Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 26

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The criteria here are too inclusive

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#The_criteria_of_WP:NSPORT_here_are_too_inclusive. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:55, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

So the English speaking world heavily interested in sportspeople. Are we suprised? If anything some sports are too exclusive.Fleets (talk) 18:26, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
Rather the point I made over there. Yes, it's a crying shame that our culture prizes athletes and entertainers over Nobel laureates, but it does. No doubt the naysayers would howl just as loudly if notability criteria on their own pet hobby horses were tightened. Ravenswing 23:47, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
I created a fair number of articles on sportspersons, and at the same time I believe that the criteria here are to inclusive. Please don't dismiss criticism by claiming they are all "naysayers" with other "pet hobby horses". Many people who meet the guidelines aren't really notable (we just tightened the curling guidelines for that very reason). Is Robert Smith (Nottingham cricketer) really a notable sportsperson? According to NSPORTS, yes, but not according to the GNG. Anyway, the discussion is now at WPP, let's keep it in one place... Fram (talk) 07:11, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
There's a happy medium. Everyone needs to remember that these SNGs are guidelines and WP:N is policy -- SNGs do not "trump" notability; they are merely an aid to help the non-specialist understand what is and is not a notable accomplishment in a given topic (there is an ongoing discussion about creating WP:NPAGEANT, for example -- as there are a lot of pageants out there, but the non-specialist may not know at a glance which ones are major and which ones are not). It is true that NACADEMIC is far too exclusive compared to, say, NACTOR, but NSPORTS may have some areas that are in need of a new look. I've run afoul (pun intended) of NFOOTY at NPP, where someone who played two games for an obscure pro team 20 years ago before vanishing into obscurity apparently passes, but OTOH, I also have had epic disputes over inclusion of clearly notable sports figures from the late 1800s and other times before the age of Google. So... a happy medium, please. Montanabw(talk) 02:22, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Broad RfC on sports notability guidelines

Feels like this should be linked here. Rikster2 (talk) 15:06, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

It's a farce and I'm surprised it hasn't been closed yet. Nothing useful will come from something that broad. Number 57 15:47, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
The problem is that the history of English Wikipedia shows that prematurely closing discussion when there isn't near unanimous agreement leads to more controversy and wasted time. I was hoping the individual sports discussions would remain blank but with all the projects notified, the inevitable occurred and some have chosen to weigh in. This makes it trickier to try to redirect the conversation to more fruitful paths. isaacl (talk) 15:53, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
(nods to isaacl) It's not one bit less objectionable to shut down a discussion because one doesn't agree with the premise than it is for someone to start a discussion on specious grounds. Nor is it prudent to attract the inevitable pop-up support and angst involved with "They're trying to muzzle dissent!!!!" Let the squeaky wheels squeak. Ravenswing 17:31, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
The closure that just occurred specified that it was made on procedural grounds, which is probably a good approach. It was just way too unwieldy to try to hold all of those conversations in parallel. isaacl (talk) 17:46, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Fourth sentence

(discussion split from the section "Second sentence")

I am in favour of deletion, for the reasons provided(confusing, misleading); and there is another sentence here that should change based on this reasoning:
" Failing to meet the criteria in this guideline means that notability will need to be established in other ways (e.g. the general notability guideline, or other, topic-specific, notability guidelines)";
into "An article meeting these criteria is presumed to meet the General Notability Guideline; but if this assumption is challenged, then this assumption must be backed up. However, enough time should be given to those who commit themselves into looking for sources that are more difficult to find or read(Articles may also be presumed to be notable via other, topic-specific, notability guidelines; and an article meeting the General Notability Guideline does not have to meet any other notability criteria)."Burning Pillar (talk) 12:10, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm 100% against this. The original sentence you quote relates to "Failing to meet the criteria", whereas your suggested replacement relates to "An article meeting these criteria". ie exactly the opposite. In other words the two sentences are not related at all and there is an attempt here to completely change the onus of responsibility. Someone could challenge hundreds of articles and the few active editors in each project (who would I presume be "those who commit themselves into looking for sources") would be snowed under with work to demonstrate notability. I see no reason to make this radical change. If the NSPORTS guidelines are leading to too many cases of articles being created for non-notable people, then those guidelines need revising. To me, that is a better approach than the one you propose. Nigej (talk) 16:20, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
Extra point. The 3rd sentence says: "If the article does meet the criteria set forth below, then it is likely that sufficient sources exist to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." ("the inclusion criteria" links to GNG). This is a very bold statement and if it is not true then (as I said above) the NSPORTS guidelines need changing. Nigej (talk) 18:41, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
Oppose - totally incorrect interpretation of the relationship between the GNG and SNGs. --Michig (talk) 17:27, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
Nope I don't think this addition is necessary or warranted. -DJSasso (talk) 18:10, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
I believe the current fourth sentence is more direct regarding what steps should be pursued if the relevant sports-specific notability criteria are not met, and so do not favour deleting it. The proposed additions I feel are sufficiently covered by the third paragraph, the section "Applicable policies and guidelines", and the FAQ. Thus I do not personally feel these changes should be made to the lead section. isaacl (talk) 18:24, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Change WP:NGOLF

I propose changing WP:NGOLF into: Golf figures are presumed notable if:

  1. They have competed in the Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup, Solheim Cup or similar international competition
  2. They are enshrined in one of golf's recognized Halls of Fame (ex: World Golf Hall of Fame)
  3. They have won at least one professional golf tournament (ex: PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, European Tour, PGA Tour Champions)
  4. They have won at least one recognized amateur golf tournament at the national or international level (ex: U.S. Amateur, British Amateur)
  5. They have made it into the Top Ten in one of the major tournaments:
  6. They hold a golf record (ex: lowest score) recognized by the USGA, PGA, LPGA or The R&A

All these criteria are about them doing something special that will probably generate significant coverage by reliable sources. The removed or tightened criteria were criteria that might indicate insignificant coverage in reliable sources. (The WP:BURDEN to show that the challenged criteria should be retained is on those who want to retain them).Burning Pillar (talk) 19:30, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

I'll give you credit for one thing: you certainly are good at ignoring advice. Seriously, try doing some article work yourself before presuming to have the competence to speak on article policies. Lepricavark (talk) 20:31, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
I might write more in the morning but it's ridiculous that someone who's only been an editor for a few weeks, has made no edits to golf articles, knows nothing about golf, knows nothing about current practices in the WP:GOLF project, has made no assessment of the impact of these changes, has made no assessment to see if the changes affect recently created articles, has made no assessment to see if the changes affect recently deleted articles, etc., should be proposing any changes at all to WP:NGOLF. As to your point about the burden of proof, this is also ridiculous. The current state is based on consensus within the golf project and it's up to you to gain consensus there before making any changes. You should also notify the golf project through WT:GOLF, otherwise no one will know about your proposal. Nigej (talk) 20:55, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
@Nigej:There are several problematic statements here:
I indeed do not know anything about current practices at the WP:GOLF project, but I don't need to, because internal practices of a WikiProject have no weight on discussions about policies or guidelines. The golf project does not have any right to dictate WP:NGOLF to the community. You don't WP:OWN the discussion. And... WP:NGOLF isn't that bad, in my opinion.
Why do you think that making the cut in the major tournaments(about half of the partipiciants do this) or playing one full year in a tour as a professional will cause significant independant coverage? Usually, significant independant coverage is not given to someone who is just one of many players who happens to be better than 50% of the rest sometimes, or to players who perform quite OK as professionals, but who are never among the best. Significant coverage, that is. These players will come up in some statistics, and will probably get a few passing mentions. Not always, some will get more attention for reasons we don't have here, possibly not related to golf, or maybe related to golf in a different way: That's ok, they will meet WP:GNG, if you look for sufficient sources and find them, then you can still write an article without fearing deletion.Burning Pillar (talk) 23:09, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
You won't be taken seriously until you explain how you suddenly became an immediate expert of Wikipedia, making your first edit on 22 March 2017. Please list any previous usernames you have used. Nigej (talk) 08:04, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

WP:DENY. Jack N. Stock (talk) 23:28, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

  • Let's turn that around, Burning Pillar: you ask why people think that those criteria result in significant coverage? A good question. Here's one in return: what research have you done to suggest that they do not, and may we see that research, please? Ravenswing 02:33, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

