An SNG should offer a high degree of certainty regarding significant coverage that would clearly exceed the GNG in most every case of a subject meeting the SNG. It should not be indicative of some minimal level of coverage that usually wouldn't satisfy the GNG. Gigs (talk) 19:47, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

And that is what most people who are disagreeing with you are saying. We are not at the minimal level for most sports. We are far past the minimal level where in most every case the subject meeting the SNG will meet the GNG. If I wanted to go minimal for baseball or football I would certainly drop way below MLB or the NFL because football and baseball players have tonnes of coverage in college for football and the minors for baseball. So as a way to come as close as we can to a guarantee that the players who meet it are likely to have coverage we make the level the MLB or the NFL. -DJSasso (talk) 19:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

And you're wrong, again. You haven't shown where there is assured independent significant secondary coverage just for playing at sub-pro levels. Biographies are not secondary, stats are not secondary, local coverage is not independent. I'm not saying that players at sub-pro levels are never written about, but unless its NCAA basketball or BCA football (at least in the states) its rare to find the critical independent secondary sources needed. --MASEM (t) 19:56, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I kindly request again that we deal with individual sports and not lump generalities. As NSPORTS represent past consensus, it would seem reasonable for those proposing changes to provide evidence that a change is needed to a specific sport's guideline.—Bagumba (talk) 20:03, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Every time this debate comes up it has been shown. No one has been able to find articles that meet our criteria that can't have sources found and again if the odd one had been found, our criteria would allow for that since its a presumption not a guarantee and usually ones that don't meet GNG are deleted. Biographical articles are secondary and local coverage is independent as much as you don't want it to be. You can keep shouting that local coverage isn't independent if you want, but that clearly isn't the case and would in effect stop all topic specific publications from being sources. Because they would be dependant towards their subject because they gave preference to that subject and it was in their best interest to cover it. -DJSasso (talk) 20:07, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

That's not the case at all. Every time it comes up, those who support the guideline argue that things like census records, trivial one paragraph mentions in books, and sports statistics listings, or even "Find A Grave" somehow satisfy the GNG. Those things don't satisfy the GNG, not even considered together. So yeah, if you distort the definition of "significant secondary source coverage" enough, you can say that everything that meets this guideline meets the GNG. Gigs (talk) 20:12, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm a largely attended Rfd which only two people disagreed with keeping it. Seems to me like the community disagrees with you on what is significant secondary coverage. Things like a paragraph or two in a book are significant coverage. -DJSasso (talk) 20:17, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The Afd was advertised on this page after the first one or two keep votes. That was my point, that people who support this guideline are willing to move the GNG goalposts to make this guideline seem justified. Gigs (talk) 20:24, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

It's a circular reasoning problem - the article was kept because the "one game played" criteria. When challenged for GNG-type sourcing, !voters simply pointed to the "one game played" criteria. As long as that criteria is there, it will be impossible to delete any such articles. The question that needed to be asked was "If there was no "one game played" criteria, would this article still have been kept on the basis of all other policy/guideline?" That's a question that can't easily be answered from AFD. --MASEM (t) 20:31, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

And especially not such a biased AfD as Oxley turned out to be. Gigs (talk) 20:33, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

This is a general SNG problem, not NSPORT specific. When an SNG is clearly met, how is consensus gained to agree that an article that meets the SNG might still fail the presumption of notability, especially since most will cite WP:TIND. However, this specific AfD seems to have found offline sources that were added to the article. —Bagumba (talk) 20:43, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The sources only appear to be offline, it's a deception. They were found through Google books, and can be reviewed there. One is two paragraphs long and the other is a trivial passing mention that appears to be plagarized from the first book. I know I shouldn't assume bad faith, but they may have been made to appear to be offline so that people wouldn't review them on Google books and see how trivial the mentions are. Gigs (talk) 21:10, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Not sure if there was WP:Canvassing without looking thru all the relevant projects/editors history. In the future, it can be flagged in the AfD, or better still to notify all relevant missing projects.—Bagumba (talk) 20:43, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Hah Bagumba, I was the one who posted it to this page. I guess you could call it anti-canvassing, since I sabotaged my own AfD. I posted it here to illustrate how people blindly apply this SNG without even considering whether the subject meets the GNG or not. Gigs (talk) 21:11, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I wouldn't call posting to this project canvassing, as I see many arguments here where criteria are not blindly added. In any event, you were the poster :-)—Bagumba (talk) 21:34, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Gigs -- Your accusation above with respect to "deception" (in the Henry Oxley article) is inaccurate and might be interpreted by some as a "sour grapes" reaction to an AfD in which your view was outvoted by a 4-1 margin. Specifically, you wrote that there was "deception" in that the book citations were done in such a way as to make it appear that the books were offline. This is incorrect. I was the one who added the reference to the Peter Morris book, and I included the "isbn" number (see this diff) allowing anyone who wanted to do so to link to the google books version of the book. (Further, the newspaper articles all included url links.) As for the other book source, I have added the isbn number to the article. If you had a concern about a single source missing an "isbn" number, you could have told me (or fixed it yourself), but I do not believe it was appropriate to accuse another user of engaging in "deception" (particularly without informing me that you had made such an accusation). As for your further accusation of "plagiarism," a good faith effort was made to tell the "chest protector" story without using the same words as the book source. Where the precise words were helpful in conveying the story, those words were limited, placed in quotation marks, and cited to the book with isbn and page cites. That said, and in response to your concern, I have this afternoon added language to further clarify that the Peter Morris book is the source for the chest protector story. If you still believe the passage is inappropriate, let me know what you suggest. Cbl62 (talk) 23:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The accusation of plagiarism is not against you, I suggested that one book may have plagiarized the other one in retelling the same story. As for deception, I do think it's a little deceptive to not link to a Google Book result, but if you say it was in good faith, then I will take your word for it. I apologize if it came off accusatory. Gigs (talk) 00:13, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Repeating the accusation of deception and then apologizing if it came off accusatory is no apology at all. Cbl62 (talk) 02:14, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Revisited discussions

