Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 25

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Rodeo - Bull Riding Hall of Fame notability in question

I added the Bull Riding Hall of Fame with this edit summary: Adding Bull Riding Hall of Fame created in 2012. Inducts already notable bull riders, bull fighters, bulls, and legends from PRCA, PBR, and other circuits, many from ProRodeo Hall of Fame.

Ravenswing undid my entry citing: (Undid revision 764060585 by Dawnleelynn Is there any consensus indicating that all such members of this hall of fame are considered presumptively notable?)
Ravenswing (talk · contribs) Here is my reply: Here are several third-party websites that show the notability of individuals who have been inducted into this hall of fame. Although, I would also that the hall of fame itself is notable, in the same way the ProRodeo Hall of Fame is notable. Additionally, I would add that at least 90% of the current inductees are already inductees of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame or the Professional Bull Riders: Heroes and Legends Ring of Honor holders (the PBR equivalent of a Hall of Fame).

Please advise if this addresses your concern in full, thanks. dawnleelynn(talk) 00:40, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot, here's the article for the Bull Riding Hall of Fame, it will become live momentarily. User:Dawnleelynn/Sandbox 2 dawnleelynn(talk) 00:46, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

There does not appear to be a WikiProject on bullriding, but there should be a project that incorporates this that I recommend you notifying of this discussion so they can chime in. I doubt many people who watch this page are familiar enough with the topic to voice an opinion. - GalatzTalk 01:41, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
Galatz (talk · contribs)Thank you, you are correct, I am member of the WikiProject that bull riding falls under actually. It's WikiProject Agriculture. How do I notify the whole Wiki at once? dawnleelynn(talk) 02:09, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
Just post on the talk page of the project and suggest they look at the discussion here - GalatzTalk 03:03, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
I understand the interest in bullriding, but I think it would be better to make a project for rodeo (that would include bullriding). I would joint that project. RonSigPi (talk) 02:10, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Mm, but your reply, Dawnleelynn, doesn't in the slightest address my issue. I wasn't asking why you feel that all members of this hall ought to be considered notable. I asked what consensus you'd obtained here on Wikipedia that this was the case. It doesn't seem that you've done this, and the NSPORTS notability criteria are important enough that they shouldn't be changed before any attempt at reaching such a consensus has been sought. Ravenswing 16:36, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
Ravenswing (talk · contribs) Well, your edit summary didn't actually say whose consensus you were asking for, and I didn't realize what was actually meant until Galatz kindly stepped in. My bad. I'll read up, I must have missed something. You'll have to bear with me as I have only been editing since October 2016. As you can see, I told Galanz I am notifying the members of the my wikiproject to ask them for their input to get WP consensus. The bull riding falls under the agriculture wikiproject of which I am also a member. I am confused about where I provided "feelings" though. I pointed to the fact that most of the members of the Bull Riding Hall of Fame are also members of a hall of fame which is already on this page and reached consensus, the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. The websites were there cause that's mistakenly the consensus I thought you wanted, third party consensus. No feelings anywhere. So we'll gnore the websites. The members of the hall are notables, not because I feel they are, but because they are established by an already WP approved notable on this page, the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. I will work on getting editors to comment on this page. dawnleelynn(talk) 17:16, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
I have been reading up on notability some more. I understand that consensus is needed on all edits to this page now and in fact is not exclusive to notability. Even if its just one editor making a change that no one disputes, that's considered consensus. But I also read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#General_notability_guideline and there's nothing wrong with me providing information that helps other editors who might come in to weigh in for consensus to give them some knowledge on the subject in question. Did we expect a group of editors to come in and give consensus based on no information except two edit summaries? I might have provided these website articles as there are few subject matter expert editors in bull riding in WP. p.s. As a newer editor, would appreciate some good faith, not trying to get around the rules. dawnleelynn(talk) 18:44, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
I definitely think providing the sources was a good idea. I know nothing about bull riding whatsoever so I wouldn't chime in on anything here. That is why I suggested the wikiproject. You always want to provide information that helps others come to "your conclusion" because without it you are just talking without supporting your own case. Hopefully other people with knowledge on the subject can chime in. - GalatzTalk 19:05, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
Thank you Galatz! You may not be able to provide consensus but you have definitely been very helpful and friendly. I'm glad someone else feels the sources were helpful too. I do appreciate it very much! dawnleelynn(talk) 19:24, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Ok, so I responded to the edit summary that the members of the Bull Riding Hall of Fame were 90% notables due to being inductees of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, which is already an established notable organization on this page. However, I can also add that the PBR has become an established stand-alone organization of bull riding after 25 years phenomenal growth. It has grown to be an impressive organization in bull riding and fully supports a hall of fame dedicated solely to the sport of bull riding. Just to show they intend to induct from the PBR, the Bull Riding Hall of Fame 2017 induction class just inducted a two-time PBR World Champion bull rider named Chris Shivers who still holds many records. Perhaps the millions of fans serve as consensus of its notability.

dawnleelynn(talk) 23:27, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

  • Galatz and Ravenswing (talk · contribs), the rodeo and bull riding topics fall under the purview of WP:Agriculture (livestock task force), and WP:Equine (lots of horses in rodeo). The projects are relatively small, but I am active in both, so if you want us to post an inquiry there, we can, but I think dawn's evidence above is adequate for the folks here to determine notability -- in the past, when I've suggested edits to related topics, the consensus was determined here and not at the wikiproject. The halls of fame listed are a "such as" set of examples, not an all-exclusive list. But bull riding is the only event-specific hall of fame, and that due to its independent standing separate from other rodeo events and I think dawnleelynn's attempt to add it was for the purpose of providing another notable example for guideance -- I don't know the future of other rodeo events spinning off into separate competition in the future, I know that barrel racing has stand-alone events, though not at the award money level of the PBR. You also make a point that perhaps we do need a rodeo task force, there are now several hundred articles that could be tagged. Montanabw(talk) 00:29, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
  • comment - In addition to the reasons provided above, I'll just add that bull riding is an extreme sport, and bull riders are extreme sports figures with fan clubs, groupies, etc. While they may not be "celebrities" on the scale of an Al Pacino or Angelina Jolie, bull riding hall of fame inductees are famous and quite notable. Rather than go on about it, here is a link that pretty well sums it up. Bull riders who are awarded hall of fame honors are notable on a wide scale not unlike other hall of fame inductees in various other life threatening extreme sports included in our encyclopedia. Atsme📞📧 15:59, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment. Yes, they're notable. They tend to be really well known in the Western and Southern US, and rodeo has fans in other countries like Australia too. Some of the bullriders make six figures a year. And yeah, we do need a rodeo task force...somebody was throwing the idea around a while back, but didn't get much interest at the time. White Arabian Filly Neigh 23:21, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
    • If the folks who raised the initial concerns have no further concerns, I'd like to add the Bull Riding HOF to the HOF list at NRODEO, then. As for the rodeo project, I think there is the interest, just not the work--- I got sidetracked with a different task force project... we can take that one back to WPEQ. Montanabw(talk) 02:32, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Why shouldn't this guideline supercede GNG, for the topics where it applies?

Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/FAQ redirects here. Wikipedia:Notability (sports)/FAQ voices a policy interpretation I strongly disagree with. It says (paraphrasing) that topics that measure up to the topic specific sports notability criteria nevertheless also have to measure up to the general notability guideline.

Other topic-specific notability guidelines are understood to supercede the general notability guideline, and, in my opinion, this should be the case for all topic-specific notability guidelines. For example, Generals and winners of highest level bravery awards, like the Victoria Cross or Medal of Honor, have always been regarded as notable, without regard to whether there are sufficient references to establish they also measure up to GNG.

Why would we make topic-specific notability guidelines supercede the GNG? We would do this to make the encyclopedia comprehensive. When readers are rehearsing a topic, like medal winners, and we only cover some of the individuals, it will look, to our readers, as if we failed, we forgot the missing individuals. Geo Swan (talk) 18:24, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I have noticed that. While there's always a need to ensure verifiability of all articles, any major sport that's covered in these guidelines will have at least one reliable source covering anyone who has met these subject-specific guidelines. In this case, I think it is preferable to have stub articles that are verifiable albeit short in order to promote future expansion. Besides what you mentioned, there is definitely precedent for presumption of notability (for example, almost all public high schools with at least one source are presumed notable). This proposal is far less broad, and it seems highly likely that any athlete who meets these guidelines would have multiple potential sources to verify statements. Appable (talk | contributions) 18:43, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
The consensus reached by the participants during the initial creation of this page (and in subsequent discussions) was that a replacement of the general notability guideline was not being sought. For better or worse, there isn't a consensus to use an achievement-based standard for inclusion, rather than the existing evaluation of significant non-routine, non-promotional, independent coverage by reliable sources. There are two key issues: sufficient coverage is required to write an article (in which case the general notability guideline is met), and the community as a whole has difficulty agreeing upon achievement-based standards, particularly since doing this well would often require relying upon expert opinions. Mixed-martial arts is an example that comes to mind: in previous discussions, the broader community has not been willing to rely upon the proposals brought forth by the English Wikipedia editors interested in the topic.
Also note if there is promise that a given sports figure has sufficient notable coverage, then an article can be created, even if the subject doesn't meet any of the topic-specific criteria for their field of competition. So these guidelines aren't a problem with creating stub articles in the scenario you raise. isaacl (talk) 19:53, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
None of the SNGs supersede the GNG. That is a common misconception. All of them are in the same boat. The reason some of them seem like they supersede it is because they are so specific and everyone who meets them will easily pass GNG so its never questioned, Victoria Cross winners are a good example. With sports there are so many circumstances where people have met it that aren't notable because its impossible to get to 100% accuracy. The reason we have an FAQ is just that this one comes under attack often because people assume it is too lenient. -DJSasso (talk) 22:21, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
Exactly. The SNGs are an alternative way to show the presumption of notability to allow a standalone article to be established, in the anticipation that with time and effort, appropriate secondary sources can be found to make the article compliant with GNG (which is thus then very compliant with V, NPOV, NOR, and other policy/guidelines). The presumption from NSPORT or other SNGs can be challenged if there has been rigorous evidence to show no additional sourcing is likely forthcoming for that topic, meaning the GNG cannot be met. --MASEM (t) 22:27, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Indeed, some Wikiprojects believe that WP:V is optional, and have forced through some very silly notability criteria based on their own private notions as to what's important or not: certainly, the notion that every flag officer is always notable, for example, gives lots of fodder to military minded Wikipedians eager to buff up their article creation counts by creating stubs by running down the lists of one-stars. Sometimes, the jeering is long and loud enough to force a change: the lack of enthusiasm for WP:PORNSTAR persisted for years (and I expect that if it wasn't for the "Ew, nasty nasty porn!!" crowd, we'd be waiting for a change yet). For my part, the instant we ditch the GNG -- presuming the sports project has the unilateral power to do so, which I don't believe it does -- then we're going to be in exactly the same flotilla; every sports Wikiproject greenlighted to decide not what's notable, but what we think is important. Having been on Wikipedia a dozen years now, I'm not remotely sanguine about the inevitable result. Ravenswing 22:36, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
  • I agree with Ravenswing, and, as noted, must point out that the SNGs do not replace the notability policy or GNG. What SNGs are supposed to do is to give non-subject-experts a set of guidelines as to what sorts of things within a topic generally indicate notability. Ravenswing's example of one-star "flag officers" is an example of a misuse of SNG (if that's the consensus out there). For another example, outside of sports, there is a discussion about creating some SNGs for beauty pageants because of a debate over whether state-level pageant winners are notable as such (there have been hundreds of articles created -- quietly -- about such people) or if the Miss International Transpacific Shipping Princess (and the winner) is a notable pageant or not. But guidelines are intended to help assess notability and explain previous consensus, they neither are to make the non-notable notable or (which I see too often at AfD) be used as a bludgeon to deny notability because an individual passes GNG but doesn't fit a particular set of SNGs. Montanabw(talk) 02:42, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Appable is of course right when he says that "I think it is preferable to have stub articles that are verifiable albeit short in order to promote future expansion" and "it seems highly likely that any athlete who meets these guidelines would have multiple potential sources to verify statements." That's exactly how NSPORT currently works. The sport-specific guidelines are (or at least should be...) tuned so that any athlete who meets them is very likely to have multiple potential sources to verify statements - in other words, very likely to meet GNG. But "very likely" doesn't equal "certain" - sometimes those multiple sources do not exist and future expansion isn't possible. And in those cases NSPORT doesn't and shouldn't trump GNG; there's no point in keeping a stub to promote future expansion when there's nothing to expand the article with. Sideways713 (talk) 18:03, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Championships for individual sports

Following the outcome of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Weightlifting at the 2013 National Games of China, it is apparent that the notability guidelines on sports events are almost exclusively about team sports. For individual sports, this guideline mentions nothing except the Olympics. The notions of "games" and "seasons" are of very little relevance to Olympic sports like athletics, swimming, cycling, rowing, wrestling, etc., where the key sports events are periodic championships at world, continental and national levels. For instance, there is nothing in this guideline which suggests that the European Athletics Championships is a kind of topic which should be notable. I suggest the following section (based on the Olympic one) be added to "Organizations and games notability" section to rectify this gap: SFB 15:01, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Individual sports

Discussion

  • Seems way too generic to make blanket statements on all sports. Refer to Wikipedia:Notability_(sports)/FAQ#Q5 on points that generally need to be addressed in proposals to expand NSPORTS. Also, instead of making this more prescriptive, can you explain why WP:GNG is not sufficient for these sports?—Bagumba (talk) 19:13, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
The way I've intentionally written it is for the key aspect to lie on what people consider a "major" event. In that way it's not a blanket statement for all sports, as few would consider things like the 2015 World Wife Carrying Championships to be a major event. The above mirrors the language already found regarding athletes in the sport-specific guidelines. As an example of not meeting GNG, one will struggle to find sources that focus specifically on something the 1991 World Weightlifting Championships, though there is much coverage of results, and greater coverage of the athletes who succeeded at the event. I think the above proposal is a conservative interpretation as, for nearly all major sports, a greater level of coverage already exists in the encyclopaedia. SFB 23:20, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
Unfortunately, there's a lot of legacy guidelines that are loosely defined here. Those should not be the standard for new additions. Many editors come to NSPORTS for guidance on areas in which they have no expertise. Having subjective criteria on what "major" entails will not help them. Might as well stick with the GNG test.—Bagumba (talk) 08:09, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
We really need to establish which multi-sport events make the cut for this notabilty. Commonwealth, Asian and Pan-Am def. do, but some of them are just been created because they simply exist. Lugnuts Precious bodily fluids 13:23, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Suggested change to Association Football

I am withdrawing my suggestion at this time. Some of the opposing arguments I agree with. Some I do not. Either way it will not pass in its current form. I may come back in the future with a better suggestion. Thank you to all who commented. Aoziwe (talk) 11:20, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I would like to suggest a change to the wording under Wikipedia:Notability (sports)#Association football.