I am fully on board with the proposed change to number 5, but I think the current number 6 should remain. pʰeːnuːmuː →‎ pʰiːnyːmyː → ‎ɸinimi → ‎fiɲimi 03:09, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Indeed I am too. Indeed I suggested it here: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Sports notability guideline after the proposer suggested changing "made the cut" to the meaningless "reached the playoffs". The reason I suggested it is nothing to do with the WP:GNG or anything else mentioned by the proposer, but simply that it actually broadly reflects current WP:GOLF usage. In the modern era it will make little difference anyway since nearly all players even competing in the Majors will qualify through other criteria. The merit of the change is that, historically, making the cut was often easier (indeed many pre-1914 events had no cut anyway) and simply making a single cut in a lifetime, probably doesn't, of itself, reflect any particular notability. My only concern would, perhaps, be for amateurs, where making the cut (and especially being the leading amateur), does often lead to significant media coverage. Nigej (talk) 06:57, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
If it does lead to significant media coverage(enough that you can avoid WP:OR(and that threshold is higher than some people think)) that goes over what is described in WP:BLP1E, and you can find those, then you can create the article; it may not meet NGOLF then, but GNG - and that's enough. A sports notability criterion should reliably indicate that the person did indeed get significant coverage in reliable sources that may not be readily avaliable, giving authors time to indeed find them. It should not result in infinite preservation of articles that aren't or cannot be sufficiently sourced.Burning Pillar (talk) 12:21, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
The reality is that I create articles based on the norm in the golf project (which in reality is a handful of volunteers struggling to keep up with events) and not at all based on what you've just written; which I can barely understand. Either you've a lawyer or training to be one. Anyway, you've still not listed the previous usernames you used before March 2017. Nigej (talk) 14:27, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Nigej: At least 5 articles were created after last year's U.S. Open for golfers who made the cut: Brandon Harkins, Matt Marshall (golfer), Chase Parker (golfer), Andy Pope, and Ethan Tracy. Tracy of course now falls under 3, but at the time he wasn't even on the Web.com Tour. The other four do not seem to be "notable", though Harkins and Parker are having decent Web.com seasons. pʰeːnuːmuː →‎ pʰiːnyːmyː → ‎ɸinimi → ‎fiɲimi 15:31, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Well done. Someone who's actually done some research. I'll put forward a counter proposal. Nigej (talk) 15:37, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
I am really not that confident that Andy Pope meets our WP:GNG.Burning Pillar (talk) 18:51, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
I think you'll find that's exactly what user phinumu said. However, he used plain English and you persist in speaking gobbledygook. Nigej (talk) 19:04, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
@Nigej and Phinumu:Just for clarification: Do you agree with the proposal to make it Top Ten or no?Burning Pillar (talk) 10:46, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
There's no consensus here to change your proposal. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 11:08, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
No. I don't agree to making this change in isolation. I'm planning to make a proposal for an overhaul of the NGOLF section in the next few days. Just making a single, fairly random, change to it, is something I'm not keen on. What we need is a proper review by those who understand golf and who understand Wikipedia. Nigej (talk) 11:23, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
Full disclosure that I wrote all five of those articles. The one thing worth note is that for four of them, all except Pope, I think enough sources are provided in the articles to show GNG is met. 4/5 is a good start for a volunteer website on pure google searching. I know a lot of people take issue with the one game rules (e.g., make a cut at one major), but in American sports college and amateur events are often well covered. Tracy won the Western Amateur - that was well covered and provided a source. Most of these players play for major universities - and major newspapers cover the results of those teams and their alumni, such as making a cut or even qualifying. Also, making the cut at a major is a big deal from a news standpoint and depending on the town even qualifying, so its usually covered in local newspapers. For even most big cities, a player does not qualify every year. I would not say that is routine coverage since it is not often (as opposed to a small article on a college tournament result). The point I am trying to make is I think the presumption says "the act of making the cut AND the success shown on the way to become a good enough golfer to make the cut is enough to make a presumption that someone is notable." RonSigPi (talk) 13:33, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

WP:NMOTORSPORT

Removing the second sentence which I attempted here was reverted. No reason was given, beyond "undiscussed". If I don't see any good reason to retain this criterion, then I will remove it again.@Lugnuts: Please state all your reasons for the revert. I can't see any good reason to retain a criterion that gives automatic notability to all its sportpersons before 1939. Why do we even need to discuss this?Burning Pillar (talk) 13:36, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

No, as per all your recent changes to this page, they are reverted as there's no discussion and consensus to remove them. It may well be wrong, but the WP:STATUSQUO is applied until you've got a consensus to remove it. Raise it with the motor sport project too. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 13:38, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
@Lugnuts:You are totally wrong: I looked up on WP:PGCHANGE before(which is policy) and my edit was certainly allowed. Please read what it says, especially about reverting changes like that.Burning Pillar (talk) 13:47, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
While PGCHANGE says that " It is not strictly necessary to discuss changes or to obtain written documentation of a consensus in advance" it then says that "because policies and guidelines are sensitive and complex, users should take care over any edits, to be sure they are faithfully reflecting the community's view ..." You have made no attempt to confirm that this edit does "faithfully reflect the community's view" and so it was reverted. Consensus is not some legalistic concept in Wikipedia, it is the whole basis on which it operates, and, as such, is the most important concept for you to learn. Nigej (talk) 14:45, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
Answer to yourself: Does the community want to give automatic notability to any motorsports person active before World War II? Because that is what the sentence says. Automatic notability for being a sportsperson in a sport is, at least according what I have seen in discussions, far away from any established practice.Burning Pillar (talk) 15:00, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
You are right. In which case you should have absolutely no problem getting consensus on the issue. Nigej (talk) 15:05, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
No, you need to get a consensus to change that. And seeing as every single edit you've made to this page has been reverted for that very reason, you're on very thin ground. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 13:49, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Since this apparently has to be spelled out, I oppose this change. Hopefully that makes it clear that this is not unopposed. Lepricavark (talk) 16:48, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
@Lepricavark: If you don't give reasons, then your vote will be ignored by everyone else.Burning Pillar (talk) 17:32, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
That isn't how it works. -DJSasso (talk) 17:32, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
@Burning Pillar: So I finally got to you respond to me. Which, of course, means you failed to ignore me. My reason for opposing your proposal is that you seem to believe you have a license to enforce your proposal unilaterally if no one opposes. Therefore, I'm opposing to hopefully keep you from doing that. Maybe now that you're in a talking mood, you can explain why you've made a habit of ignoring feedback and advice from various experienced editors. Indeed, I'd like to hear your explanation for why you have started this sports notability dramafest. Lepricavark (talk) 17:47, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
The problem with that line is that at some point split that and the next line which said "drivers who competed in a series or race of worldwide or national interest (for example, the American Championship or 24 Hours of Le Mans)." They used to be one criteria so #2 may no longer be needed, I am not sure. -DJSasso (talk) 17:35, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Quite aside from BurningPillar's difficulty in realizing that he is neither permitted unilateral changes without consensus, nor to have his opinion trump everyone else's -- nothing in Wikipedia policy or guideline requires that we solicit his personal approval before making or reverting edits -- I've yet to see a reason for such a change, and something beyond WP:IDONTLIKEIT has to happen here. Ravenswing 18:37, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
@Ravenswing: Are you serious? Did you even read that? It gives automatic notability to every single motorsport person active prior to World War II. This is contrary to any established procedure and the assumption that (nearly) every single motorsport person active prior to WWII meets WP:GNG is blatant nonsense.Burning Pillar (talk) 01:37, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
Did YOU read it? No, in fact, it does not. Like any other NSPORTS criteria, it gives presumptive notability to them, and those figures still need to pass the GNG all the same. And, frankly, I wouldn't give a good goddamn if it gave presumptive notability to their grandmothers, you still don't get to make changes in defiance of consensus, nor do you get to make an unchallengeable change to established notability criteria for no better reason than you think it's nonsense. How you make a change in notability criteria is to -- if you're challenged to do so -- provide evidence that the criteria is poorly designed. You've not done so. Ravenswing 05:05, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Second sentence

I would like to revive a proposal made in Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 18 § RfC: Should we consider a rewording of the intro paragraph of WP:NSPORTS.3F, in the subsection Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 18 § Alternative proposal, to change the second sentence in this guidance to the following:

Reliable sources showing that the subject satisfies notability criteria should be added to the article.