Since some have said that discussions here are repetitive, it might be good to put together a FAQ so we can build upon past discussions instead of merely rehashing them?—Bagumba (talk) 21:40, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Seems to me that a FAQ would give the status quo more perceived authority, and do little to combat those blindly citing NSPORTs and ignoring the GNG completely at AfD (since near the bottom of the lede it already warns against doing this). A FAQ that gave equal time to the detractors of the "only one drop of professional sports means pretty much automatic keep" wouldn't be fair either, since what the detractors argue does not reflect local consensus or established guideline wording. If we were able to have a very specific RfC on this, very widely advertised, than that might be something we could link to that may help reduce the redundant conversations. One problem with gauging "community-wide" consensus on this matter is that there are quite a few sports specialist editors, who generally, but not always, prefer the status quo. Gigs (talk) 22:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Ahh yes, poisoning the well is always a useful strategy. "The people who disagree with me clearly have a bias, which is a problem." I think we both know that we'll not reduce these redundant discussions, Gigs. People like Masem will never fail to rehash every chance he gets. It's an old strategy on Wikipedia: keep trying until you wear your opposition down and they just give up. Meanwhile, when I'm not forced to waste time defending my ability to write articles, I'm actually expanding these bios. As an example, There are about three of us heavily dedicated to articles on the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks. 74 players appeared in a game for either team last season. All have articles (naturally): 4 FAs, 26GAs, not a single stub. For the last five Flames' seasons, only five articles are still at stub status, out of 93 players. And I could expand all of them easily if I felt the need to place them next in my queue. 17 of those articles are GA/FA. Speaking as one of those sports specialist editors, I can assure you I can expand these articles. Resolute 23:30, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

FAQ or Rfc, either is acceptable. GoodDay (talk) 23:01, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

We really do need a second RFC to review the decisions made from the first one and what has resulted because of that. It has to be global since its a notability issue as well as in most cases involving BLPs. The RFC shouldn't just be "Is "playing one pro game" sufficient?" but needs to ask is it really a viable criteria that assures eventual GNG passing. Stating it this way will require those that want to keep it to show how the GNG can be assuredly met by that criteria, and those that want to get rid of it why it can't, instead of just saying "it's the status quo". --MASEM (t) 23:23, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I would like some time to gather some statistics before any RfC. Gigs (talk) 23:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I keep stats on my editing for Calgary Flames articles. Tell me what you want, and I can provide some for you. Also, Masem, You should be nowhere near the formation of any RFC on this matter. Your bias is far too evident. Resolute 23:32, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd like gather statistics on the number of sports people articles in total, the number of sports people BLPs in total, and the number of other people biographies/BLPs so we can get a handle on the scope of the problem. I think CatScan will crash if I try to do queries that large, so I may have to work from DB dumps. Gigs (talk) 00:27, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I think I can already see one potential thrust for your arguments: "Wow, there are way more athlete bios than other professions". But that is an already made and already defeated argument: There is considerably more coverage of athletes than most other professions. Also, this demonstrates a flaw with your broad-brush approach: I think we all know there are massive numbers of soccer bios. You would allow one or two sports to skew results which may result in non-representative conclusions for others. Resolute 00:41, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I think a FAQ would help avoid repetition in these discussions, and so save a lot of back-and-forth.

Regarding deletion discussions hinging completely on one criterion in a topic-specific notability guideline, perhaps someone has some suggestions on how to drive home the following text in the guideline with those evaluating the outcome of deletion discussions: "... the meeting of any of these criteria does not mean that an article must be kept. These are merely rules of thumb which some editors choose to keep in mind when deciding whether or not to keep an article that is on articles for deletion, along with relevant guidelines such as Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources."

Regarding an RFC, as previously discussed, I believe it would be best to address each sport individually, since most people do not have adequate expertise to evaluate all of the sports-related notability guidelines as a whole. As can be seen from past discussions, this approach has worked best in actually getting some changes agreed upon. isaacl (talk) 23:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I see no need to revisit this just because the same two editors are lodging the same complaints they have made before. Spanneraol (talk) 23:55, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Repeating ourselves doesn't seem very efficient, but if a specific issue or proposal for a particular sport is raised, then I think discussion can move forward, with the assistance of editors with the appropriate expertise to evaluate the necessary characteristics of reliable, notable, independent, non-promotional secondary sources in the topic area. isaacl (talk) 00:22, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I have a specific issue with every guideline that is used to keep articles for sports players at AfD based on their participation in a professional league without any regard to secondary source coverage. A sport-by-sport review can't address that. Gigs (talk) 00:27, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

It can, and if you are acting in good faith, it will. But it will take time. Your argument, basically, is that the SNGs have set too low a bar. A broad brush approach is a waste of everyone's time because it will be meaningless. You might get a few people who agree, you'll get a bunch who wont, and your best case scenario is a no-consensus outcome. Resolute 00:33, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

It's much easier to get agreement for one set of topic-specific guidelines at a time, rather than trying to bring everyone with knowledge of the characteristics of secondary source coverage for all sports into one conversation. My suggestion is to work towards improvements gradually; there's no urgency to try to change all of the guidelines at once. isaacl (talk) 00:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Gigs:If your issue is truly with secondary coverage, I'd suggest you frame any RfC on SNGs in general that indirectly presume secondary coverage. For example, WP:POLITICIAN is also based on politicians participation in designated levels: "Politicians and judges who have held international, national or sub-national (statewide/provincewide) office, and members or former members of a national, state or provincial legislature." If an RfC is made sports-specific, someone will surely call it out, rightly or wrongly, as a witch-hunt on sports. I can accept consensus for general changes, but they should not be sports specific.—Bagumba (talk) 01:00, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. If Gigs, for instance, is willing to discuss the wording around WP:NHOCKEY (as that is what I am most familiar with), I would be most happy to do so. And I know you, DJSasso and GoodDay would engage as well (point of history, DJ and I, in fact, spent a great deal of time battling against an editor last year who wanted to massively expand our coverage to include juniors, college players and minor leaguers for whom we knew a decent article was likely impossible.) But Spanneraol has a point. This is the fourth time in the last calendar year that Masem has made a big stink about how athletes don't fit within his personal view of how Wikipedia should be run. There really is no reason why anyone should continue to take him seriously, because we all know he will just try again in another three months. And three months after that. And three months after that. Resolute 00:33, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, I can't speak for Masem, and it's clear that I have missed some stuff in the intervening months since I last brought my concerns up. Gigs (talk) 00:38, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I take as an insult to say that I instigated this. Gigs started a valid thread, I joined in. --MASEM (t) 00:43, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I didn't even start the thread. It was a complaint from Jtrainor that started it. Gigs (talk) 00:47, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

