A fact from Royal T. Farrand appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 5 December 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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Cbl62, this is the type of article could be AfD-ed if your proposal passes. It seems like there are no sources with WP:SIGCOV aside from the obituaries (which wouldn't suffice). Is that what you want? Sportsfan77777 (talk) 08:28, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Sportsfan77777 -- Don't think we've interacted before, but I got your note. I explained at the RfC the rationale for my proposal. I, too, am a sports editor. There are those out there who would like to see the majority of sports biographies removed from Wikipedia. My intention, as outlined more fully at the RfC, was to come up with a reasonable compromise that avoids more draconian attacks on NSPORTS. Cbl62 (talk) 08:43, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like you want to get rid of one type of article at the cost of a whole bunch of other articles getting caught in the crossfire. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 13:56, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My goal is not to put anybody in the crossfire. I have spent much of the past decade trying to expand and improve both the scope and quality of Wikipedia's coverage of sports. The reign of fire that has been brought to bear on Wikpedia's sports coverage is unfortunate and quite distressing to me. It seems like there are new attacks on NSPORTS every couple of months. I am certainly not in agreement with the extreme anti-sports editors who want to erase the majority of the existing sports articles from Wikipedia.
At the same time, I also don't care for the mass creation of microstubs (sometimes at a rate of one or even three articles per minute), consisting of nothing more than a single line noting that Joe Smith competed in field hockey for Freedonia at the 1928 Summer Olympics, and supported by nothing more than a citation to a database. See, e.g., Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Max Zumstein. I don't believe that such microstubs have encyclopedic value. What I tried to do in my proposal was to strike a balance between these competing interests in a way that tamps the reign of fire by slowing the industrial-speed creation of microstubs and avoids an onslaught directed at our important coverage of sports.
It may turn out that the desire of anti-sports editors will not be quelled by this change. It may turn out that I will regret my proposal, as you've suggested. It may turn out that six months from now, I rue the day that I submitted subproposal 6. At this point, I've done what I've done, and it is what it is.
As for your comment about a potential AfD of Royal T. Farrand: I created the Farrand article 12 years ago. I continue to believe that Farrand warrants an article. It's not among the most important articles I've worked on, but he was the starting quarterback of an undefeated Michigan football team that won the inaugural match in the Notre Dame rivalry. He later became manager of the program and, in that post, hired Michigan's first head coach. The article has received 4,000 page views in the past seven years, so it's not my most widely viewed article, but it appears there is an audience. All of that said, I did have a broader view of notability in 2000 than I do today. Cbl62 (talk) 18:37, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would also think Farrand warrants an article in general. But I don't think that would be supported under the new criteria. None of this ("he was the starting quarterback of an undefeated Michigan football team that won the inaugural match in the Notre Dame rivalry. He later became manager of the program and, in that post, hired Michigan's first head coach.") would matter if there aren't any sources with SIGCOV. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 08:56, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