As raised in that discussion, there is no intent to change how any of the guidelines are handled in practice. The motivation is to avoid implying that the sports-specific guidelines supersede the general notability guideline. What does everyone think? isaacl (talk) 04:37, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Neither guideline supersedes another. The GNG and NSPORTS are both indications that a subject is likely to be notable. Stating that articles should have sources is redundant to a notability guideline, as all articles should have sources. --Michig (talk) 06:03, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Sure, my suggestion was to delete the sentence entirely, but the alternative proposal I presented was further along the road to agreement. Long-held consensus agreement on this talk page is that the general notability guideline must eventually be met for any of the articles within scope of this guidance page. isaacl (talk) 14:54, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Nope, that would make it seem like they have to be on there immediately which defeats the whole purpose of NSPORTS. -DJSasso (talk) 10:37, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
The current wording is too open to abuse from the "meets NSPORT, doesn't need to meet GNG" people, who like to pretend it supports their view that any article that meets either NSPORT or GNG must be kept. But the suggested new wording could be equally problematic, for the reason cited by Djsasso; overenthusiastic deletionists would read it as "the article must include sources that prove it meets GNG", and misapplication of NSPORT by overenthusiastic deletionists is no better than misapplication of NSPORT by overenthusiastic inclusionists.
Scrapping the second sentence entirely would be better. Sideways713 (talk) 17:39, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
Sure, I'm fine with reviving my proposal to delete the second sentence. Does anyone else want to weigh in? isaacl (talk) 21:57, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
Is there any objection to deleting the second sentence? I believe the rest of the text in the guideline plus the FAQ makes the relationship between the guideline and the general notability guideline clear, and so this sentence is not necessary. isaacl (talk) 00:55, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable - leave this to run for a few more days (ideally 7 since the proposal was made) to give anyone who objects a chance to voice their comments. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 13:42, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
I would actually strongly recommend keeping the sentence - while its obvious that we should be sourcing this, we want the sources to at minimum support what part of NSPORT they handle. That said, I think to address the concern that GNG-purists might read it, flip it around: "The article must provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the sport specific criteria set forth below, or the general notability guideline." --MASEM (t) 14:13, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
I don't see any need to delete the sentence, and agree with Masem above that we should at least provide sources that he meets NSPORT. No objection to the language change he proposes either. Spanneraol (talk) 15:14, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
It should not be removed, its purpose is to say we need sources for the criteria below. You can't remove that. -DJSasso (talk) 15:23, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
@Masem, Spanneraol, and Djsasso:I doubt that the current proposals(including the proposal to change nothing) adress the concerns. But how about:"All statements in the article used to establish presumed notability must be reliably sourced"? This seems to avoid all problems that were expressed.Burning Pillar (talk) 15:32, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
I think it is fine as is. This is a solution in search of a problem. -DJSasso (talk) 15:37, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
The problem is that the second sentence makes the relationship between NSPORT and GNG less clear, because people read it and cite it as supporting the view that it's enough for an article to meet either NSPORT or GNG. Countless editor hours have already been wasted rehashing the same old discussions about the NSPORT/GNG relationship (a highly contentious 40-kilobyte delrev closed just this morning that was basically just a redo of this equally contentious 60-kilobyte delrev from 2015), and that's going to happen again and again (and again) until the second sentence is either clarified or removed. Sideways713 (talk) 17:05, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
The second sentence currently implies that the sources must be there from the start, which is counter to your expressed opinion above that sources do not have to be present immediately. Regarding the need for sources eventually, this is already covered by other Wikipedia guidelines. The problem is that closers and other editors are not reading the full guideline to understand its context, and some are just keying off the sentence in bold. We can only sing the song about having to read the whole thing for so long (7 years now?); I think it is time to change the one sentence that continues to provide a fig leaf of cover regarding whether or not the general notability guideline needs to be met. The FAQ already went a long way to calming debates on the relationship between this guideline and GNG; I think one more step will be helpful.
Side rant: I don't understand how those who say, well, we should just be able to decide in each AfD discussion what to do, can focus so intently on the second sentence as something mandated by this guideline. If you're willing to completely ignore the context of the creation of the guideline, why do you interpret this one sentence as immutable gospel? Flipping the order of the guidelines in the second sentence won't change how it is being interpreted in these discussions, so while I see no harm, I don't see it changing anything. isaacl (talk) 16:42, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
The source that proves they played that 1 game in the NHL does have to be there from the start. You are making the same mistake many people make reading the sentence. The sentence is saying you need sources proving that the players meet the below criteria. The sources they don't need from the beginning are the ones that prove notability. I have no problem with it being fixed, but it doesn't matter what we put you are still going to have those debates, because every time we do fix someone they just find another way to attack it. Very rarely are those discussions successful so they aren't really a problem. Removing the sentence all together is bad because then people won't have to have proof they meet the below criteria. I have no problem with a rewording if we need one, but the first suggestion you made was flat out wrong. -DJSasso (talk) 17:24, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
In the sentence Reliable sources showing that the subject satisfies notability criteria should be added to the article., "notability criteria" includes both the sports-specific notability criteria and the general notability guideline. The statement is that by whichever criteria is being met to have an article, reliable sources for it should be included, which I believe is what you are seeking. I disagree that removing the sentence will make any noticeable difference in how articles are sourced (some editors will include sources, others won't, just like usual), but I'm happy to have it stay in a reworded form that stops people from arguing that meeting the sports-specific guideline is a replacement for meeting the general notability guideline. isaacl (talk) 18:03, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
In summary, I'm tired of people using the second sentence as a weapon in their arguments. If anyone has an issue with any of the criteria, work on fixing them; if anyone wants to propose shifting to an achievement-based standard for a given sport, then work on that and propose it. Arguing about the general direction stated in one sentence isn't effective; just get consensus for whatever new direction in which you want to proceed. isaacl (talk) 17:02, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
I think what is needed is a sentence before this current one to establish this: "This guideline's purpose is to define criteria where a sports-related topic may not currently meet the GNG but meets verifiable means of importance that presumes the GNG can ultimately be met, and thus allow for a standalone article on the topic." (not perfect wording, just the example of what to say). --MASEM (t) 17:57, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
I think the third sentence and, well, the rest of the lead covers this. We can move the second sentence after this, and clarify the wording to highlight that it is only concerned with including sources, not specifying the standard for having an article. isaacl (talk) 18:11, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
Then that works too. I just really think it is a bad idea to remove the line completely, or make it more vague. We want editors to provide sources for showing a criterion is met (it's a requirement of WP:V, regardless but I know people will often forget that), even if that's not full notability, and I fear losing the line or making it more vague will lead to problems like that. --MASEM (t) 20:48, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
I have no issue with keeping some guidance on including sources, simply to underline the general principle. But I highly doubt that those who are not following Wikipedia's policy on including sources would change their practices by this single line in this guideline. isaacl (talk) 00:52, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Shift emphasis to providing sources for criteria being met

As per the discussion above, I propose removing the second sentence, and adding the following sentence to the end of the lead section:

The article must include citations to reliable sources to substantiate the presumption of notability established by meeting the sports-specific criteria below, or to verify that the general notability guideline has been met.