No, you didn't start the thread, Masem, but you never miss a chance to try and ram your personal viewpoints down everyone's throat. Resolute 00:57, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Gigs - I would not expect you to speak for Masem. I think you mean to be more reasonable than he, but given we've gone through this with him today, June (which you were also involved), January and last October, I think you might begin to understand my exasperation with all of this. These tendentious battles with tedious editors are a massive drain on time and morale. The last calendar year has been one of the most frustrating I have had on Wikipedia because of how often I've had to work to defend against several such editors. Including, ironically, one who created hundreds of articles that would have been exactly what you argue against: permastubs of hockey players that won't pass GNG. It is morale draining and has resulted in a significant reduction in my editing. As it was, I was planning on finishing off a HHOFer tonight and picking up another article. But the good editing groove I was in has been broken by Masem's latest attempt to undermine as much of my work as he possibly can. My good faith in this regard is nearly exhausted. Resolute 00:57, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that there are far better things we could all be spending our time on, but we all clearly believe this is an important enough issue to spend this time discussing. On that same token, you should not assume that just because there are only a few here carrying this torch, that we are a tiny minority. Long-time editors like Jtrainor who may not realize what this guideline has turned into are out there, and I know it sounds cliche, but I think they may very well be a silent majority. The passion of the sports specialists here is admirable and I do appreciate all the article editing that you all do, but that same passion also has the effect of silencing dissent, especially since there is quite a few of you who do defend this status quo, and the objectors are a trickle over time rather than a united front. Gigs (talk) 01:05, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Believe me, my friend, dissent has not been silenced. You may or may not be aware, but when I started here, the guideline pretty much was "played pro or played at the highest amateur level if the sport has no pro league." And that is almost verbatim. There has been a great deal of discussion and many arguments that have led to far stronger notability criteria at present. And as I said, if one wishes to look at some aspect of a sport SNG for further refinement, I would hope most would be willing. But Masem's arguments never change. And no change we make is good enough or ever will be good enough. Consequently, the only thing we can do is continue to waste time trying to defend our ability to edit against his unchanging and unrelenting attacks. I respect Jtrainor's opinion - which you obviously share - but as I have said repeatedly, a broad brush argument is not beneficial. Resolute 01:14, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I remember when it was like that, before the merger. I think the merger had unintended consequences however, in that people started treating it even less like a rule of thumb guideline, and turned it into even more of a bright-line guarantee, which is kind of the rub for me. Even though the lede specifically disclaims such use, practice at AfD is a different matter. Gigs (talk) 01:17, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm aware of the multitude of AFDs as well. I think those are descriptive of community attitudes, however. It is decidedly unlikely that anyone who has played in the NHL, NFL, NBA or MLB will be deleted. And obviously, I have no issue with that. But I think most would agree to remove unexpandable minor leaguers. Resolute 01:21, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Half way there. Now if I can just get you to agree that we should merge the unexpandable major leaguers into roster articles... Gigs (talk) 01:24, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

That attitude, that It is decidedly unlikely that anyone who has played in the NHL, NFL, NBA or MLB will be deleted, and that anyone involved with sports appear to want to question that, is why these discussions keep on coming up. I'm willing to entertain alternatives, but as long as it keeps on coming back to "played pro or top level is immediately notable", we're not going to go anywhere. --MASEM (t) 01:29, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Gigs - We both know that is fruitless. They will never be GA/FAs, but I do think articles like Henry Oxley have merit, and are of a useful quality. I might mention a couple others I have worked on myself - Alex McKendry, who played only 43 NHL games, and Tim Ramholt, who played all of 45 seconds in the NHL. Though he does have 158 games in the Swiss Elite League, which I have embarrassingly failed to update (until about five minutes from now...) No, these articles will never be featured, but I believe they have value, and that they fit our mission. Masem - once again, "played pro" is not the criterion any more, so again, your IDHT argument is without merit. And my statement was less an attitude, but more a reflection on how numerous debates have ended. You don't have to like it, but you can't in good faith deny it. Resolute 01:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I did say "pro or top level", recognizing what you said earlier, so no, you're falsing accusing me of IDHT. Secondary, "usefulness" is not a reason to keep articles or to determine notability. We should be able to get every article - in time - to GA status, so if that ability is not there, merging to a large topic is more appropriate. And actually, that is an attitude - that's how the Oxley AFD ended with blind acceptance of that criteria (for baseball), and reflect the reasoning behind the arguments presented here. --MASEM (t) 01:48, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

TBH, I don't see what all the fuss is about, as Wikipedia is limitless in how many articles or stubs it can have. GoodDay (talk) 01:52, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

We have a limited and declining number of active editors. The number of articles we can maintain is absolutely finite. Notability serves two main purposes, editorial resource management, and ensuring that the topics that do have standalone articles have enough verifiable published material in order to write an actual encyclopedia article (and not just some infobox). Gigs (talk) 02:54, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I think part of the reason for the declining among active editors is people getting fed up with excessive rules and policy debate and quitting. I know of several good editors who quite for just that reason.Spanneraol (talk) 03:01, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

No Masem, you said "pro or top level" to disingenuously try to paint the criteria as weaker than it is in reality. Again. Oh, and could you show me where the mission statement says we should get every article to GA? I do love how the goalposts keep moving with you. In this case, amusingly, in such an arbitrary fashion. That, of course, is most of the frustration with you. You'll just waste everyone's time with constantly changing requirements that can never possibly be met, because the second they are, you change them again. Resolute 02:03, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Oxley was kept through a strong consensus in an AfD discussion. It's demeaning to those participants to call the discussion a "blind acceptance". I know you are aware that WP does not have hard-and-fast-rules.—Bagumba (talk) 02:12, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

The consensus at Oxley was completely biased by the concurrent discussion and link I placed here, and should not be used as an example of much of anything, except possibly that the sourcing remains poor even after the attention of probably a dozen specialists. Gigs (talk) 02:54, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:NHOCKEY

Criteria 1, 2, 3 are completely arbitrary and not indicative of significant secondary source coverage. Criteria 4, 5 and 7 are appropriate criterion for a SNG, since it indicates that the player in question was one that almost certainly attracted significant coverage from multiple secondary sources. Criterion 6 I'm not as sure about, seems kind of borderline (notability is not inherited), but is probably OK. Of course a discussion like this can't get anywhere if the definition of what satisfies the GNG used here is not the same one the rest of the community uses, and I'm not sure we can discuss our way out of that problem. Gigs (talk) 00:46, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

As I said earlier, I believe disagreements about how to evaluate the applicability of secondary sources is the key issue, so perhaps this is where the discussion should start. Maybe a discussion on Wikipedia talk:Notability (people) would be appropriate? isaacl (talk) 00:59, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