There should be a point 3 as follows:

  • Players who have played, and managers/coaches who have managed/coached, in a competitive game between two teams from a top level national league, will generally be regarded as notable, whether or not that league is fully professional.

I believe the current wording is too restrictive. It is biased against small jurisdictions and also against rapidly emerging women's leagues.

(Also the terminology of manager (ie versus coach) in point 2 also needs to be broadened. The terminology used would appear to be country specific.)

Aoziwe (talk) 11:33, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

@Aoziwe: - I'd suggest you start this off at WT:FOOTY, so they can decide on the changes (if any) and then it can be updated here. Or at least notify that project of this discussion. Lugnuts Precious bodily fluids 11:48, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
 Done Aoziwe (talk) 13:27, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
So everyone who has competed in the top division in, say, Andorra or Gibraltar, is notable? I understand that you want this change to avoid the deletion of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Georgia Plessas, but we are not here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS; this guideline should describe categories, groups of people who are going to be notable in 99% of the cases. Playing in a game in a top level national league is not a nearly certain indication that you are going to be notable at all. Many leagues don't or didn't (as this change has no restriction backwards in time) get the necessary coverage to maek this a certainty: even today, in many countries the top women's league gets much, much less attention than the top men's league, and we should not try to correct this, we should only reflect this. Fram (talk) 12:02, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
Please do not jump to conclusions re my motive/s. In regard to the article mentioned above, I have not !voted to Keep - I was quite up front and stated not sure. Aoziwe (talk) 13:22, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
Andorra and Gibralta: In Andorra and Gibralta they probably are quite notable? The same as the significant majority of other sports people are not internationally notable, just nationally notable? Aoziwe (talk) 13:39, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
Andorra has 85,000 inhabitants, or the same as Mackay, Queensland. It has 8 clubs in the top soccer league, or some 160 players. Looking at Mackay Regional Football, there are 9 senior clubs there. I doubt that all players in these clubs are quite notable in Mackay. So why would the situation in Andorra be any different? To put it differently: Germany has about 82 million inhabitants, or 1000 times the pop of Andorra. This would mean that for Germany, only taking people playing in 2016, we would have 160,000 notable soccer players. I hope you recognise that this would be ridiculous. We already favour the small countries significantly (it is much easier to become a notable Andorrean soccer player than to become a notable German soccer player), no reason to make this worse. Fram (talk) 13:51, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
Are you saying Germany has 160,000 players in their top league? Aoziwe (talk) 14:02, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
... no. I'm saying that "top league in a country" is meaningless wrt notability when countries are so extremely different. 14:15, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
I agree with Fram, in my opinion the idea of these guidelines are to avoid futile discussions over the notability of certain people. The idea is not to use Wikipedia to try and rectify society's vision of women's place in society because that would be artificial and eventually counter productive i.e. "Now there are as many women as men on Wikipedia the battle is won! Equality reigns!" and over and above that the player in question is only 18 and plays for the Australian U20s and if she is that good she will soon be selected for the senior national team and be considered notable. Domdeparis (talk) 12:28, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
I am more concerned about the use of the term fully professional as presumptive notability. NCRICKET does not require professionalism. Some of the greatest tennis players were not professionals. My concern is about the leaning towards being paid rather than the standard of the activity. Aoziwe (talk) 13:22, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
But your proposal does not correct this, it just adds another group of people, many of whom will not be notable at all (per ANYBIO) but which would be granted "presumed notability" anyway. Suggesting something better than what we have now is absolutely welcome: but correcting perceived deficiencies by adding more problematic rules is not the way to go forward. Fram (talk) 13:31, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose Playing in a top division is not an automatic pass to notability if there is no interest in that top division as non-international footballers are notable only by virtue of it being a spectator sport (I know someone who has played in the top division of field hockey in England but I would not consider them notable). As per Fram's comments about WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, Wikipedia reflects real-life notability and is not here to artificially create it. Professional status is one of the best reflections we have of interest in the league played in and therefore the notability of the player (and also the standard as good players tend to move abroad to play in fully-pro leagues if their country doesn't have one). Number 57 13:36, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose In my experience it is very difficult to find significant coverage in reliable sources for articles on footballers who have not played in a fully-pro league. In the exceptional cases where it can be done, the article satisfies the GNG, making this proposal unnecessary. I'd like to see research to support the notion that many or most articles on such footballers can meet the GNG before supporting such a proposal. Jogurney (talk) 13:38, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose There is no inherent notability simply by playing in a country's top league. The fully professional threshold requires a higher standard of notability. S.A. Julio (talk) 13:47, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong Support The point in this change is that the professional level of a league is not the right way to measure notability. The Australian W-League is in the direction of becoming fully professional (see Guardian and ABC from yesterday for recent development), and yet the change will not be the factor to change the amount of coverage of the league. The coverage of the W-League and the A-League in Australia is quite similar so coverage wise they would fall under the same notability and assumed notability. The fully-pro list of leagues includes leagues such as Liga Dominicana de Fútbol, Myanmar National League and Syrian Premier League, which seem to me to have less coverage than some not fully-pro top level women's leagues (for example the W-League) and don't even have their games covered by sites such as Soccerway. --SuperJew (talk) 14:10, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
    • "The point in this change is that the professional level of a league is not the right way to measure notability." Again, while this may be correct, this doesn't mean that the suggested change is any better, and in fact is in many cases probably worse. Fram (talk) 14:15, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
      • You agree however that there needs to be a change? There is currently a dissonance. It is absurd that a player who plays for a minute in the Liga Dominicana de Fútbol is considered more notable than a player who played 100+ games in the W-League. --SuperJew (talk) 14:28, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
        • No, I don't agree that there needs to be a change, I said that this "may" be correct, but would need deomnstrating; but this is not the way to achieve such a change. If you want something removed from NFOOTY, argue with examples why it is too permissive (e.g. show a number of Dominican players where no notability could be demonstrated, indicating that NFOOTY may be too permissive here). If you want something added to NFOOTY, agin argue with examples why it should be added and why you think it is nearly universally applicable. Rules which are too complicated (players in league X with more than Y full matches since year Z) will probably be rejected for being, well, too complicated; but rules which are way, way, waaaay too broad like the current proposal will certainly be dismissed rapidly. Claiming that it has to be accepted because other parts of NFOOTY are wrong isn't going to change this. Fram (talk) 15:00, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
        • If coverage of W-League players can be shown to approximate the coverage of A-League players, I would happily support inclusion of the W-League at WP:FPL. However, that's a poor reason to massively expand the scope of NFOOTBALL (which is just a presumption of GNG compliance for sets of articles). Jogurney (talk) 15:00, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
    • Which "seem to you" to have less coverage? Upon what do you base your assertion? Ravenswing 15:15, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
      • @Ravenswing: For example that soccerway doesn't even list their matches, but does list the W-League matches (as well as other not fully-pro women's leagues)? --SuperJew (talk) 15:35, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
        • So? Might come as a shock, but I don't myself regard a website that hasn't established enough importance to have a Wikipedia article as the international arbiter of what soccer leagues are deemed important or not. Let's try this again: what familiarity do you have with the media of the Dominican Republic, Myanmar and Syria that you can confidently assert that soccer does not receive enough domestic media coverage to meet the GNG? Ravenswing 15:59, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose: The concept of notability does not rest on nebulous questions of "fairness" or equity. It hinges, and hinges solely, on whether the world has heard of you or not. I agree that this does, indeed, result in many more articles on popular sports than on unpopular sports, on male athletes rather than female athletes, on professional leagues versus amateur leagues, on top-level leagues from large nations as opposed to small ones, and on players who play just a small amount for major league teams than for those who play a lot for minor league teams. Some of the editors commenting here may, indeed, consider it "unfair" that second-tier men's soccer leagues attract a great deal more media coverage than top-level women's leagues. I wish them well in convincing society to care. Ravenswing 15:13, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
    • Oh yes, the whole world has definitely heard of Liga Dominicana de Fútbol, Myanmar National League and Syrian Premier League (that was sarcastic in case you didn't get it per my previous comments). Use your WP:COMMONSENSE, the professional level of a league doesn't have a convincing correlation with how much the world has heard of the league. And when you say world, do you mean everyone in the world or only those interested in that topic? Cause if it's everyone, we should only leave the leagues from England, Germany, Italy, Spain and France. If you mean those interested in that topic, again I'm sure more people who are interested in women's soccer have heard of the W-League (especially as many players from the north hemisphere play there during the break in their league) than people who are interested in men's soccer have heard of Liga Dominicana de Fútbol, Myanmar National League and Syrian Premier League. --SuperJew (talk) 15:35, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
      • If we were going to trade sarcasm, I'd wonder in what universe any women's team sport save for basketball (and that only in a few countries) attracted the attention of much of anyone compared to men's sports. The W-League, for instance, generally played in high school stadiums, and attracted so little media attention that -- by way of example -- when the Boston Renegades won the league championship, the sports-happy Boston media didn't cover it at all. But by all means, I'll leave you to prove your assertion: do you actually have any idea how much media coverage soccer gets in those nations or not, or are you just making it up? Ravenswing 15:47, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose: The change you are suggesting would create massive numbers of new articles. You should provide evidence to support the idea that most players in these leagues satisfy GNG. Even in the Australian W-League, one of the stronger women's leagues, I believe most players ~who do not satisfy the current guideline also do not satisfy GNG, or are borderline. But the proposed change goes way beyond this and would include hundreds of amateur players with little or no coverage or notability at all. Accepting this change would damage this guideline so much that the presumption it creates would become actively unhelpful. There is maybe some scope to better draft this but it would need to be changed dramatically. Macosal (talk) 16:44, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
"The change you are suggesting would create massive numbers of new articles" - Now that's not true. Changing the levels of notability simply allow for more AfDs to survive. There really isn't that many editors who bother to create new content if the threshold bar is changed. But it's a moot point as this hasn't got a snowball's chance of getting through. Lugnuts Precious bodily fluids 18:48, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
I agree with Lugnuts that the amount won't change drastically due to a change in guideline precisely for the reason mentioned. But even if a massive numbers of new articles were created, why is that a bad thing? --SuperJew (talk) 19:01, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
Because there is no evidence that the new articles would pass GNG (in fact, it is clear that they likely would not). So we would either be left with a number of un-notable articles clogging the encyclopedia or a steep, needless rise in AfDs. This is meant to be an encyclopedia, not LinkedIn for amateur sportspeople. Already there are several examples of players from such leagues who do not satisfy GNG. The last thing we need is to endorse the creation of potentially hundreds or thousands more of such articles. Macosal (talk) 10:55, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
"clogging the encyclopedia" - one would think you print it every day and carry it around with you. --SuperJew (talk) 11:02, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
@SuperJew: if there isn't a problem with Wikipedia being clogged do you mean that it doesn't matter how many articles are on Wikipedia and their notability is not important? Domdeparis (talk) 11:58, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose as absolutely bonkers. GiantSnowman 20:42, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment - Perhaps we could assess each league sorta case by case? - J man708 (talk) 20:50, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
    • I think that would probably cause more arguments than any other potential solution, and would provide more fodder for the nationalist trolls in various parts of Wikipedia to push the greatness of their nations... Personally the only alternative to the current guideline that I can see working and that reflects real-life notability is to set the threshold for leagues based on their attendances. Number 57 21:22, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
      • We have already assessed the leagues - we keep a list of leagues it's notable to play in here. GiantSnowman 21:40, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
        • @GiantSnowman: Have you actually bothered to read the discussion before commenting? The issue being discussed is whether the professionalism of a league is the wrong way of assessing leagues for notability. (IMO it is the wrong way) --SuperJew (talk) 22:43, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
          • And I'm saying it might not be perfect but it's the best way of doing it, and certainly a helluva lot better than this proposal. GiantSnowman 07:59, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
            • Just because we say those leagues are notable, doesn't make them necessarily so. The current set up is too archaic for what we need. Number57 brings up a decent point, though. - J man708 (talk) 12:54, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Recent change to association football