isaacl (talk) 00:52, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

  • Oppose. It is not the purpose of a guideline to state that anything must be done. The guideline should focus on criteria that indicate notability, and WP:V will take care of whether satisfying those criteria can be verified. --Michig (talk) 20:20, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
    • The only reason "must" should appear here is to remind editors that while we're not expecting GNG-levels of sourced, a minimum amount of WP:V must still be met - eg verifying a criterion is true. You can't just say "so and so is a notable player" without any sources. While it is implicit WP:V applied here being a policy, it helps to remind editors of this when we are explaining that this SNG does dismiss detailed sourcing for the notability presumption. --MASEM (t) 13:44, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. To me the words "guideline" and "must" seem contradictory. From wiktionary,:guideline is a synonym for "rule of thumb". Nigej (talk) 20:29, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
    • The current second sentence already says "must". The rules of thumb described by the sets of criteria for each sport are not as rigidly enforced as policies, thus the "guideline" label. However if you are making use of the rules of thumb, then you should be providing adequate citations. isaacl (talk) 21:19, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
      • I know it already says "must". I'd be happy to get rid of the second sentence completely, and the third, and the fourth. All we need is the first sentence and something along the lines of "The appropriate sports project should try to define the criteria such that sportspeople who meet the criteria, also meet the general notability guideline (as nearly as possible)." Nigej (talk) 21:41, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Then the current guideline should be changed. Any guideline that stops looking like a rule of thumb has gone too far. When it comes to sources, it's their existence which helps with notability, not whether they're cited in an article. And no, I totally disagree that there should be any emphasis on meeting the deeply-flawed GNG. --Michig (talk) 21:46, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
    • For example, the bold, revert, discuss cycle is a best practice, and not even a guideline. And yet, if you are following it, then you must discuss, because that's part of it. In a similar manner, if you are presuming a subject meets English Wikipedia's standards for inclusion based on the sports-specific notability guidelines, then you must include a citation to verify this, as that's part of the guidelines. You can choose not to use the sports-related guidance and instead make a case for inclusion in other ways. isaacl (talk) 23:12, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
  • WP:BRD is an essay. People can write what they want in essays. --Michig (talk) 05:57, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
There are plenty of other examples, such as the manual of style, guidance on citations, and conflict of interest guideline. If you choose to follow a guideline, then you must do what it says; otherwise, you can choose to do something else. isaacl (talk) 08:36, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
You have to actually provide a reliable source backing up the notability claim because we otherwise simply cannot trust this claim. It is completely correct to ask for a reliable source to be in an article instead, because if not, then the material can be removed per WP:Verifiability. It is a clarification that WP:V does apply here, to prevent careless closers from ignoring WP:V. As such the strong language is entirely appropiate.Burning Pillar (talk) 01:24, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
You really need to read WP:V and try to understand the difference between a notability guideline and the verifiability policy. Guidelines should only ever be a rule of thumb, and should not be worded like policies that must be followed. --Michig (talk) 05:57, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment. To me michig has got to the essence of the issue. Given the amount of sports coverage it's quite possible to create an article about a rather minor sportsperson which is full of references and looks like a perfectly good wikipedia article. Surely the point of this page is to point out that, just because you've got some references, doesn't mean that the person is notable enough to warrant a wikipedia article. The criteria are defined by individual sports projects and are there to set a "ballpark" level of achievement to warrant an article. Yes, there's a certain arbitrariness about the criteria but there's much less than if we had to rely on the general notability guidelines. That's all this page is about. It shouldn't be full of other stuff. The first sentence says enough on its own. The only thing I would add is some recommendation that sports projects review the criteria on a regular basis, otherwise they may get "set in stone". Nigej (talk) 07:27, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
    • As you can see from the RfC that promoted this page to a guideline, there was no intent to eliminate sports figures who meet the general notability guideline from having an article on the basis of achievements. However, the basic criteria provides clarification on types of sources that are not suitable for demonstrating that the standards for inclusion have been met. This avoids having articles on persons whose only sources are references on stats sites and routine game coverage. isaacl (talk) 08:46, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
      • I see what you say but I see things in a somewhat different way. I see projects with a few editors struggling to keep their heads above the water, I see countless missing articles, unreferenced articles and stubs, I see the GNG and even the "basic criteria" as vague and then I see the specific criteria here as providing some clarity. Wikipedia is, at times, snowed under with esoteric discussions, when we should be adding good content. What I like about this page is that, if someone wants to delete an article, I can say they won something significant keep it, or they didn't play in anything significant delete it, and get on with something useful. In summary, this page should be about helping to provide an efficient process. Nigej (talk) 09:49, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
        • Or in other notion, you like that because "it's easy". Two things about these comments you make are concerning. The first one is that you want to rely on specific WikiProjects to make this guideline. That is a very bad approach. WikiProjects are usually good, just not for establishing notability criteria. That is because these editors have an interest in the topic, and may have an internal bias towards or against inclusion(more likely the former). The second is that you want to rely on WP:SNG as the last decision maker. Sure, WP:GNG isn't crystal-clear, but if you rely only on SNG's totally detatched from GNG, then you have a high chance to make selections that are not based on the neutral point of view. The selection of Wikipedia articles would be even more slanted towards editor bias than it already is.Burning Pillar (talk) 11:14, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
          • Yes. There is indeed a gulf between us. Nigej (talk) 16:21, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
          • And I note that you have recently said "What's wrong with deleting 100000 articles if they don't meet basic criteria like WP:Verifiability?" rather than trying to improve those articles. So perhaps it's you choosing the "easy" route too.
        • As I discussed elsewhere, the key issue is that English Wikipedia's decision-making tradition isn't conducive to agreeing upon an achievement-based standard for having an article. So it tries to evaluate a subject one step removed, by examining what reliable sources have to say. (This in turn has its pitfalls, as well, but so far the community hasn't been able to agree on anything else.) isaacl (talk) 17:05, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
          • But surely the existence of this page implies a certain agreement on an achievement-based standard. And my experience in WP:GOLF is contrary to your "key issue". Perhaps it helps that there are only a few us "manning the pumps" in WP:GOLF and we get on well together and respect each other's views. Nigej (talk) 17:21, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
            • The reason that these criteria do not face greater opposition from the general community is because they explicitly defer to the general notability guideline. As I mentioned in the other thread, as a discussion scales up to the larger community, there is increasingly less alignment amongst participants. In English Wikipedia, non-expert opinions end up weighing about as much as expert opinions. It can be hard to get non-experts to understand what achievements are remarkable and which are not, and conversely it can be hard for experts to calibrate how these achievements match up with equivalents in other areas (they can easily overestimate the noteworthiness of events in their area of knowledge versus others). Unless the community figures out how to appropriately manage expert views, it's unlikely a standard-based achievement system will get general approval. isaacl (talk) 19:23, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
              • You speak with such conviction but I still don't accept what you say. Nigej (talk) 19:53, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
                • Well, WP:GOLF is vastly different from the community at large. You have a common goal,(to build golf articles) but the community has only one goal: To build a neutral, free encyclopedia. About achievement-based standards: The goal of SNGs is to provide achievements that make almost everyone who makes them notable under the WP:GNG to allow some articles some time to get more reliable sources. The goal is not to have lots and lots of articles only based on and sourced to statistics.Burning Pillar (talk) 21:01, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
                  • There is a fundamental misunderstanding here. We have general notability guidelines that provide a guideline for notability in a general sense. We have subject-specific notability guidelines, which provide more granular guidelines for specific subjects. One does not trump the other. The goal of SNGs is to provide achievements that make them notable under the SNG. It seems that what we are talking about is WP:V, one of the three core content policies. The widely accepted standard is that reliable sources verify achievements that fulfill notability guidelines, regardless of whether they are subject-specific or general. Jack N. Stock (talk) 21:40, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
                    • @Jacknstock: Please read the first sentence of this guideline as well as the first question in the FAQ (at the top of this page).Burning Pillar (talk) 22:15, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
                      • Read WP:N. Start at the top. Also consider the subject of this section; WP:V is the policy on sourcing. Jack N. Stock (talk) 22:31, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
                        • Read WP:WHYN, especially the last sentence.Burning Pillar (talk) 13:15, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
                          • So you agree with me. It says that articles require sources (i.e., WP:V). It also assumes that articles can be justified under other criteria besides general notability (i.e., SNG). This supports my previous statement. Whether a subject is notable under GNG or SNG, the widely accepted standard is that reliable sources verify achievements that fulfill notability guidelines. Jack N. Stock (talk) 13:31, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
                  • You've still not taken on board michig's point that "When it comes to sources, it's their existence which helps with notability, not whether they're cited in an article." Many articles are just a bunch of stats. Yes, and these articles are produced because they're the easiest to do. But this doesn't mean that the people aren't notable. What it means is that those moaners who complain about the quality of articles should get off their backsides and produce some content so that those article are not just a bunch of stats. Nigej (talk) 06:48, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
                    • Yes, and I'll do that now. You need a reliable source confirming that to verify that the assertion of a fact that makes the article meets a special notability guideline is actually true. And we cannot rely on sources that aren't provided, in this case.Burning Pillar (talk) 13:08, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
                • Feel free to go through the archives of this talk page, and see all the discussions that start with someone saying the guideline X is too permissive, and with a response saying that having an article for the person in question can still be questioned based on the general notability guideline. See the comments in the most recent discussion on the village pump, where numerous people expressed their concern about there being too many articles on sports figures that do not meet the general notability guideline. See the many past proposals for an achievement-based standard and opposition it has faced. This topic has been discussed for years; consensus can change, but I haven't seen any reason to believe that it has yet. isaacl (talk) 22:17, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
                  • I was referring to your point, about the fact that "In English Wikipedia, non-expert opinions end up weighing about as much as expert opinions." and not what you've just written. Nigej (talk) 06:42, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
                    • For that, you'd have to look at discussions involving a broad spectrum of editors and see how closers typically follow a straw poll approach to close the discussion. By policy, they're only supposed to weigh evidence that was brought forth during the conversation (assuming no policy/guideline considerations play a role). So if one person says standard X nearly always guarantees that a subject meets the general notability guideline, and another person says this isn't so, closers are only supposed to look at who put forth the most convincing argument. If the closers have no inherent knowledge about the topic, and since English Wikipedia has no mechanism to acknowledge the expertise of any particular editor, they inevitably look at the numbers of people supporting each side to see what argument was convincing. (If they do have knowledge of the topic, drawing upon it often leads to accusations of supervoting, and so even still they are compelled to look at the numbers.) So it's easy for a group of persons without any special knowledge in a topic area to enter a discussion and swamp those who do have greater knowledge, swaying the result. I don't follow AfD but I have seen it happen in AfDs that came to my attention, and it happens in many other discussions as well, particularly if they don't attract the attention of enough subject matter experts. isaacl (talk) 15:47, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

NTENNIS

Based on a recent AfD, I don't think appearing in an ATP World Tour 250 series event should be sufficient to establish notability. Power~enwiki (talk) 22:01, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

What is your reasoning and what does Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennis have to say about this? RonSigPi (talk) 22:19, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
I would disagree. Players who appear in ATP 250s are still top 100 in the world and are significantly notable. Editors tend to disagree when it comes to wildcards, but tournaments don't just hand out wildcards to random nobodies. Players who received wildcards have usually earned them or are looking to come back from injury. So I think that appearing in an ATP 250 would make a tennis player notable. Adamtt9 (talk) 22:27, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
And I want to add, you mention that this assumption is based on a recent AfD, though that AfD seems more likely to result in keep than delete at the moment. Adamtt9 (talk) 22:28, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
They don't establish notability. This like all of the other recent discussions on this talk page make one simple error: namely that subject specific guidelines only presume notability, they don't establish it, only GNG does that. Any editor is welcome to take any article which passes any element of NSPORT to AfD for discussion if they feel it fails GNG to gain wider consensus on whether an article is notable. As such there is no need for any of the long standing consensuses to be changed here. Fenix down (talk) 22:43, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm not sure where editor Power~enwiki is getting his facts from. The NTENNIS guidelines came about and are set they way they are because of longstanding consensus. 99% of players are notable or not notable based on observations of heaps of Grand Slam, 1000, 500 and 250 series events. These events are on the ATP World Tour, the Men's Major leagues of tennis. There are professional minor leagues (ATP Challenger Tour) and professional minor-minor leagues also (the ITF level). A dozen years ago, when we were constantly going through article after article, having discussion after discussion of whether players were notable... decisions were made and our guidelines were set up. They work almost all the time, although I have to say the lesser Davis Cup events and players seem a bit too much. But mostly the guidelines work. There are always exceptions, and for those few exceptions we always fall back on tried and trued GNG. The guidelines at NTENNIS and Tennis Project have stopped literally thousands of long discussions with inevitable outcomes. It is not perfect, but neither are any other wikipedia guidelines. We always allow some flexibility, but it will really have to be shown that a particular player is the exception. It's not much different than the MLB or Olympic notability guidelines. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:09, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm fairly certain I didn't even attempt to cite any facts, apart from the specific AfD. There are simply several people noting that "wild-card" entrants into ATP 250 events technically meet the notability guidelines, but don't seem generally notable. Top-100 players almost certainly have participated in at least one ATP 1000 or Grand Slam level event. Power~enwiki (talk) 01:59, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
Well if you're not citing any facts and not recognising that GNG trumps NSPORT, I'm not sure what you're point is. There's always going to be people who sneak across a subject specific guideline but fail GNG but the place to deal with that is in individual AfDs not by making wholesale changes to a guideline supported by long standing consensus. Fenix down (talk) 06:59, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Reorganize this page into sub-pages?