1 and 2 are the central point of the above arguments. I would use the rough stats I provided above about the state of articles from the Flames and Canucks (can expand if you wish) to show that yes, playing at the top level is an excellent indicator that the player meets GNG. Of course, I am speaking mostly on NHL players. The top European leagues can become more muddied, but the leagues specifically named have, in my experience, enough coverage to warrant said inclusion. Criteria 3 is one that bugs me, however, and which I have argued against in the past. I would be fine with removing it myself, and treating career minor leaguers the same as junior players: notability determined case by case only. Resolute 01:03, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that 3 is particularly arbitrary. Was there significant opposition to removing it in the past? Gigs (talk) 01:10, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I think I have mostly noted it as a sidebar to other discussions (there have been a few here and at WT:HOCKEY), so it has typically ended up buried or lacked enough input to claim a consensus. I'll mention the existence of this discussion at the hockey project and request more input. As a sidebar, that criterion would argue my grandfather is notable, but he wouldn't pass GNG. I've looked.  ;) Resolute 01:17, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't follow hockey all that much to know in detail about those leagues but it seems like #3 is analogous to saying that players that placed 100 games in the Pacific Coast League are notable.. we took language like that out of the baseball guidelines awhile back and it probably should go from the hockey guidelines also. Spanneraol (talk) 02:38, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I've always found it kind of silly that the baseball project took the similar language out since baseball gets huge amounts of coverage for players in the Pacific Coast League. There used to be (I am not sure if there still is since I don't follow enough anymore) an entire national magazine dedicated to that level of baseball that often had stories about the players in it. Not to mention their local papers and the papers of other cities in the league. So it always was kind of odd to me that baseball thought it couldn't get enough coverage at that level. -DJSasso (talk) 12:09, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

With most minor league sports, the big names get the coverage. The other guys, not so much. Spanneraol - your analogy is accurate. The AHL would be the hockey equivalent of AAA. The ECHL actually brands itself as "AA hockey", and so on. There are certainly notable players at these levels that deserve coverage, but I didn't like the "100 minor league games" criterion from the start, after Dolovis' run of creating crap, I like it even less. That is something I would definitely consider on a case by case basis. Resolute 13:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

• Gigs' assertion notwithstanding, criteria 1 and 2 are not in the least degree arbitrary, and in fact follows the premise of notability for top level athletes ever since notability criteria for athletes on Wikipedia was established. Criteria 4 does set an arbitrary threshold, but it was felt by consensus that high level minor leaguers should meet a stricter threshold. Needless to say, such judgment calls are prevalent all through Wikipedia, even as far as the GNG goes. Why "multiple" reliable sources, and not one, or five, or ten? What constitutes "significant detail?" Why, with WP:GEOSCOPE, is someone considered less notable just because sources are in a local region, and who decides what "local" means?

  As far as Spanneraol's comment about the standards of the baseball WikiProject, the entire reason why notability standards were devolved to the various sports WikiProjects is that one set of rules fits quite poorly across the spectrum of sport. Certainly - for instance - I fancy that the baseball project would not care to be subjected to the standards of WP:NFOOTY - however much that soccer is the world's most popular sport by a long shot, and if we should be harmonizing to any guideline for the sake of harmonization, it should be to that one - which holds that anyone ever playing in any "fully professional" league is presumed notable, and which translated to baseball would mean that anyone who'd played so much as a single game in the PCL was notable. Ravenswing 03:31, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

1 & 2 have proven time and again to be excellent indicators that a player has coverage. It is exceedingly easy to find coverage for people that meet either of these conditions. 3 is a little less so since it is arbitrary. But people complained about those leagues being included in the 1 game criteria above so we bumped the number up. I would be willing to bump it to something higher like 500 because people who last that long in a major minor league have certainly been covered if only for their longevity. Another possibility though I prefer it less is to merge 3 & 4 together and change it from lower minor leaguers need to win an award to all minor leaguers need to win an award or be a career stat leader. I'd have no problem bumping the number up further but I wouldn't want to go the baseball route and completely remove minor leagues from being able to get pages. That is just silly when many hockey players meet GNG before they even finish junior hockey and move on to minor professional. -DJSasso (talk) 12:07, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

You don't need an SNG to give a minor leaguer a page. If they are subject to significant secondary source coverage, they can have a page no matter whether they are minor league or little league. The GNG is not some impossibly high standard. Gigs (talk) 16:22, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately the SNG often gets used as a reason to delete just as much as a reason to keep. Very very very often we get deletion debates that say, "Doesn't meet WP:NHOCKEY so can't have an article." Thus we need the SNG to be as close as possible to 99.9999% without going too high so that we have the opposite problem. -DJSasso (talk) 16:47, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Well then, at least we can say that we agree about one thing, the SNG should not be blindly applied as a bright-line test, the way it almost always is today. SNGs were never intended to supersede the GNG entirely. Where we disagree is on how to end this inappropriate use of the SNG. I think that your conclusion that the SNGs need to be made into a proper superset of the GNG in order to protect notable subjects just reinforces the misuse. My position is that if the SNG were clearly and obviously not all-encompassing of all notable players, it would force people to use their brains more often to think about whether a subject is truly notable. Gigs (talk) 17:56, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

One could argue that we dont need SNGs at all and we should just use GNG. However, since SNGs are generally accepted, minor leaguers can have SNGs as much as professionals.—Bagumba (talk) 17:41, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Agree with DJSasso on all points except the part about possibly merging 3& 4. I am curious about any supposed examples of NHL players (even if only one game) of Internet vintage for whom at least 2 adequate secondary sources can't be found. Rlendog (talk) 19:29, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Good faith question

I'm beginning to see a way to at least re-address how the general "played one pro game" (or whatever other top-level tiers one can consider, I will simplify this to consider them all "pro level") criteria can be reworded or stated as to better bring it in line with all other SNG without affecting what athletes current have or could have articles, as it is stated now. However, one factor I'm struggling with is, why specifically was this general "one pro game" criteria picked?

Going from the logic above (which I will assume is appropriate for rationalizing this), the idea is that when a player is picked at the pro level, their career in the sport - whether at collegiate or minor league or a different non-pro level - has been documented appropriately to already have a GNG-worthy article on them that the pro game simply asserts they are on a pro team and have a stat line. But arguably, even before signing to the pros, they should have enough to write a full article about. Why is this the line, then? Would not being signed to a pro team be sufficient or being on the team's roster at the start of regular season play work? Would not playing at the collegiate/amateur/minor level be sufficient?