While patrolling a recent AFD, I noticed a recent change to Association Football that seems to significantly loosen the restrictions on players, allowing basically anyone who's more or less in high school and has played internationally to gain instant notability. The citation for consensus appears to come from a wikiproject discussion as opposed to an RFC or similar discussion on this actual talk page. I don't feel it sufficient or acceptable for a Wikiproject to decide guidelines independently, and combined with the opposition voiced above at wording changes to the same section, it might be a good idea to revert the change until consensus is demonstrated here—where people are actually expecting consensus to develop and have watchlisted accordingly. That said, I'm not going to WP:BURO/red-tapeify, and I couldn't care less either way, but just figured I'd open this discussion to draw attention to it just in case. --slakr\ talk / 01:38, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I didn't participate in the original discussion, but it appears to be a change to address a perceived weakness in the international footballer guideline for exactly 6 CONCACAF member associations (Bonaire, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Martin and Sint Maarten) and 1 CAF member association (Reunion Island) that are not currently affiliated to FIFA. As far as I know, the GNG would be an appropriate notability guideline for international footballers from these 7 associations. I don't think your characterization is accurate. Not all people who have played internationally would gain instant notability - only those who have played in FIFA "A" internationals (or the equivalent for associations that are not affiliated to FIFA). That said, there are so few footballers effected (some of these 7 associations have never competed at this level, or have done so only once or twice in their histories) it seems unnecessary. Jogurney (talk) 05:39, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
Well ... as far as the broader point goes, the whole point with the migration of WP:ATHLETE to NSPORTS was to devolve the guidelines to the respective sports Wikiprojects, on the (quite accurate) premise that -- say -- people knowledgeable in soccer know a good bit better as to who's notable and who isn't than people who aren't. So while I agree the subject can legitimately be raised here if people have strong objections, I don't feel they need to gain a "Mother may I?" to make changes of which the project approves. That being said, there is nothing about being a high school student which precludes someone from athletic notability. Ravenswing 07:30, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
Basically what Jogurney says - only very few articles will be affected. GiantSnowman 08:05, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
Quite. I don't think this can be described as "significantly loosening" given the tiny number of players that it will affect. A significant change would have been the (now closed) proposal directly above, which thankfully has not passed. Number 57 13:50, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
That said a project page is obviously peopled by those passionate about their sport and the temptation would be to loosen the criteria to allow more pages to be created. There are some minority sports that have unbelievably loose criteria for exemple, curling (see the discussion above) there are the usual Olympic criteria but you only have to have played in a World curling federation sanctioned competition to qualify...there are 145 of them!!! And just in case you're Canadian and you haven't got to play in one of those no problems because if you have played in any one of the regional qualifiers for the Canadian national championships at any time regardless of the results you get a pass. If you have a podium finish in one of the 2 Canadian wheelchair championships you get a pass, if you've played in one of 2 specific Canadian competitions you get a pass if you have played in a Canadian mixed junior or senior championship you get a pass. No other nation has the same criteria and I have never seen another international sport that is so biased toward one nation. Domdeparis (talk) 14:22, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
It might be expected, but my experience is that most WP:FOOTY members are generally quite strongly against anything that significantly loosens the criteria. This was more about clarifying the wording for international footballers to cover a situation that had not previously been widely discussed (i.e. national teams with continental but not FIFA affiliation). Number 57 15:42, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
... most, but not all. Nfitz (talk) 06:33, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
You would be surprised. The Wikiproject I most often participate in is constantly making our criteria tighter because of editors (who usually don't participate in the project) that try to game the criteria. Anytime someone finds a weakness we plug it. As for curling, you probably don't realise the crazy extent to which it is covered here, even minor local tournaments can get write ups for many of the competitors. It's just a highly regional sport, just like Hurling. If you did criteria on it, it would be heavily biased I would assume towards Ireland compared to pretty much no coverage in Canada. Remember these criteria are about media coverage, not about the level or quality of play. -DJSasso (talk) 15:45, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
Oh, I'm familiar with curling - won the last company bonspiel I was at (which would be more impressive if it wasn't my 3rd or 4th time out). The problem I guess is what's appropriate for one sport, or even one sport in one region, isn't transferrable to other sports and/or regions. Hence the endless Footy debates of perhaps we should look at female semi-pro athletes differently, or debate the notability of newbie on the 209th-ranked FIFA team. Nfitz (talk) 15:56, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
No worries, I was actually replying to Domdeparis. Exactly the reason we did away with WP:ATHLETE and moved to WP:NSPORTS was that one size fits all didn't work. -DJSasso (talk) 15:59, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
Yep, what DJ said. In just about any sport, the notion that 14- and 15-year-olds could be routinely notable would be deranged. Take figure skating or gymnastics, though, and that premise is turned on its head. (Those two sports being two of the few examples, while we're at it, where female athletes are routinely more notable than male athletes.) In American football and basketball, minor leagues are NN afterthoughts. In baseball, hockey and association football, they're quite important. And so on. Ravenswing 19:48, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
That was certainly the intent (to include the 7 or 8 non-FIFA squads, particularly in CONCACAF). But the way it's phrased - does it inadvertently open the door to other tournaments, for example Football at the Pan American Games? Nfitz (talk) 06:33, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
The Pan American Games is not a confederation-level tournament, so I don't think so. Number 57 08:29, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
And it's not senior for men. It is for women, so we already count it. Probably not an issue, and I can't think of an example that's an issue - but I'm wondering if we've missed something. Nfitz (talk) 14:08, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Discussion of WP:RLN