I recently wanted to see the editing history for WP:NCYC, which is a section of this page. Unfortunately, the way our software works, there's no easy way to do that; you only have the history for the page as a whole. The obvious solution would be to break out each sport under Professional_sports_people into a sub-page, then transclude all the sub-pages here. I think we'd end up with something that was easier to manage. Any objections? -- RoySmith (talk) 18:38, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Seems like a sensible idea to me. Thryduulf (talk) 23:07, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Would be easier to manage but harder to watch for bad changes too in that its less likely that as many people would put all the pages on their watch list. -DJSasso (talk) 18:27, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
Agree with Djsasso --MATThematical (talk) 03:12, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
Seems like a sensible idea to me too. An alternative is to discuss it on the sports project page eg WT:CYC, not as a proposal to change the criteria (eg WP:NCYC) but to come up with a consensus in the project to put a proposal here (a sort of proposal for a proposal). At the moment we've hit a brick wall. I was going to propose some changes to WP:NGOLF but at the moment this seems like a pointless exercise since any perceived loosening to any criteria will be jumped on by the burning pillar's of the world. If something came here that had already been accepted by the sports project (ie the experts) then hopefully that would carry some weight and hopefully we'd have less of these pointless discussions, when we could be doing something useful - like adding content. Nigej (talk) 10:06, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
And then you get the situation where the golf experts make a sensible and rationale update to their specific guidelines, but then have to ask permission from this project for approval. It's the equivalent of raising your hand and asking teacher if it's OK, and pointless, as those who try to rule this page often have no idea about the individual sports themselves. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 10:48, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
It is pretty rare that when a fully discussed change comes here that it isn't accepted. It is usually only off the cuff changes that get picked apart or ones that are way out there and even then I really can only think of the MMA ones having an issue like that before. Especially since when NSPORTS was created to take over ATHLETE the whole point was for individual projects to create/maintain the guidelines and just to come here and post them before changing them to make sure they were sane. -DJSasso (talk) 11:40, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
It isn't always like this, we often update and change the criteria on this page through discussion here. But there are times when it gets to a stalemate. That is just the nature of consensus and something we need to learn to live with on either side of an issue. -DJSasso (talk) 10:36, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
The key is to do the ground work: ideally, as described in the FAQ, a survey of everyone satisfying the proposed criteria would be evaluated to see if they meet the standards of having an article. The corresponding track record at AfD is another piece of evidence that can be introduced. It is true that it can be tricky for avid fans of a sport to achieve sufficient critical distance when evaluating the standards for inclusion, and I think it is helpful to have a broader audience review proposed changes. Carefully worked-out proposals that rely on significant, independent, non-routine, non-promotional, secondary coverage from reliable sources are usually accepted without difficulties. isaacl (talk) 15:44, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
"a survey of everyone satisfying the proposed criteria would be evaluated to see if they meet the standards of having an article" I'm afraid you're living in a fantasy-land if you think there's enough people in the sports projects to undertake what you're after. There's a huge difference between the ideal you want and the reality and that is one of the main reason's why Wikipedia is struggling. Nigej (talk) 16:10, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
I think you missed a word. The word "ideally". Nevertheless, there should be at least some real evidence that the criteria are correct and not only based on the personal feelings of some community members. Unfortunately, when it comes to notability, subject experts tend to overestimate the significance of the subject, so we cannot rely on WikiProjects to make the notability criteria alone.Burning Pillar (talk) 17:18, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
I didn't want to dissuade anyone from taking such an approach (and I have seen people take a sampling of subjects, hence my use of the word "survey"), but I know that it's not common. Thus I offered a different approach, and of course editors are free to think of other ways to illustrate that their proposals are effective. I agree that English Wikipedia's consensus-based tradition is a cause for struggles, due to both the problems with consensus generally in large groups, and to how the community chooses to make decisions (straw poll followed by individual persuasion held over a huge multi-threaded conversation). But for better or worse, no other decision-making approach has gained favour. I'd like to see small groups empowered to investigate solutions that would be ratified by the general community, as is done in the real world, but people don't trust the small groups that are formed, and are reluctant to give up what amounts to veto power in the current setup. And I appreciate there are good reasons for this, too: in this "whoever shows up to discuss something can get an equal say" environment, it's really easy for a small group to go off in a completely different direction than what most people support (just think what a group of paid editors might come up with). Nonetheless, sports isn't as contentious as other areas in Wikipedia, and good proposals can be agreed upon. isaacl (talk) 17:50, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
We can apply such a test to for example 20 randomly selected athletes that meet the criteria. If they all pass (or perhaps 19 pass) I'd, in general, be satisfied. The majority of proposals that are rejected here would not pass this test. --MATThematical (talk) 12:42, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, this should be minimum. However, this should is only a necessary condition. If a subsequent test brings other results...Burning Pillar (talk) 17:52, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
I still don't see this issue in the same way as some of you. The problem in the sports area is that there such a lot of coverage of sports, especially in newspapers, that simply having significant coverage does not equate to what the sports projects regard as notability. The notability guidelines are just so vague. Surely the purpose of this page is to make life a bit easier by marking a few "lines in the sand", which are indeed somewhat arbitrary but are accepted by the sports projects as sensible. Anyway t's not at all clear to me what people expect as evidence of notability. Do people expect me to plough through newspapers to provide a list here of 10 references for 20 different people?
The idea that some kind of test like this would provide meaningful results is well wide of the mark for two reasons:
  1. One of the main purposes of NSPORT is, as noted above to provide a line in the sand. One of the main uses of this is to ensure equal treatment of individuals in a given field across the globe, removing the risk of language-bias in the creation of articles and presumption of notability
  2. I'm not sure how a test using such a small sample would yield an outcome that could reasonably be applied across all sports, particularly given the need to spread that sample across both a large number of non-English speaking countries and a wide range of sports.
Furthermore, there is simply no need for any such test. NSPORT is superceded by GNG, if articles are felt to pass NSPORT but fail GNG, then they should be taken to AfD. Fenix down (talk) 09:13, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
Indeed there is a massive US/Europe male bias at the moment which doesn't really reflect notability, simply the current editors and what their interests are and what is available to them. Personally I'm really struggling to write an article on some clearly notable South Korean golfers who doubtless get great media coverage there. Nigej (talk) 09:51, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
Exactly, this is the major benefit of subject specific guidelines, a benefit which far out weighs the probability that there are some borderline notable articles out there. Personally, I think we can let all these threads die a death now. There are a couple of editors making some fairly substantial and sweeping change requests to a major guideline and I would want to see a much greater level of support for their proposals before we even considered looking at changing long standing consensus used by a large number of editors every day. Fenix down (talk) 10:40, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
The only trouble is that I actually want to revise the guidelines to reflect current views in the project but, it seems, that to do a major revision now will involve me in a vast amount of work to justify every aspect of any proposed new guidelines. So the current guidelines seem to be set in stone, with every attempt to change them being opposed by one side or the other. Nigej (talk) 13:12, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
If you haven't already, I suggest having a look at the RfC that made this page a guideline. It deliberately chose to replace an earlier guideline applied across sports, with this one that instead sets different rules of thumb for each, addressing your concern on this aspect. This page (and the discussions held on this talk page) has also sought to provide clarification on what constitutes routine coverage, to address your concern regarding sports journalism. The consensus in the RfC explicitly chose not to set a higher bar for inclusion than the general notability guideline, so it does not set a line in the sand, as you called it. isaacl (talk) 15:58, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
You must have a different concept to me as what "clarification" mean. I see nothing there that is clear to me. Nigej (talk) 17:32, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
As I discussed in another thread, the basic criteria provides some guidance: broad databases don't count. Routine game coverage doesn't count. Local sources must clearly be independent. This talk page has had discussions that provide additional guidance, such as Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 25#High school coaches.3F where I discuss considerations regarding sports journalism. For better or worse, these aren't hard-and-fast rules, because it's really hard to get a large group to agree upon such things, as previously discussed. Yes, it might be simpler if hard rules were in effect, but so far, after years of discussion, we haven't been able to put any into place. isaacl (talk) 18:48, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
By "line in the sand" I think what was meant was that it is a line beyond which notability is presumed, whereas passing GNG is where notability is confirmed. Fenix down (talk) 16:14, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
I mean a little more than that since I think it ought to be double-edged. I'm hoping that the criteria not only encourage the creation of articles about sportspeople who are "notable", but also discourage the creation of articles about those who aren't. So the "presumed" should work both ways. If the person doesn't meet any of the criteria, you need to provide some good evidence that they really are "notable". Nigej (talk) 17:32, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Recent change to WP:NAFL

The change I am talking about is this one. In my opinion, there was no evidence provided that this change is in line with our WP:GNG requirements. There was at least one disagreement, and regardless of disagreement, it was only discussed on a WikiProject, and not on the right site-WT:NSPORTS. There were frequent assertion that not doing this would be not fair or discriminating(WP:GREATWRONGS). There were also notions towards other sections of the notability guideline; and there was evidence provided that WP:GNG might not be met for AFL players with few appearances, making the change rather dubious.Burning Pillar (talk) 11:51, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