I do understand that one could argue the same the next level down - high schools, local amateur leagues, etc - as being sufficient, but there's agreement that these are too localized to assure an article would normally meet the GNG, but collegiate and minor leagues appear to be worthy from the discussion for inclusion too, but this current line is contrary to that. I'm trying to get a sense of the reasons why that line was chosen (and that appears to be from the ATH days), because once that's clear, which way to go forward to reword it to be better representative of NSPORTS goals will be obvious. --MASEM (t) 18:52, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

College athletes are covered by WP:NCOLLATH. It's not that the bar couldn't be lowered, but it is generally agreed that at a minimum a pro player that is good enough to have played a game in a notable league has enough coverage. The coverage may have already occurred in their amateur career, but that is generally dependent on the amount of coverage where they were from (homewtown, college, etc). In the event they did not come from a big media market, it is generally the case that the additional coverage related to signing, trying out, and playing for a pro team will meet GNG.—Bagumba (talk) 19:04, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Well my guess is that it was a very obvious bright line. ATH used to allow people who even played in the minor leagues an article as it allowed anyone who played fully professional sports to have an article. People thought that was too loose so we went significantly stronger and changed it to 1 game at the highest level in most cases. Soccer I believe being the only exception. As for signed vs. played. My guess is that its easier to document that a person played 1 game rather than was signed. There was a time in history where people were signed and if they didn't play a game you would have no idea that they had ever been signed. Remember we have to cover all time periods, not just modern day. And being signed a long time ago probably wasn't the same as being signed today whereas playing a game is relatively the same (in the sports I follow atleast). I know some sports used to sign players as young as 14 to contracts just so that when they were old enough to play they had to play for their team. But there was a gap of 6+ years between when they signed and when they actually played, if they played. Not only that, but there are lots of people who are signed for a single day contract as a publicity stunt and never actually play. Its an honorary thing. And this stops that from causing them to get an article as well. -DJSasso (talk) 19:04, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

• What is your objection to the "one game" standard, exactly? That it produces too many articles, or too few articles? If the former, then changing the standard to someone merely signing a contract, being placed on a roster or playing at lower levels loosens the criteria, not tightens it. Beyond that, you then have to establish a "one game" standard at the lower level ... that, or else have an arbitrary number of games set as a threshold for notability.

  Beyond that, I can't state this in strong enough terms: where sports notability is concerned, one size fits all does not work. In soccer, someone who plays in a third- or fourth-tier pro league could very well also play on his national team. In baseball, that's someone not remotely notable. In ice hockey, teenagers play in heavily covered leagues; in gymnastics and figure skating, teenagers win world championships. In most other sports, they don't. In hockey, soccer and baseball, minor leagues are strong and notable. In football and basketball, they're near to non-existent. In the United States, collegiate sports receive vast coverage, and stars in football and basketball especially receive easily as much media coverage as any professional star. In many other countries, they don't.

  This is why we have SNGs for different sports in the first place. Ravenswing 19:07, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

• If the goal is "to better bring it in line with all other SNG", NSPORTS is quite similiar to WP:POLITICIAN, which also determines notability by attaining a position at a designated level.—Bagumba (talk) 19:09, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
  • There are several broken subject notability guidelines, most of them in fact. Proposals for new SNGs have been failing for the last several years, because the community seems to have realized the damage the existing ones are causing in undermining the GNG. It is very hard to get rid of them or challenge "achievement based" criteria once people get used to using them, however. Gigs (talk) 23:36, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
    • If that is the case, I think it would be best to start a high level discussion on SNGs rather than dealing with specifics of NSPORTS.—Bagumba (talk) 23:52, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
      • At some point, I think so. But consider that a voluntary amendment to NSPORTs and other SNGs would take the wind out of the sails of any RfC on SNGs and inherent notability. It's like agreeing to a settlement vs taking your chances with an unpredictable jury trial. Note that some of the SNGs do have sections disclaiming inherent notability explicitly, and those are generally the ones that people don't have much issue with (like WP:CORP and WP:WEB). The unpredictability of a big RfC swings both ways, and I'd much prefer that a consensus compromise could be reached. Gigs (talk) 00:07, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
        • I'd be more willing to consider changes if there were complaints among numerous users that the guideline was confusing or causing a disproportionate number of non-notable articles to be kept. I do not see that. After an earlier long discussion where revised wording on existing NSPORTS guidelines was proposed, I came out believing that improvements on wording, even if well intentioned, are probably better left to new additions as opposed to spending time on existing ones.—Bagumba (talk) 00:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
• I agree that most players who play one MLB, NHL or similar level game have adequate coverage immediately before playing that game to meet notability guidelines. It is just that the line for presuming such notability needs to be drawn somewhere. And one game at the highest level provides a non-arbitrary, unambiguous line, at which in addition to any other arguments for notability, they have clearly accomplished something significant by reaching the highest level of their sport. Rlendog (talk) 19:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
  • To answer to all the above, the issue I have right now with the current "played one game" clause is that it's just a very weird clause that doesn't mesh well with other BIO-based criteria, and there's likely a better way of saying what NSPORTS is trying to do without the weirdness of that clause. It also screams in the face of WP:BLP1E in how its worded, though clearly that's not the intent. Most other BIO-based criteria are based on either a merit, or attaining a specific position. Now, what NSPORTS appears to want to say is that any pro/top-tier league player was/is notable, which I'll accept. From what Djassaso suggests, the difficulty comes in defining a pro/top-tier league player, due to past hardships in that area, which I'm sure varies not only sport to sport, but league to league, and with time.
  • Were I to rewrite it, I would say "Any player on a team's normal roster at the highest level league of the sport is presumed notable. This is generally demonstrated by the athlete playing at least one game for this team during the regular season or championship matches." - This meshes just fine with something like WP:POLITICAN. I would then follow it up with a table of sports, listing what exactly are considered the highest leagues for each sport so there's no question on those. This further expands that so that, say, if there's a player that is signed but suffers a pre-season injury that leaves him out for the season but still likely to return the next year, we can use caution towards that.
  • Note that this is implicit that to be on a team on a top league for a sport, you have had to had some career prior to this to be selected for that position, as the discussion of that past merit is what is, at minimum, going to be included in the article. In other words, by the time the person has been selected for the pro team, they have already had a career that should be GNG-notable (based on what has been said). Ergo, every pro player should be able to easily pass the GNG at a minimum by their pre-pro performances. What I'm getting at here is that this approach would make the SNG more accepted as instead of looking like a weird bright line, it instead proposes that playing at pro assures notability for the career, and ergo the SNG serves the purpose of being a safety net for articles to protect them from being sent to AFD by zealoud editors for lack of immediate sourcing, which we assuredly can get with time and effort to find said sources, or wait for said sources to come about. All that then is needed is at least one reliable source that affirms the athlete's participation at the top-tier level to proceed to make an article on them.
  • I will say this is all based on the presumption that there's accepted global consensus for stubby articles like Henry Oxley (and given some other non-sports bios that I spot checked last night, Oxley's in better shape than those). I can't speak to how accurate that is, but there's little reason presently to question the inclusion of these articles; I simply caution that that consensus may change in the future. --MASEM (t) 20:28, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
    • If we were writing NSPORTS from scratch, I would support the spirit of Masem's wording concerns being incorporated. However, I can't see anything being broken here aside from it possibly sounding "weird" to some. The existing guidelines are straight-forward and easily applied, and there seems to be consensus that the notability of articles should not be affected. Masem agreed that changes ,if any, should be done "without affecting what athletes current have or could have articles". At best, only the wording needs massaging. However, I can already see "top league" being disputed, as there are some top leagues that dont get enough coverage (care to revisit Paralympics-like discussions?) while a lower league might (see hockey minor leagues). If time were to be spent on some improvement, I'd rather formally document the history and thought process behind NSPORTS so we don't need to regularly revisit how we got here.—Bagumba (talk) 21:36, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
      • Well, I think that is the thing that is broken. The entire idea of trying to come up with bright line tests for inherent notability is fraught with problems. The big merge for NSPORTs was driven by this brokenness in the original simplistic bright line test, and I'm not sure that there is any light at the end of this tunnel that we have entered. Gigs (talk) 00:12, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
        • As you are aware, this guideline isn't intended to list tests for inherent notability; the intent is to list criteria for scenarios where based on experience, it is almost certain that reliable, notable, independent, non-routine, non-promotional secondary source coverage can be found. I tried to get the nutshell summary to say this explicitly, but did not receive consensus support for it. isaacl (talk) 01:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
          • Intent and practice are two different things in this case Isaacl. The practice at AfD is to treat meeting this guideline as prima facie inherent notability. Some other SNGs go to great lengths to try to prevent this from happening, heavily emphasizing sourcing and lack of inherent notability, but this one does not, and the result has been that it has become a standard for inherent notability. Gigs (talk) 13:43, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
            • As I said previously, any ideas on how to further emphasize the guiding principles of this guideline are welcome. If more support had been available to modify the nutshell along the lines I had proposed, I think it would have helped. isaacl (talk) 14:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
              • I might be overlooking some subtlety, but the current your proposed nutshell, "If an athlete has actively participated in a major amateur or professional competition or won a significant honor, as listed on this page, it is highly likely there is significant, non-routine coverage of the athlete in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, establishing the athlete's notability." seems to follow the same spirit of your earlier proposalthe current nutshell: "An athlete is presumed to be notable if the person has actively participated in a major amateur or professional competition or won a significant honor, as listed on this page, and so is likely to have received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject."—Bagumba (talk) 16:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
                • You've flipped those quotes around; the first one was my proposed version, and the second is the current nutshell summary. The intent of my proposal was to state that meeting the specified criteria establishes the strong probability of appropriate secondary source coverage (and does not establish notability directly, so there is no concept of inherent notability). Every time the criteria in this guideline are discussed, this is explained again and again; we might as well just write it down in the summary to emphasize it. isaacl (talk) 16:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
                  • Thanks, I have annotated the corrections. The current wording was after consensus, but certainly consensus can change. However, I wouldn't invest time on it unless it quells Gigs' and Masem's concerns.—Bagumba (talk) 16:43, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Change SNG to give implied notability only to older subjects, modern ones should meet the GNG easily if challenged