Within the section WP:RLN would it be possible to include the point that player pages may be made for full time professional clubs such as the Bradford Bulls, Hull Kingston Rovers and London Broncos. At present all are involved in the RFL Championship which is a professional competition. However players who only have appeared in this league cannot have pages and are nominated for deletion (see Ethan Ryan even though he will qualify soon as he will appear in the Challenge Cup). I propose that players of the three clubs mentioned and to an extension Toronto Wolfpack of League 1 be allowed player pages. And changes are made to this section to reflect that players are to be presumed notable if they play for a full time professional club in a professional league (including the Championship). Footballers who play fulltime in League One and Two have player pages so why not Rugby League? Thank you for your taking your time to read this. Migitgem2009 (talk) 02:44, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree with this and would say that the rising status of the Championship which is now connected to the Super League through the Super 8s should be given more recognition, especially as there are now more professional teams in it. I would say that anyone in a Super League squad who is on loan or who has dual registration should be eligible for a page. Chocolatebareater (talk) 15:15, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

  • I would certainly support any change where it's been demonstrated that the great majority of players affected would pass the GNG. Has any of this necessary research been done? If so, please do present it! That's our standard, not any notion that a certain level of sporting is "important." Ravenswing 09:33, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
This should probably be discussed on the WikiProject talk page before proposing to make such a significant change. For what it's worth, the Championship (not to be confused with the RFL Championship) is mostly a part time league, and you would struggle to find any significant coverage about players at this level (match reports or articles on the club's website do not fit this criteria). J Mo 101 (talk) 09:20, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't see why you couldn't get reliable references from match reports and club websites. Surely a player who has played many Championship games is more notable than one who has made a single appearance in the early round of the Challenge Cup. Furthermore, you could have a situation where a player who has played one game for a professional club in the Championship is eligible for an article while a player who has played many games and had a bigger impact on the competition would not be eligible as they are playing for a semi-pro club, even though they are in the same competition. Chocolatebareater (talk) 18:54, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

A club website isn't a valid source for determining notability as it's not independent of the subject. Given that the BBC have virtually zero coverage of the Championship, I'm don't think the players are likely to be notable enough for articles. Number 57 19:12, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
Would the Rugby League website be a reliable source? It was recently changed to include lower tier clubs instead of just Super League sides. There are plenty of match reports available from local papers etc. Chocolatebareater (talk) 20:24, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
If having match reports in local papers made players notable, then we'd have to change the rules for multiple sports (I could quite easily write articles on A.F.C. Sudbury players based on the local press, but they're clearly not notable). Number 57 20:59, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
I would imagine that CBE could be referring to London, Bradford, Toulouse, Hull, etc and their city papers rather than the local paper that you get free through your door.Fleets (talk) 21:07, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
I wasn't referring to free papers (the Suffolk Free Press isn't one, if that's why you mentioned it). Number 57 21:32, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
Sorry I took the local news angle with a local team in AFC Sudbury and went with that. I was differentiating between local news and the larger city and regional newspaper coverage received by the pro teams as per above. But as per your comment back you clearly weren't equating teams that have played at Wembley and Old Trafford in recent years with Sudbury.Fleets (talk) 21:55, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
No problem. But actually Sudbury reached three FA Vase finals in the early 2000s, which would have been played at Wembley had it not been being rebuilt at the time :( Whitley Bay players on the other hand would have played at Wembley three times in recent years. Number 57 22:06, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
Good for them, I don't have much knowledge of minor trophies, but I guess it's always good to expand your knowledge.Fleets (talk) 17:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Work is currently being done to put a comprehensive proposal to WPRL for approval of the RLN. This overhaul has not yet finished and thus the proposal is not yet in the public domain. Work has been done in consultation with several editors, but I will add take comments and summarise their themes and add them to the draft proposal.Fleets (talk) 20:00, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