It was discussed on the wikiproject and seemed to garner some support there.. I am not familiar with sports in Australia or how well the women's league there is covered in the media so I'll defer to people who know something about it.Spanneraol (talk) 12:36, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
Just in response to the players that are linked, my plan was to make them briefly and then go back and expand, I knew that if I went into great detail initially then they wouldn't get done, I've done this quite a few times with the men's competition where I've made a stub and gone back to expand, even in the briefness of the research today I've seen independent sources for players.
In regards to the process of the discussion, it was initially started at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Sports notability guideline and was moved to the Wikiproject after the RfC was closed. The reason for the movement there was because the heading was under WP:NAFL, so it seemed logical to move it there and there had already been a discussion on notability for AFLW players earlier in the year there, so this felt like a continuation of that discussion (also considering the uniqueness of the sport, it seemed the discussion would be more focused there rather than here). In addition there was a link to where the discussion was moved (done in this edit), so people outside of the Wikiproject had a chance to join in the discussion too. The discussion was left open for over a week, and there wasn't anything added for six days so the discussion seemed finished. That is when I suggested the discussion as closed and waited over 24 hours for a response before any changes were made to the guidelines. All the people that were actively involved in the AFL Women's season were invited to join the discussion too. Due diligence was made to ensure a proper discussion was had and the consensus of editors actively involved in editing of the sport support this change, and others may disagree, but I felt the one opposition that was made was answered with a reasonable response. Flickerd (talk) 13:24, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
@Cbl62:, it's worth noting that "the AFL's own promotional materials" - or at least, journalistic articles published under the afl.com.au domain or domains of any of the AFL/AFLW clubs - actually are independent. AFL Media is a separate organisation to the AFL, and exclusively employs independent journalists. The vast majority of coverage for any player is going to be from AFL Media, as they're the largest independent sports news organisation in the country. SellymeTalk 13:32, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
Also, AFLW was extensively covered by many other media entities. We could go back and find additional sources for almost every detail, but it is time-consuming. Jack N. Stock (talk) 13:39, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
Is the ownership of AFL Media independent of the AFL? In the American football world, there has been discussion of whether articles at NFL.com are independent. There, the conclusion was reached that the coverage is not independent, because even though "independent" writers were hired, the ownership of the domain by the NFL rendered the coverage non-independent. Accordingly, in the American football context, we are required to provide sources that are from wholly independent media outlets. Cbl62 (talk) 13:41, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm a bit unsure on the finer details of the independence of AFL Media and I'll let someone else answer that better, but from my understanding they're separate entities. I think the usage of refs is all relative, in Australia, there's only 3-4 companies at best that extensively cover AFL and AFLW, I would imagine the number of outlets that cover American football is much, much higher than Australian football. I personally try to not use just AFL Media articles in an article when possible and will replace refs in an article if possible, which is the plan for the women's pages that have been made today. But like I said, it's all relative and sometimes AFL Media is all that can be used for certain things. Flickerd (talk) 14:01, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
As far as I'm aware AFL Media is wholly owned by the AFL, but as a subsidiary rather than a branch/division of the same company. I know that on at least one occasion AFL Media has sued the AFL, which I'm fairly sure wouldn't be possible if it wasn't a distinct entity. I don't know enough about the NFL to say if it exactly mirrors the situation that has already been discussed (hopefully there's someone around here with good knowledge of both sports to give an insight), but from my experience nearly all fans of the sport agree that AFL Media articles and reporting are completely indistinguishable to that of any other independent journalists both in content and tone. Do you have a link handy to the discussion and consensus reached for the NFL? If the concerns were for reasons other than potential bias then that may be something that will have to be brought up on WP:AFL. Either way it's a tricky situation due to just how ubiquitous AFL Media is in Australian sports coverage. SellymeTalk 14:07, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
I can't find a link to the specific discussion(s) at the moment (it's generally come up in the context of AfD discussions), but it's pretty well accepted in the US sports context that, even though nfl.com and mlb.com hire real journalists to create content on their web sites, the content published on these sites is not "independent" for Wikipedia purposes. Indeed, a media outlet owned by the league it covers seems to be the very definition of "not independent". See WP:INDEPENDENT#Conflicts of interest. There are hundreds of independent media outlets in Australia (e.g., List of newspapers in Australia by circulation), and it seems that if a player is truly notable, there will be coverage to be found in such "independent" sources. Cbl62 (talk) 14:28, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
A majority of these newspapers that cover AFL (i.e. List of newspapers in Australia by circulation) are owned by a small group of companies, primarily News Corp Australia, Fairfax Media and Seven West Media, which use articles interchangeably between papers (here's five different newspapers owned by the same company with the exact same article [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], this happens all the time in regards to AFL articles). Then there is the common occurrence where an article is written by the Australian Associated Press which is then copy and pasted by different outlets with very little variation. I'm all for ensuring everything on Wikipedia is notable and I do believe AFLW players meet GNG, but "significant coverage" may be by a different standard to other sports, and that's the purpose of sport specific guidelines, which is what the whole discussion was last week and people who are actively involved in the sport reached the consensus of adding AFLW to the guideline. Flickerd (talk) 15:17, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
Regarding "evidence provided that WP:GNG might not be met for AFL players with few appearances", I don't believe that this actually happened. I provided evidence for how existing articles wouldn't pass the presumed notability guidelines (specifically, the argument of notability not being inheritable), but also commented that participating in "a major competition" is explicitly given as an exception to this rule in the existing notability guidelines at WP:SPORTSPERSON. Whether or not that guideline is valid is up for debate, but that's a discussion that would affect thousands of different leagues across hundreds of different sports. As for WP:GREATWRONGS, I'm really not sure where you're getting that from. There isn't a single instance of "discrim(.*)" in the discussion, and the only instance of "fair" is referring to the Best and Fairest, a term for an award clubs give to their best player of the season. SellymeTalk 13:26, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
Here is how you make it correctly: Randomly pick 100 from all AFLW players that exist. Prove that at least 99 of them meet the WP:GNG. If that is met, then the change is ok. Otherwise, not.Burning Pillar (talk) 13:35, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
About 20-30 of them would fail WP:GNG, the point is that the first "G" there is the important bit. Every single one of them would, by definition, pass WP:SPORTSPERSON, which is a far more specific guideline. If you're protesting the inherent notability of participating in a major sporting league then that's a discussion that needs to be had involving as many sports editors as possible, rather than the relatively small subset of editors who deal with the AFL and AFLW specifically. For example, the vast majority of articles for tennis players would also have to be deleted if playing an ATP World Tour match no longer counted as notable, and although I have limited experience with the sport myself I'm under the impression that there are thousands of articles on baseball players that are in a similar situation. It's not reasonable for us to decide "yep, that guideline is wrong, they all have to go" without input from members of every wikiproject those changes would impact. SellymeTalk 13:42, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
I might quarrel with BurningPillar's 99% figure, but the vast majority (say, around 90%) of the group should pass WP:GNG. As noted in its first sentence, WP:NSPORTS is intended to identify classes of athletes that are "likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia." If at least 20-30% would fail GNG, then the new guideline for AFL Women's is insupportable. Cbl62 (talk) 13:48, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
BTW, the absence of a SNG for AFL Women's doesn't mean the articles "all have to go." It just means that they need to be evaluated individually as to whether or not GNG is satisfied. Cbl62 (talk) 13:51, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
  • I've had a scout around, and have not yet found a AFLW player who I do not think would meet GNG (even if just scraping by). This year was the inaugural season, so a lot was written about the AFLW, with newspapers running profiles on the teams, offering a small bio on almost all players. Added to this, many come from smaller amateur leagues and have local newspaper articles about either their previous playing record, or that they have been drafted by the AFLW. I'm not going to say that every player would pass GNG, but nor would I say the fail rate would anywhere near one third (as suggested Sellyme). I also think asking for 100 players, from a league of only eight teams of 27 players (~216 in total, injuries may increase the number slightly) is way too big an ask. I think a couple of dozen is a far more reasonable request. I'd also note that only one AFLW player article has been nominated for deletion (that I know of), it was in a very basic state, was before the inaugural game, and still survived (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kara Donnellan). ColonialGrid (talk) 14:43, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
This is the problem I'm having with a lot of the drama that a couple of editors seem intent on stirring up here, not just with AFL (about which I know nothing), but across the whole NSPORT piece. There's a lot of complaints that this guideline or that guideline is too inclusive, but I'm not seeing one clear cut instance where any of these editors have taken an article to AfD, stated the same reasoning they are here and have had it deleted. Fenix down (talk) 15:05, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
Well, in this special case, the league is very new. This is also a problem. We have no idea what will happen with the coverage beyond the 1st season. Even if the criterion is accurate for the players of the first season, it might be not so accurate for the next seasons. What is probably important, too, is that we do not have to rely on a special notability guideline for these reasons right now, because if the players do pass GNG, then there will be sources that are easy to access or find most of the time. I think it would be a better idea to wait some years to get more information about the development before making that(the notability of AFLW players) a general rule.Burning Pillar (talk) 15:55, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
Notability is not temporary which reads "once a topic has been the subject of "significant coverage" in accordance with the general notability guideline, it does not need to have ongoing coverage." I don't see how this is a problem as you say as the league will always be notable based on WP:NTEMP as it received a huge amount of coverage. Can I ask did you actually watch or follow AFLW at all, do you have any idea of the level of coverage that it actually received? The people who actively watched and followed it believe that the AFLW players should be treated the same way as the AFL men's players due to the coverage levels, I'm tending to agree with Fenix down that drama just seems to want to be stirred in regards to NSPORTS. When an AFLW player actually went to an AfD when the league received far less coverage (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kara Donnellan), it still survived. Flickerd (talk) 16:17, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
Well said. Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia. It is a record of history not a measure of fame. It might contain an article about someone that only one person in the world has ever heard of, but if that person can show that the person was notable 100 years ago or 1,000 years ago they should have an article. Nigej (talk) 16:41, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
Intentional or not(I guess not), this is a strawman. The league itself is certainly notable, but I never asserted the contrary. Notability is not temporary, no, but if the coverage dwindles, then the players that join the league later will also have less coverage. If not, then there is no problem. As others have asserted, the attention the league generates for its players might be higher because it is in its starting year. It is too soon to expand notability to those who did not play in the starting year, but that will play later(if the league survives).Burning Pillar (talk) 22:47, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

The coverage is there in spades, and vastly, vastly more than many leagues and players with equivalent guidelines that have never been controversial - if this weren't a women's league, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The changes had a clear and obvious (almost unanimous!) consensus. Let it lie. The Drover's Wife (talk) 22:59, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Definitely. Time to stop this tendentious and unnecessary debate/ Montanabw(talk) 22:43, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