Personally I think that SNG's including all NSPORTs should be tightened to exclude contemporary subjects in English-language cultures. Google and friends are insanely useful for finding sources for these people and if the sources can't be found they probably don't exist. Based on a solid foundation such as that we can then make hand-waving WP:CSB-supported assertions about pre-internet and foreign language subjects. Stuartyeates (talk) 02:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• That sounds like a compromise I could live with. Give older players like Oxley the benefit of the doubt since there may be extensive coverage that has not yet been digitized, but make modern pro players meet the GNG if challenged at AfD, which they should do easily, if the claims of many here are accurate. I'm going to break this into a new section so we can discuss this proposal separately. Gigs (talk) 13:43, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
• There is lots of media that still don't make available their papers etc on the web. This would do more harm than good. -DJSasso (talk) 13:46, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
  • The idea is there, but because we are a world-wide wiki, I do see problems with readily acquiring sources on athletes from non-English or non-first-world countries that otherwise play in professional leagues today. --MASEM (t) 13:58, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
    • If they are living people, the article needs at least one source regardless of any notability guidelines. One benefit of this proposal is that most of the people getting implied notability would be dead. In fact that might very well be a good criteria, if they are living, they need to meet the GNG. Right now this guideline is a walking BLP violation. Gigs (talk) 15:46, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
      • It is nothing of the sort, and that crack is akin to a "when did you stop beating your wife?" question. There is nothing about these - or any other - SNG requiring or encouraging anyone to violate BLP, and I challenge you to find anything disparaging or damaging about (say) a stub saying "Soandso played three games for the Providence Steamrollers before retiring." It is a fallacy that BLP requires that nothing be stated about a living person that has not been sourced. In fact, its premise is that "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source" (emphasis in the original) and that "contentious material" must be sourced. Ravenswing 16:42, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
        • The main problem is that guidelines like this allow BLPs to exist without secondary sourcing. WP:NPF, WP:BLPPRIVACY and possibly WP:BLPPRIMARY. It's not a question of unsourced claims per se, it's a question of having articles on relatively low-profile living individuals that rely exclusively on primary sourcing, which clearly is against the spirit of BLP. Gigs (talk) 18:03, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
          • Technically no. If you are going to make a peacock-y claim about a player, yes, that absolutely needs secondary sourcing, but the crux of BLP is that factual personal bio info should be from high quality reliable non-POV sources. We have lots of articles on actors and other non-athletes that are just as stubby if not worse than some athlete articles that are routinely kept. Only notability requires secondary sources to be there, but as long as we accept SNGs to allow presumed notability for an article until sources can be found an located, we can't require it here. Hence why I'm doing not-quite-a-full-180 on my stance, but trying to improve how its percieved here. --MASEM (t) 18:14, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
            • Without secondary sources, we don't have a biography. At best we have a "rap sheet" of some statistical and demographic data. Part of BLP is respecting the privacy of notable, but relatively unknown, individuals, which is where most of the sections I linked to are coming from. Gigs (talk) 18:49, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
• So what makes this proposal any less "arbitrary" than the existing guidelines? What's the year that someone would be deemed "modern," and by what criteria would that year be chosen? Ravenswing 16:42, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
  • If we used the criteria of whether they were still alive or not, it would both not be arbitrary, and it would make this more inline with BLP. Gigs (talk) 18:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
    • If I understood correctly, you described certain existing criteria as arbitrary in the sense that you did not believe they were indicative of appropriate secondary source coverage. Do you feel that the criterion of being alive is less arbitrary in this sense? isaacl (talk) 18:12, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
      • It's only less arbitrary because we have special treatment for living people here on Wikipedia. You are right that outside of Wikipedia it's fairly arbitrary. Is being dead any more indicative of having coverage? No. But I will concede that it does make coverage harder to locate when a subject played a long time ago. It's a practical compromise that doesn't completely satisfy my concerns, but would be something that I could get on board with, since it satisfies any potential BLP concerns, and also helps negate inherent notability concerns by making people locate GNG satisfying sources on living players if challenged at AfD. I think it would move the policy in a direction that would make it less controversial and more in line with community-wide norms while still not drastically changing the level of coverage allowed. Gigs (talk) 18:49, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
• No problem with a project educating the community about systemic bias and volunteers spending time on neglected articles or viewpoints. However, I would be opposed to using guidelines to bureaucratically advance the cause.—Bagumba (talk) 16:58, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