I would fully support changes to RLN that makes players who have played a match for fully pro clubs outside the top flight like London Broncos, Toulouse Olympique, Bradford Bulls, Toronto Wolfpack and Hull Kingston Rovers notable enough for an article. – skemcraig⊗ 20:31, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
Most of these players will be eligible anyway once they play in the Challenge Cup. Once a player has played in the Challenge Cup they are eligible anyway, while a player who has played many Championship games but has not play in the Challenge Cup would not be eligible.Chocolatebareater (talk) 20:42, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
It could just be put to WPRL for the Championship to be put up to be added to the RLN. Some will have issues with professional players, playing for professional teams in a professional league, but I guess if it is put out there then maybe it will snowball from there. I was just trying to do it correctly and a more rounded approach, admittedly it takes a while to do things properly, especially when this is meant to be the relaxing part of the day.Fleets (talk) 21:02, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

For the record the BBC do regularly produce match report for the RFL Championship matches. I regularly use them for the Bradford Bulls season pages. I used to use the local Bradford paper (The Telegraph and Argus) and the Bradford Bull official website but thought that the BBC ones would offer more substance and appropriate source. Migitgem2009 (talk) 23:14, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

High school coaches?

Do we have a standard/ normal outcomes for high school coaches? I'm asking because John Crumbley showed up in the new pages feed, and while most of the stuff is local so I am considering PRODing or AfDing as routine, I know that many sports people have distinct notability guidelines and general outcomes so I thought I would ask here first. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:40, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

For high school athletes, WP:NHSPHSATH dictates a higher standard than WP:GNG, requiring "substantial and prolonged coverage" and provides for the exclusion of "the majority of local coverage" and "routine interviews" as sources to establish notability. This guideline does not explicitly apply to high school coaches, but I'd submit that the spirit of the guideline suggests that it should. Cbl62 (talk) 01:48, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I went ahead and PRODed it. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:57, 2 March 2017 (UTC)
  • I cannot say I agree with what Cbl62 stated. I don't think that the standard is higher than GNG - GNG is the standard. The guidelines never supersede GNG, they merely create a presumption. That being said, my reading of the high school guideline is that local coverage of high school sports is routine and the guideline emphasizes that. Especially pre-Internet, every town had a newspaper that covered the local team. All those covered players are not notable - the coverage was just routine. Think of it this way. High school quarterback plays ten games. 20 articles could be generated - 10 from his hometown paper and 1 from each of his opponent's papers. All that coverage is just routine. Even state championship teams are mostly covered in the hometown paper.
That being said, I look at a few things when thinking of high school athletes and coaches - mostly notoriety of the sport in the state and level of coverage. In some states, certain sports gain a lot of coverage - football in Texas, wrestling in Ohio, ice hockey in Minnesota, etc. I think the coverage of high school ice hockey in Minnesota is more substantial, and less routine, than say Ohio high school ice hockey (and vice versa for wrestling). Therefore, the coverage of the Minnesota Mr. Hockey winner is likely to gain non-routine coverage outside of his home city than an equivalent award winner in Ohio. So in short, I think its more of a notice to say be mindful when all the coverage is just very local newspapers that is routine, not that the standard is above GNG. RonSigPi (talk) 13:58, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
  • I agree with RonSigPi's interpretation, it emphasizes parts of GNG that are especially relevant for highschool athletes.--MATThematical (talk) 10:12, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
  • There's nothing inherently wrong with local sources. However, GNG requires multiple sources, so 1 or 2 local papers arguably is not enough. Per GNG: "Multiple publications from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability."—Bagumba (talk) 10:21, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
  • The big problem with local sources is they often are routine coverage. In other words all people that did x would get some article on them or would get a Q&A type article. Think, high school athlete of the week type articles for an example. A good example of how other SNGs handle it is Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)#Audience which requires at the very least a regional source. -DJSasso (talk) 17:22, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
  • There are a couple of considerations that have to be taken into account when evaluating sports coverage. Sports journalism often has a promotional aspect to it, so that some degree of local coverage has a non-neutral point of view to promote hometown teams and events. Additionally, local media provide an outlet for community-specific matters that its readers desire to read about, much as Djsasso is referring to above. Thus every restaurant that gets reviewed in various local publications doesn't necessary meet the standards for inclusion, and coverage of local athletes in a community feature might not be suitable either for demonstrating that the standards are met. It's not a hard-and-fast rule, as it will depend on the type of article, but generally coverage in a media outlet with a broader audience is a better indication. isaacl (talk) 17:40, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
  • You make a good point. However, not all coverage is equal. For example, the Washington Post still covers local matters and has a local high school sports section (see [1]). So I think a critical eye has go to to high school coverage. A good example is a feature piece on the D.C. high school boys basketball player of the year. Is that routine coverage? They pick one every year and their are a set number of schools that player can come from (while the same goes for something like the NBA MVP there is clearly a difference). However, its something they do once and it being a feature its not just a summary of a high school game that would be routine. I think its a judgment call based on other factors. To look at it another way, I would feel differently about the same feature being in the Post, but instead being about Baltimore player - now outside the core reading area of DC and the surrounding counties. It would be even stronger if the feature were about a Philadelphia player - well outside the coverage area. Yet that really isn't fair - the same feature should be given the same weight irrelevant of where the player is from. I think with high school coverage there is no hard and fast rule. Its a difficult proposition. I think we need to be mindful of things that isaacl mentioned above and other considerations. So basically, in the section where we create black and white rules for presumptions that some editors, incorrectly, use as the standard of notability, I don't think we can create a rule for high school sports because it is just too difficult and we have to instead only rely on GNG and let the delete debates fall where they may. RonSigPi (talk) 22:43, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Curling notability rules

The NSPORTS rules for many sports seem in part problematic (as in "way too lenient"), and curling is one that caught my attention now. There are no less than 10 ways a curler can be considered notable:

A curler is presumed notable if he or she
  1. Has participated in a World Curling Tour sanctioned event.
  2. Has participated in a World Curling Federation sanctioned event.
  3. Has participated in the Brier, the Tournament of Hearts or received a podium finish for another country's national championship, provided that the country has qualified a team into either the preceding or succeeding Olympics.
  4. Has participated in an Olympic qualifying event for any country.
  5. Has participated in the Canadian Mixed, Junior or Senior championship.
  6. Has participated in a provincial or territorial playdown leading to the Brier or Tournament of Hearts.
  7. Has participated in a TSN Skins Game or Canada Cup of Curling game.
  8. Has received a podium finish at a Canadian Wheelchair Curling Championship or the Canadian Masters Curling Championships.
  9. Has participated at the Paralympics.
  10. Is a member of the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame or the WCF Hall of Fame.

Few of these seem to indicate real notability though.