WP:NHORSERACING

Two articles I created are up for deletion:

Part of the problem, in my mind, is the criterion "Individuals who have won multiple significant Grade/Group 2 or 3 graded stakes races or the equivalent level in their respective nations" (emphasis added) What does significant mean? I looked in the talk page for Wikipedia:WikiProject Horse racing for guidance on the term significant, but couldn't find any. This can be a very high standard or a very low standard - all depends on definition. Another interesting point - jockeys run many races in their careers and horses few. Should more be required of humans that have long careers in the sport, but much less for horses (so the coverage is not disproportionate and in my experience more coverage is dedicated to the horse and not those involved.) In my mind these horses meet GNG anyways, but I think a lot could be cleared up by either defining what significant means, removing the term significant so we are cut and dry on the races, limiting it to multiple Grade II wins without the significant requirement, or some other option. I am not part of the project, so I won't suggest which one, but I do think this should be corrected. Note the concurrent discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Horse racing#WP:NHORSERACING. RonSigPi (talk) 20:40, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

These guidelines are being misstated. (See WP:NHORSERACING) The criteria is GI or "significant" which we all know refers to "significant coverage" per WP:GNG. These guidelines were created by consensus at the project and discussion at this page. In the case of the above two articles, these are two completely non-notable horses sourced mostly to race results. In contrast, there were two other horse articles created in the came general timeframe, Gunnevera and Afleet Again, which were not AfD'd as they may pass due to significant news coverage surrounding each animal, even though they too lack a GI win. It's crystal clear and this individual is gaming the system with stub creation across multiple topics, including horse racing, rodeo, golf, and, I believe, Boxing. Enough already. Montanabw(talk) 22:17, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
It should be noted that Montanabw A) is the nominator for deletion of the above two articles, B) personally going around and aggressively attacking me as an editor (see User_talk:RonSigPi#Your_challenges_to_AfD in addition to the accusations above), and C) is holding himself/herself out as an expert editor (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stephanie Fryar (2nd nomination)). As for "gaming the system", not sure how following a clear-cut standard, as in rodeo and golf, being followed is frowned upon. I would think that is actually the whole point of the guidelines - giving editors a rational basis upon which it can be determined if an article can be created. Outside of maybe a very rare exception, every article I have created is sourced from multiple outlets. Only times I don't is foreign subjects where WP:BIAS issues arise. My tone on this has just changed - seems like these deletions and discussions are no longer editors making reason-based decisions (as I would say Brudder Andrusha is doing in the horse racing project part). Instead, these now seem to be a personal vendetta by a single editor that does not like the broadness of the standards and is critically evaluating each of my articles. What an enjoyable and rewarding way to be approached on a volunteer website... RonSigPi (talk) 22:48, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
Yup, I'm critically evaluating articles. And given that this editor has a tendency to create really low quality stubs of marginally notable subjects, a number of which have been deleted by consensus of the community, it does smack of paid editing. And I happen to be the lead editor who wrote the standards for both NRODEO and NHORSERACING that you are now challenging. They were created to be a bit generous in order to avoid the situations where articles on actually notable topics are AfD nominated in defiance of all common sense. If you want them tightened up, you are going about it precisely right. Another approach to consider is to write better-quality articles about more notable subjects (you will note, above) that I reviewed two other race horse articles and did NOT AfD them because I think they meet GNG. Montanabw(talk) 23:02, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
An equivalent human runner would not be considered notable. Compare WP:NTRACK. It seems far more selective. Why are horses more notable than people? Jack N. Stock (talk) 02:23, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
I don't see it that way. First off, the horse/jockey/trainer need to win in all these - WP:NTRACK, in lower levels, only needs a top 3 finish. Second, four or so tiers exist in Track - Olympic/Worlds, major regional, minor regional/invitational, and national. Would that be the same as say Triple Crown, Grade I (other), Grade II, and Grade III? Or for WP:NFOOTY, Premier League, Championship, League One, and League Two? And again, participation is not required, but one win for Grade I or multiple wins in Grade II or III. For example, in 2014, there were 110 Grade I races in the US (see [6]) - I will only look at US since that is what I have numbers for. So only 110 horses maximum would be presumed notable in the US. There were 335 Grade II and III races in 2014 - if every two races was won by one horse, that adds only 172. Is 282 a right number of horses? Of course I know pure numbers don't matter, its all about GNG and the presumption this confers. But when comparing to WP:NTRACK, with all the events, I have to think the number of US athletes is far greater than 282. And again, 282 is the absolute max, I think the number is much smaller since multiple horses can win Grade I races and its not that often a horse wins multiple Grade II or III races (and this does not even consider if we give a limit on what significant means). This is just to give numbers based on your comment. RonSigPi (talk) 02:46, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
Hi Jacknstock, in this case, indeed, your comments help point out to the editor who started this thread that the two articles he is concerned about do not pass GNG by anyone's measure. As for the general NHORSERACING guidelines, they are intended to assist non-experts in a preliminary NPP assessment by explaining standards that are deemed significant in the horse racing world for meeting WP:GNG. The difference from NTRACK are 1) No Olympics for horse racing, 2) far shorter careers for the horses than for human athletes, fewer races per year and fewer per career, 3) not as many competitors to weed out, and 4) We do consider progeny records for some horses -- but we don't track pedigrees of human athletes to see if they also pass on their genetics! ;-) If you look at it statistically, the odds are tough: 22,000 foals per year and only 20 make the Kentucky Derby, and as RonSigPi notes, 110 GI races in the USA, but also there are Group 1 graded stakes races in other nations (e.g. Grand National, Melbourne Cup, etc...) plus other types of racing such as National Hunt Racing in the UK and harness racing worldwide. So the "Grade One winner or equivalent" baseline is actually pretty challenging all by itself -- and not all GI winners have WP articles, either! Our grade 2 or 3 winners if they do something significant comment is a guideline to permit common sense to acknowledge the cases where something remarkable happened that doesn't fit the mold. (I like to use the jockey Russell Baze as an example). But we definitely don't want every horse that goes into the gate to be on wiki, any more than the "any athlete paid to kick a ball" standard in other sports. There is a line to be drawn somewhere, and the line is well short of a horse like these two who won a couple minor graded stakes races with minimal if any press coverage before being retired to make babies. Montanabw(talk) 03:00, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
Maybe "multiple significant Grade/Group 2 or 3 graded stakes races" should read "multiple notable Grade/Group 2 or 3 graded stakes races" because "notable" has a much more widely understood WP definition. Jack N. Stock (talk) 13:34, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm good with that. Jlvsclrk and Brudder Andrusha have commented that we need to tighten that a bit and that works for me. Montanabw(talk) 00:47, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
Agree with multiple "notable" stakes - and perhaps not mention grades at all under #2 since grading only came into play in the 1970s. Secretariat never won a G1 after all, if you want to be technical! Jlvsclrk (talk) 01:07, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
From a historical sense any horse that doesn't have an entry from the era before the Grading classification was introduced in 1973 would of probably qualified by some other mechanism. Many races from that era don't exist any more as well which makes them not notable now but in that era they were. If anything I would also tighten up what would be necessary for an article and maybe have a template. A Userbox needs to be in the article with appropriate field filled in. Also tt would be good to have a breeding template in the article. If the horse was good enough for and article then the breeding is worth something as well. This will eliminates stub articles that are one liners similar to we just encountered with Heart Ashley etc. A career overview should be in the article with references. Brudder Andrusha (talk) 19:10, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
Pinging Tigerboy1966 on the structure of articles. I suspect we all agree, but not sure that's in the scope of notability-- quality, definitely. Montanabw(talk) 02:33, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

OK, so how to reword: Here's the key segment, and #2 is the problem entry, but tweaks elsewhere might be worth considering:

  1. Individuals who win a Grade I/Group I stakes race or the equivalent level in their respective nations. (Horses, due to their relatively short careers, at least once; humans best to have done so more than once)
  2. Individuals who have won multiple significant Grade/Group 2 or 3 graded stakes races or the equivalent level in their respective nations.
  3. Individuals who have won year-end championship titles, such as an Eclipse Award.
  4. Members of a national Racing Hall of Fame.