If a bifurcated system were to be adopted (and I'm not saying it should be), living vs. dead wouldn't be the right split. There are a lot of older persons (athletes and otherwise) whose notoriety pre-dates the internet era. A more appropriate split would be to apply higher scrutiny to individuals (not just athletes) whose principal source of notability arose during the era of digitized media, e.g., after 2005 (?). I'm not so sure the system needs to be changed, but I agree with Bagumba that it is important to educate the community about the systemic bias that can result if athletes (and others) from the pre-Internet era are rejected because of the absence of readily accessible digitized source material. As someone who has worked a fair bit on 19th and early 20th century topics, I know how hard it is to find sources, but I also know that the sources are there if someone is willing to travel to the appropriate libraries and archives or to pay for access to the right databases. Cbl62 (talk) 18:31, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I would be OK with that as well, but 2005 is too late. More like the middle 90s. The living/dead split is desirable in my mind because it satisfies any BLP concerns regarding the guideline. Gigs (talk) 18:49, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:BLP relates to BLP, not WP:NSPORTS. Don't waste everyone's time by trying to cross-connect separate issues. Resolute 18:57, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

As most athletes are living, BLP very much applies. It's just that when one is talking sports records, which are very public, issues about privacy and potentially contested claims aren't likely going to come up for them when talking about their sports career. But other parts of an athlete's article will intrude on privacy issues and that's where some secondary issues need to come up for fair coverage. --MASEM (t) 19:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Obviously BLP applies to living people. However, NSPORTS does not have to "satisfy BLP concerns" - articles individually do. So there is no reason to mix the two together. Resolute 19:09, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

There aren't any now, but if there were SNG criteria on NSPORTS that could easily tread on BLP (including BLP1E), we'd probably not include them. For example, and I don't expect this to be a serious suggestion, if a criteria like "Any player that is part of a doping scandle is immediately notable" existed, that would scream BLP violations. Again, no present NSPORT criteria gets close to this, nor do I think any would, but it just needs to sit at the back of the mind in developing these. --MASEM (t) 20:42, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

(e/c)What separate issue? When a notability guideline allows the creation of BLPs for relatively unknown individuals, without any need to find secondary sources needed to write a well sourced biography, that's a BLP problem as well as a notability problem. NSPORTs isn't the only offender here, but it is one of them. It's a long-standing concern of mine that I have had in the mini-rants section of my userpage for several years. Gigs (talk) 19:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose The subject specific guidelines exist because you don't have to meet the general notability guidelines to prove something is notable. Not everything is online even today, and when it is online, its sometimes hard to find, people with common names having just massive numbers of Google hits, and even adding in the name of the sport they are notable for doesn't always narrow it down enough to find some decent sources. You are notable because of your achievements, not because of the coverage those achievements get. Dream Focus 18:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
  • You are notable - per definition at wikitionary - for the award, but per WP:N-notability, we expect coverage about why you got that award to put it into some context for the layreader. But importantly, obtaining these awards usually means that you have merited coverage of why you got that award in the past or will get that in the future, so we work on the presumption that sources will eventually be found to meet the GNG, and thus allow the stand-alone article to be kept until that happens or otherwise challenged. --MASEM (t) 19:04, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Notability ultimately has two prongs. Gigs (talk) 19:16, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I note that two prongs is simply an essay written recently by ... yes, by Gigs. It is simply Gigs' view and, if adopted, would be a fundamental shift from WP:GNG to support his subjective view that some topics (like sports) are less "worthy of note" than other areas of human endeavor. Cbl62 (talk) 20:08, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

And you were accusing me of "deception" earlier in this discussion? Cbl62 (talk) 20:12, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

To be fair to Gigs and TWOPRONGS, that is correct, but it doesn't change anything here. The GNG assures both prongs are met at once - "significant coverage" to show why something's worthy of note, and "independent secondary sources" to back up those statements. What the SNG's do is make the presumption that the sourcing will be more difficult to locate and collect, or will come in time due to the nature of why the worthy of note is there. NSPORT here is saying that anyone that makes a top league is worthy of note, and that the sources to back that up, at minimum, is their prior documented career prior to entering the top tier; further, as the player's league performance proceeds, we'd expect more stories to come about. What we can't do in an SNG is make a claim that a certain activity would be worthy of note, but show no route how we'd expect sources to come about for it. This, for example, points to a few of NSPORTS clauses that claim that playing X hundred games in a non-top league is worthy of note, but longevity doesn't ensure coverage, just stats. Ergo those fail the TWOPRONG test. --MASEM (t) 20:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

(e/c)There's nothing in the essay that says sports is less worthy of note. And it doesn't say anything new or controversial. The WP:N already contains statements like We require "significant coverage" in reliable sources so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic. Much of the biography section was written more with WP:PROF in mind, which is why it talks so much about self-published sources for biographies, which isn't much of an issue with sports bios. Gigs (talk) 20:41, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Your essay does, in fact, make suggestions that are new and highly controversial. WP:GNG is our bedrock standard for notability. That is the standard by which we determine whether something is notable (i.e., "worthy of note"). You have proposed that a subject must pass two tests: first, it must meet WP:GNG and separate and apart from that, it must be on "a subject that is worthy of our notice." Your proposed second test is wholly subjective and would promote chaos as various groups of editors advance their personal preferences and biases to argue that certain areas (e.g., athletics, video games, pop culture) are less "worthy of notice." Cbl62 (talk) 21:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