  1. World Curling Tour sanctioned events are rather common, with little money involved, and with local teams participating. Take e.g. 2013 Swiss Cup Basel, are all 200 players at this one event really notable? I seriously doubt it.
  2. See 1.
  3. Playing in the Brier or Tournament of Hearts, OK. The remainder seems dubious, we don't even have articles for many national championships (see e.g. Swiss Women's Curling Championship, which starts "the national championship of men's curling"...), so it seems a stretch that anyone competing in one of the top three teams in Swiss Women's curling between 1999 and 2017 would be notable, even if they were only a substitute in one game in one competition?
  4. This seems rather wide. Normally competing at the Olympics = notability, not competing at olympic qualification only
  5. I can't judge this, are these all three really big enough that anyone ever competing in it for one minute is notable?
  6. Seems again like overkill. Playing in the Nunavut or Yukon playdown is sufficient to be automatically included here?
  7. I can't judge whether this really confers notability (certainly for the earliest games). Seems at first sight a reasonable indicator of notabilty.
  8. Really? Does this event for aged-over-60 players get the necessary attention to make such inclusion for all podium finishers warranted? I looked for good sources for one winner (not just a podium finisher, a winner), Pierette MacNaughton. Excluding Wikipedia, I get 7 Google hits, no Google news hits and no Google books hits. This is from 2002, so not the pre-Internet prehistory. The situation doesn't seem to be much better for more recent ones either.
  9. Why a lower threshold for curling than for other Paralympic sports?
  10. Seems fine.

NSPORTS in general needs some cleanup, but perhaps this would be a good one to start with? Fram (talk) 10:54, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I agree that at this list is a bit too lenient. I created it with the mindset of maintaining existing articles, and drawing a line in the sand against people who were writing articles on more frivolous curlers (such as themselves). We have to remember though, given that the main criteria for any BLP article is being able to find reliable sources, just meeting the criteria set out on this list is not enough for an article to be worthy of existing. It's just a measure of notability. Anyways, if we are to review the list, I would like to debate each item separately and get a community consensus. I'll start with point #1. This was included as I would consider the World Curling Tour to be the equivalent of a top professional sports league. But I can see why including everyone who has ever participated in a WCT event to be very problematic. If we look at sports with similar tours (tennis and golf), we see that inclusion is much more strict. So, I would propose that playing in a Grand Slam event would be fine and winning a WCT sanctioned event would be fine. I think for some of the more prestigous tournaments, being a runner-up would be also notable. To draw an arbitrary line in the sand, perhaps an event would need a "Strength of Field Multiplier" of more than 5? You can peruse 2016–17 curling season#World Curling Tour for what I mean. -- Earl Andrew - talk 13:55, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

<rant>WP:N in general is one of the two things I hate about participating in editing Wikipedia in general.</rant>

OK, now that I got that off my chest I will comment on your points...
  1. This could be paired-down or eliminated if most people this affects would "qualify" under numbers two or three.
  2. This could be paired-down. Maybe changed to "Has participated in a World Curling Federation sanctioned event involving international competitors."
  3. Saying that Canada qualifies automatically is not very WP:NPOV in my opinion. That being said if you want to slim it down you could pair it down based on whether or not the country has ever qualified for the Olympics (for example I don't think the Czechs eve have)
  4. I think this could be covered under number 3
  5. Again, not WP:NPOV
  6. While this is not WP:NPOV, Canadian curlers get more press and are therefore more notable. This could be slimmed-down to include making the playoffs in these events.
  7. This should be expanded to include the Continental Cup
  8. Again this is not WP:NPOV. See my comment on number 5. Maybe include just people making the playoffs.
  9. I think this should be at the same level as playing in the Olympics. So keep it.
  10. Eh, OK. This could and should include other countries, but not many other countries have it. For example The American Curling History Museum and Hall of Fame amounts to a 150 square-foot closet at the Chicago Curling Club.

Thanks. Eric Cable  !  Talk  14:27, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps the inclusion criteria is a bit Canadian centric, justified by the fact that 90% of the world's curlers are Canadian. But where at all possible, we should factor in international equivalents. (i.e. Canadian Mixed vs. European Mixed). Anyways, for some reason I thought this was original posted on the WP:CURLING page, not here, so I best go through each item and put forth my two cents:
  1. See my comments above (inclusion should at least be participated in a Grand Slam or won a WCT event, and possibly runner up of an event with at least an SFM of 5)
  2. Don't all WCF events involve international competitors? I suppose there are a few events that may not merit inclusion, but most would, I'd say. I see no reason to strip this criteria.
  3. We should limit the amount of countries included in this criteria, but Switzerland would definitely not be one I would remove. Switzerland has maybe three of the top women's curling teams in the world right now. I'd say a podium finish in a country's national championship is fine provided that that country is in that year's world championships.
  4. Moot point as most countries do not have an Olympic qualifying tournament, and the one's who do are fairly prestigious. Making the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials is seen as a greater honour than making the Brier or Scotties.
  5. I agree this is too lenient. For the Seniors and Mixed, I'd narrow it down to needing to win the event, and for the Juniors, a podium finish should be required. The Canadian Juniors gets pretty good coverage. I wouldn't say this category violates NPOV because other country equivalents don't get much coverage. Certainly though we could apply the same criteria for the World/European Mixed, World Juniors and World Seniors events.
  6. Many of the provincial tournaments get pretty good coverage, but not all. I think with some of provinces, there are no pre-qualifying events (like the territories, and some of the Atlantic provinces), and for those I think a curler needs to at least make the playoffs at the event.
  7. I think the Continental Cup falls under a WCF sanctioned event, so no need to include it here. The Canada Cup is basically just an alternate national championship, so deserves inclusion. For the Skins game, almost all curlers in this are going to meet another one of the categories anyway. Maybe not for earlier versions of the event, but I don't think we'll ever be able to find reliable sources for the event back then.
  8. Would be open to removing the Masters inclusion. It's not really an important event.
  9. Agreed, no change.
  10. We could expand to other countries if they have a HOF, sure.
-- Earl Andrew - talk 15:12, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
On point 9, Paralympics, no-one has yet put forward a rationale of why being a Paralympians in curling would automatically make the individual notable. Note that WP:NOLYMPICS states "...or have won a medal at the Paralympic Games" This has been the standard for sportspeople for some time. A very recent RfC to change the wording to include all Paralympians (across all sports) was closed with no consensus to change. The individuals might meet WP:GNG on their own, although I find that unlikely in all cases. Therefore this should be removed, or at least changed to meet the current wording for all other sports at the Paralympic. I can't comment on the other criteria, as I don't know anything about this "sport". Lugnuts Precious bodily fluids 15:18, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
I'd be fine with that. Wheelchair curling is basically a different "sport" (what's with the quotation marks? :-P) anyway. -- Earl Andrew - talk 15:48, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
Brushing ice with a broom is sport?! Almost as bad as a man hitting a ball with a stick. Before it starts to rain. For five days. :D Anyway, I think four and nine should be re-worded/combined to state - "Has participated at the Olympics, or won a medal at the Paralympics" to bring it inline with WP:NOLY. Lugnuts Precious bodily fluids 08:30, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
I would tend to agree with the fact that the criteria are particularly lenient compared to other sports; I understand that curling is a big deal in Canada but to say that any player that has participated (not won) a regional qualifier for the Canadian national competitions is unbelievably lenient. There is no other international sport that gives one country such an advantage. Sweden has a particularly strong record in the Olympics and in the last 4 years Canada has won just 1 mens world championship and has not won the women's championship since 2008. Domdeparis (talk) 15:49, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
Curling is the kind of sport where upsets happen frequently, which is why Canada's world championship record does not match it's percentage of the world curling population. Sweden's recent strength has come off the backs of just one team, whereas Canada has sent many different teams to the Worlds. Last year, the #1 ranked women's team in the world did not even win their provincial championships, and therefore could not compete in the national championships, let alone the worlds. You can see how Canada-centric the top teams in the world are. Here is the men's ranking (8 of the top 10 are Canadian) and women's (7 of the top 10 are Canadian). You can also see that Canadian teams on the WCT are identified by their province, not their country, which is why participation in the provincial qualifying tournaments are a bit of a big deal. But again, I would be open to clawing this back a bit. -- Earl Andrew - talk 16:04, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