I think #1 is basically OK, partly because it's simple, though perhaps we could add "past or present Grade/Group 1"? #2 could read "notable" instead of "significant" and maybe state just "graded stakes races" ? Maybe add a note about historically notable races pre-grading system (remember there is a different system in Europe, but it works in a similar way). I don't think we need to tweak #3 and #4, but open to ideas. WP:NHORSERACING has more stuff in it, but the rest is not at issue here, I don't think. Montanabw(talk) 02:31, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Sports league seasons

Hello, we should really have some criteria for league seasons (as opposed to individual team seasons). For some reason baseball is very restrictive about which leagues have season articles, while sports like ice hockey and association football are far more lenient. Right now there is a discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2016 Can-Am League season, where the baseball people are saying the article should be deleted, while I know for a fact there are non professional sports league season articles or minor professional league season articles for other sports. -- Earl Andrew - talk 19:17, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

The requirements say team because it was already longstanding consensus that league seasons did. You would be hard pressed to find a professional sports league that couldn't meet the source requirements for a season article. They were written assuming that people would understand if teams could have season articles, that leagues would automatically have them as well. Being that league is more general than team. -DJSasso (talk) 23:07, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
My take is that the baseball project has historically been very hostile to the concept of minor-league notability, and that the hockey and footy projects haven't. If NBASEBALL rejects the concept of presumptive notability for minor league players (no matter how many games they might have played in leagues over a century old and in major metropolitan areas), it's little surprise that they're no more welcoming of minor league seasons. Ravenswing 08:27, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
That is true, over the years the baseball project has typically tried to reject GNG for any minor league players to the point where they tried to do combined pages for players so it really isn't all that surprising. -DJSasso (talk) 11:48, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
With the resistance shown by some for the current rules of thumb, someone will have to do the legwork to illustrate the advisability of including additional leagues to the presumptive standard before it can happen. (On a side note: I do not recall combined pages being used in general for minor league players, though I could be forgetting some examples. There is a combined page specifically for the current year's top spring-training prospects, on the principle that a list article for each year's group meets the standard for inclusion, even if the individual players may not.) isaacl (talk) 15:56, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
The presumptive standard already exists, its just that the baseball project has rallied against it. The pages you are talking about could be the same ones, they used too (not sure if they still are) be for any player that was in the major league organization, not just spring training prospects. Any time someone created a minor league player someone would redirect the article to the organization article and/or merge some info from it, whether they met GNG or not. -DJSasso (talk) 11:44, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I implicitly meant a change to the baseball-specific notability guidelines. The list articles may have been for top minor-league system prospects who were otherwise not deemed to meet the general notability guideline; they typically would be updated based on spring training roster invitations. isaacl (talk) 12:39, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
The list articles are for players on the 40 man roster that dont have full articles yet or players who are top prospects or high draft picks.. which isnt the same as the spring training invitees who are often minor league veterans who are invited to fill out practice rosters rather than true top prospects. Spanneraol (talk) 16:21, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, I was being inexact with my use of the term invitation. The key point is that the list article is not a way to combine all minor leaguers into one article, but a list of a certain group. isaacl (talk) 18:47, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Right which was my point all along, you are shoving players who most likely meet GNG all onto a single page. -DJSasso (talk) 11:50, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, I lived in the Bay Area in California, and there was virtually no coverage of the class A baseball San Jose Giants. Unless it's different in smaller cities or higher minor league levels, minor leage baseball players and teams would be hard pressed to meet GNG requirement for extensive coverage from multiple, independent, reliable sources.—Bagumba (talk) 01:49, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Maybe it's because your regional sports market is oversaturated. Jack N. Stock (talk) 01:56, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Shouldn't the determination of if an article can exist be if the coverage is there? Does the season as a whole get substantial coverage in enough reliable sources to make an article pass GNG? Is there anything other than occasional game stories? Does the season have season in review articles? I know the California League gets hardly any coverage... and most low level independent leagues dont get covered at all except maybe brief blurbs in local papers. Saying every season of every one of these leagues is automatically notable is just silly.. Spanneraol (talk) 02:30, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
That seems to be a straw man argument, because nobody said that every season of every league is automatically notable. Jack N. Stock (talk) 03:35, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
DJSasso above was essentially saying that. Spanneraol (talk) 12:23, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Hardly any is different than no coverage. 3 articles could be considered hardly any, but 3 articles is all it takes to meet GNG. Even the California league could drum up 3 articles spread out among its 8 teams over the course of a year. -DJSasso (talk) 11:40, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Don't forget, there doesn't have to be coverage in every town the league is in, just in enough of them for "multiple" sources to happen. So if you have articles about league events in 2 or 3 of the cities the league is in, boom you meet the threshold for GNG as typically multiple is taken at about 3 articles. You think these leagues can't drum up 3 articles about league events over the course of the year in any of the many cities they have in their leagues? I expect there might not be in over saturated major metropolitan locations like San Francisco. But all it takes is a couple articles to meet GNG. Doesn't have to be one every single day. -DJSasso (talk) 11:31, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
But does 3 articles about league events really equal GNG? What sort of articles? Are they substantive articles about the season as a whole or are they routine game recaps? I don't think game recaps or occasional articles about a big fight in a game somewhere really show the notability of the season itself. Spanneraol (talk) 12:21, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
As long as the article is substantial and not just a passing mention yes, because the events that happen in a season are the season. So any articles that go in depth on the event are going in depth on the season. Saying that articles that go in depth on a specific part of a season isn't talking about the season is like saying an article talking about Justin Beiber's hair isn't talking about Justin Beiber. -DJSasso (talk) 12:43, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Thats a silly analogy. Also you keep saying articles that go "in depth".... a small game recap is not in depth reporting.. articles written on the league or teams websites are not independent sources. Is there substantial reporting other than that on these leagues? I think for many of them there is not. Spanneraol (talk) 16:17, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Let's say someone uploads a video to YouTube, demonstrating how they braid their own hair, and it goes viral: maybe the Guardian picks it up, and it gets lots of links and attention (which to me totally feels like something that could have happened already, so I don't think it's out of the question). The person's video (and thus hair) could be deemed to be sufficiently notable to include in Wikipedia's braid article, but this doesn't mean the person meets Wikipedia's standards for inclusion. More to the point, single games could get more extensive, non-routine coverage: maybe A-Rod tries a comeback with an independent league team. This doesn't mean that the season as a whole has transitively met the standard for having an article; articles about a few games isn't enough to write an article on the entire season. isaacl (talk) 18:47, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Of course most coverage is going to be about the individual games that comprise the season. This is true at any level of sports, including major leagues and the highest level of international competition. If you want WP:RS coverage of every single game to establish notability for a league season, you are asking for very long articles with over a hundred significant references from reliable sources for the typical minor league baseball league season. This seems excessive.
Alternatively, if you want every individual game that receives non-routine coverage to have its own article, what if there are fifty games with such coverage? Fifty separate articles? And an article on the season of each team that receives receives more extensive coverage than other teams in the same league, but no article for a team in the same league because it receives less media attention? And say there are several incidents that also receive extensive coverage, you expect another article for each of these incidents? I can imagine at least some of the fifty+ articles will go to AfD with suggestions to merge or adding to the backlog at WP:PM. Why not cover them under one article for the entire league season at the outset and avoid all these processes? Let's instead say that these games, these teams and these incidents that each receive significant coverage are all part of a league season, and that the WP:RS coverage of the games, teams and incidents within a league season amount to notability for the league season as a whole.
More to the point and the reason for specific notability guidelines WP:SNG, what if most of the coverage is in a foreign language, or coverage was pre-internet and therefore would have been in print? If the 2016 season of an American minor league or independent league is notable because WP:GNG can be readily demonstrated from online sources, does that mean an equivalent 1956 season, or an equivalent 2016 league season in Africa or Southern Asia can be presumed to be notable? Jack N. Stock (talk) 06:05, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
A video about someone braiding their hair isn't about the hair, its about the braiding. The hair would be a passing mention, but an article writing about some famous celebrities hair is talking about a feature of said celebrity which is exactly what in depth means, going into detail about features of a topic, in this case the feature is the celebrities hair. In the case of a sports season, it would be incidents that happened throughout the season, the brawl for example, or a no-hitter that was pitched, or the championship game. They are all talking about details of the subject, the subject being the season of the league. You wouldn't have an article about each individual event in a season, you would have a season article. -DJSasso (talk) 11:45, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
Thinking about the Cam-Am League situation, perhaps the standard of inclusion should require coverage of non-game day events in non-local secondary sources. Something that covers league business to show the notability of its operations, versus individual team operations. isaacl (talk) 12:42, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
Like player movements, administrative officers and the like? This isn't about notability of the league, though, it's about notability of the league's season, which is comprised of games. A sports season is basically a series of games over a number of weeks or months. The player movements (trades, drafts, free agency signings, delistings, retirements) for most leagues are mostly off-season, as are most consequential administrative actions and changes (ideally, at least). Jack N. Stock (talk) 17:57, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

WP:NBOX Section 2

WP:NBOX Section 2. where is states

Has fought for a regular/full national or higher non-world title for an affiliated organization of one of the above listed major sanctioning bodies (e.g. IBF-affiliated (USBA), WBA-affiliated (BUI or PABA), WBC-affiliated (ABCO, BBBofC (and its predecessor the NSC), EBU (and its predecessor the IBU), NABF, or OPBF), or WBO-affiliated (NABO))

There needs to be some changes in regarding to WBA-affiliated as the example that was given PABA is no longer affiliated with WBA as of June 2017 PABA was replaced with WBA Oceania and WBA Asia.

In saying that PABA have formed their own Sanctioning body called World Boxing Society aka WBS

--Bennyaha (talk) 06:51, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Update: Closure on the "inclusive" discussion

Just for notification, the discussion at WP:VPP is closed via joint team closure. The rationale is very large to summarize adequately. However, I must say that the closing rationale declares NSPORTS not a replacement of or triumphant over GNG. See more for yourselves. --George Ho (talk) 19:50, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

That has always been the case so i don't know if anything of importance was accomplished by that discussion. Spanneraol (talk) 20:19, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
I suppose it reaffirms the long-held consensus, which hopefully will make it easier for closers of future Articles for Deletion discussions to take into account. isaacl (talk) 20:50, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
I agree, it's the same conversation I've seen many times, with the same conclusion I've seen many times. People will distort this and cherry-pick phrases to suit their own preconception, or simply ignore it. Nothing has changed. Time and effort could have been better spent improving articles. Jack N. Stock (talk) 21:53, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
I can't believe this much time was spent closing something that has been discussed and reaffirmed so many times as to be pretty much beyond questionable. But then I shouldn't be surprised, this is wikipedia where people like to debate for the sake of debate. So essentially this discussion found out that the thing that has been consensus since the guideline was created is still consensus. -DJSasso (talk) 10:43, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Contacted one of the closers, who made a response. --George Ho (talk) 01:50, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

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