You're misreading it. "Worthy of note" is demonstrated by the GNG's "significant coverage" - more than mention in passing, but actual text that going into detail on the topic, as to satisfy the claim of why we should include it. Of course, meeting the GNG is a consensus-based decision as opposed to a hard definition, so the topics that you refer to aren't going to go away because of that. --MASEM (t) 21:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Would be more relevant to continue this at Wikipedia talk:Two prongs of notability or Wikipedia talk:Notability.—Bagumba (talk) 21:41, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I will reply on the essay's talk. Gigs (talk) 21:42, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't think I've missated Gigs' essay. It says an article must both meet both criteria (GNG and topic "worthy of note"). That is not how it works or should work. By of example, many might think that reality show contestants/judges like Amanda Freitag aren't "worthy of note." Gigs disagrees and created an article on her. So long as there are enough reliable, independent sources in mainsteam sources, I have no problem with Gigs' creation of an article about someone like Freitag. However, Gigs seem to hold athletes to a different standard. Why are chefs any more "worthy of note" than athletes? Per Bagumba's note, I'll hold further comment for the essay talk page. Cbl62 (talk) 21:45, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

• This whole thread was started on a solution being provided before stating the problem that needs to be solved. What is the nature of the bad articles being created because of said problem, and what are some obvious examples that this is a major problem? May I suggest stating the problem first and then getting consensus that it is an issue worth solving? Otherwise, I fear we are just quibbling over wording.—Bagumba (talk) 20:51, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Notability for World Championships Participants

Currently in Generally acceptable standards it reads:

Sports figures are presumed notable (except as noted within a specific section) if they:

1. have participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level such as the Olympics.

I'd like to propose that we also add World Championships to go with Olympics. I'm noticing in certain AFDs that athletes who have not participated in the Olympics, but have competed in the World Championships of their sport are getting "Delete" remarks based on their non Olympics participation (see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Avanesyan).*

Since a World Championships, like the Olympics requires an athlete to qualify to represent their country and compete against the highest ranked athletes from other countries in that particular sport, the World Championships are considered "a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level". Some of these sports like baseball, softball and lacrosse are no longer or not Olympic sports, but have a World Championships. It can also be argued that some sports World Championships or World Cup is more prestigious and notable than the Olympics (soccer/football is one example).

As a result, I propose that the wording be amended to say

Sports figures are presumed notable (except as noted within a specific section) if they:

1. have participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level such as the Olympics or World Championships.

Please discuss. Thanks. --Yankees76 ^Talk 21:43, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

The level of competition, frankly, is not relevant. What needs to be shown is that sufficient coverage exists so that it can be presumed that a participant would meet WP:GNG. I'd be wary of a blanket statement saying that all World Championships are notable, and would recommend they be examined one-by-one.—Bagumba (talk) 21:49, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose: We're not worried whether or not baseball or lacrosse players get presumptive passes as to notability. Ultimate has world championships. Tug of War has world championships. Korfball has world championships. Orienteering has world championships. Do we then give a blanket phrasing that allows participants in any activity which calls itself a "sport" - and heaven knows a lot of weird activities do - for which there is an identifiable "world championship" a presumptive pass?

  By contrast, being in the Olympics means that the sport has achieved a certain level of notability. That being said, I'm not opposed to a pass for athletes competing in the world championships of a sport which is a full-medal sport at the Olympics. Ravenswing 02:31, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose: I oppose this for the simple fact that not all participants in World Championships are inherently notable. This cannot be applied as a blanket statement for all sports. For instance, take the IIHF World Hockey Championship, it is fair to say that likely all rostered players in the Top Group are inherently notable. You can likely make that claim of players on most nations in Division I, but the farther you go down you will find that they are not notable. In fact, in many cases in Division III, the players may not have played hockey at any level that would be deemed notable beyond the Worlds. I would think hockey likely is the most extreme example due to the fact that really there is no "qualifying" to one tournament as is seen in soccer, basketball or baseball. There is a small Division III qualifying tournament that a few nations might participate in a given year, but there are many nations who have never had to qualify.

Another example of why this could be a bad idea would be the IFAF World Cup for football. Take any of the rosters, outside of a few players on Team USA and Team Canada and a lone player on Team Japan, none of the rosters featured players who participate in professional football. Likely many of these players will only feature in this tournament and then return to playing club football in their home nations. Plus in football, Team USA (who most people likely would consider to be the preeminent nation in football) did not participate at the Worlds until the 2011 edition? Thus, it would give notability to players of quite a lower caliber simply because they suited up for Team Austria, while excluding players of higher caliber (great NCAA stars who never made the pros).

Lastly, the situation in baseball becomes confusing. Until this year, the World Baseball Classic was not considered to be the World Championship by the IBAF, despite using the best players in the World (a similar situation hockey experienced with the Canada Cup and World Cup of Hockey). Instead, the IBAF held its own World Cup of Baseball, which prohibited the use of non-40 man roster MLB affiliated players. So this rule would automatically exclude players from some nations who participated at the 2006 or 2009 WBC, but their not so talented countrymen would become inherently notable as they played at the IBAF tournament.

For individual sports, I do think this is probably a fair assessment. I don't follow many Summer Olympic sports outside of the Summer Games, so I can't speak to this. But I would think competing at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics grants you a similar notability as competing at the Olympics. Of course winning Olympic gold will always be more notable than winning the gold at the Worlds. The only problem with adding this even for individual sports is not all individual sports have a singular World Championship event. Take bobsledding, there is not one singular World Championship event for this. Instead the IBTF organizes a World Tour, akin to NASCAR or Formula 1 auto racing, where the team that finishes with the most points (accumulated by placings at tour stops) at the end of several events held around the world throughout the winter are deemed to be World Champion. So how do you distinguish between a driver who runs for a country at one event on the World Tour, but does not participate in any other event with the driver who participated in all events? I just don't see how a blanket statement like this can apply to all sports across the board. I realize you are attempting to have this policy become more inclusive, but I just don't see how it would work when players with more inherent GNG chances would be excluded but others with less chance of passing GNG would be included. Shootmaster 44 (talk) 05:07, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose in line with the comments made by Ravenswing, no indication that participation in any World Championships is a barometer of passing WP:GNG as evidenced by the quoted AfD example. Mtking ^(edits) 06:42, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
• Comment - to be honest, I thought that when the text says "at the highest level such as the Olympics", the World Championship was one of those competition at the highest level that confers notability. But I don't want "automatic notability" for every athlete participating in a "world championship" in every obscure sport in the world. On the other hand, for the Olympic sports I have the impression that it's harder to qualify for the World Championship then the Olympics.. But in my opinion, athletes competing in a World Championship in an Olympic sport should be presumed notable. Mentoz86 (talk) 11:23, 3 November 2012 (UTC)