The WCF events include things like the European Junior Curling Challenge, where participation certainly doesn't equal notability. The same seems to apply to other Junior championships, but also e.g. the World Wheelchair Curling Championship. I was researching some examples and came across the redlink Orazio Fagone (curler). However, he is the same as Olympic gold medal winner Orazio Fagone, so this one is definitely notable, though not for his curling :-) Fram (talk) 15:51, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree some of the minor events should be excluded. The European Junior Curling Challenge is a good example of this. -- Earl Andrew - talk 16:03, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I've been meaning to propose the removal of #6 or at least narrowing its scope to specific provinces, but hadn't done the legwork yet to back it up. There are a lot of competitors in the provincial playdowns for some provinces, and from what I've seen in Quebec and Ontario coverage, participating in the playdowns is not a good indicator of having sufficient independent, non-promotional, non-routine secondary coverage from reliable sources to warrant an article in Wikipedia.

Regarding Canadian-specific criteria, the reality is that curling is a lot more popular in Canada than most other places (witness how the World Curling Championship has a title sponsor only when it is held in Canada), and so more Canadian curlers will get sufficient notable coverage. Of course, where suitable rules of thumb can be formed on a global basis, they should be included as well. isaacl (talk) 17:05, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

If that is the case then removing 6 would be a good solution and leave it to normal GNG criteria to decide if these players merit a page. The idea is to have a maximum number of notable players regardless of their nationality and by removing the more lenient country-specific criteria this would oblige the article creators to make better quality articles with real information rather than just a list of stats from the curling stats sites. I would go further and have N° 3 as a podium finish for all countries. Domdeparis (talk) 17:44, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
I don't believe there is a need to strive for a maximum number of notable players, if by maximum you mean a fixed number. (If you mean that the criteria should not allow for a rapid growth of included players simply based on increased participation, then I agree.) The main intent is to avoid tedious deletion discussions for stub articles whose subjects, based on past experience, almost certainly will have appropriate secondary coverage upon further examination. isaacl (talk) 18:30, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
Reply @Isaacl: No what I meant was that the articles on players should be of quality so the largest possible number should be notable and not just get a free pass because they played in regional qualifiers. --Domdeparis (talk) 11:17, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
Podium finish for all countries including Canada? No, no no. The Brier and Scotties are usually more prestigious than even the World championships (except for Nunavut, the lowest placed province or territory could probably always beat the lowest placed country at the Worlds). On this line of thinking, a "podium" finish in a provincial championship is the equivalent to a podium finish in a national championship outside of Canada. -- Earl Andrew - talk 21:55, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
Bear in mind the issue is not relative strengths of two curling teams, but the amount of notable secondary coverage they get. My personal feeling is that participation in a Grand Slam event is a better indicator of appropriate coverage than finishing third in a provincial championship. isaacl (talk) 23:35, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
I would disagree. The provincial qualifiers have a longer history (most dating back to 1927, some earlier), and get a lot of coverage, especially in local press. Grand Slams still get good national coverage, but the lack of history (they only are 17 years old), means the prestige and the press coverage is not as strong as you'd expect for a series of events that attract the top curling teams in the world. -- Earl Andrew - talk 00:09, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
The question is not whether or not the qualifiers get coverage, which they certainly do, but if participants in them are nearly 100% guaranteed to have their own independent, non-promotional, non-routine coverage. The coverage of the provincial championships is typically routine with respect to its participants, and insufficient to base an article upon. isaacl (talk) 01:25, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Let's not put quotes around the word "sport" when referring to curling. That's just disrespectful. Eric Cable  !  Talk  18:06, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

  • I'm rather with issacl here. I'm seeing arguments above based on how strong X country or Y country is in curling, and that should be irrelevant. The measure of notability is not how good your competitors are, but by how much media coverage they receive. I would be much more comfortable if some measure of evidence that these criteria reflect a competitor's ability to meet the GNG was presented. Ravenswing 03:05, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
I totally agree. If a player is notable then there should be enough coverage to satisfy GNG, I seriously have problems believing that all players that played in a regional qualifier are notable as per GNG and not just had routine coverage "so-and-so played in such-and-such a match".Domdeparis (talk) 11:24, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
Aye, and that's the rub. One cautionary analogy I have is that despite the immense amount of media coverage given to American collegiate football and basketball (several orders of magnitude more than is accorded to curling), no presumptive notability is given even to four-year starters on major Division I teams. Ravenswing 15:47, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
I would say that it's not about the amount/popularity of coverage as much as it is the importance within the sport itself. Making a collegiate curling team was never deemed inherently notable, even by the lenient WP:CURLING notability standards. But, I digress. Curling is a unique sport, and trying to determine notability is proving to be challenging to me in comparing it to the notability rules in other sports. We've had these guideline for a while, so I'd like to push for something that makes as little damage as possible. We've had very few articles be deleted, so nothing has emerged as a good line for notability. Perhaps this is because most of the articles that do exist are on notable curlers and would still pass a more strict litmus test. -- Earl Andrew - talk 17:29, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
My guess is that most new articles are for contemporary curlers for which finding appropriate coverage is not a problem. In this case, the exact line drawn by the topic-specific guideline doesn't matter all that much (for present-day athletes with readily available coverage, these guidelines only serve to keep hastily-created stubs in place until someone fills in details), and I'd as soon make the guideline more strict. isaacl (talk) 18:37, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
Oh, in the case, limiting notability to provincial/territorial champions would be acceptable, since finding sources on someone who played in the 1947 Ontario British Consols would be next to impossible. I do think we should be open to adding in historical event wins from the pre-World Curling Tour era. I do know from perusing old newspaper articles that curling used to get a lot of daily coverage in local newspapers (for example, my club's Monday night open league might have the results in the Ottawa Citizen!), and I know there were a lot of random cups and trophies that no longer exist that were considered quite prestigious back in the day, and would get some good coverage. -- Earl Andrew - talk 20:18, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
I've read that pre-radio and TV, newspapers used to print complete accounts of the entire play during hockey games... The key is whether or not there is sufficient non-promotional source material to write a brief biography. If it's just accounts of what went on during draws, then it's not really indicative of notability. In recognition of the difficulty of finding sources for persons from many decades ago, in the FAQ I added a provision for examining the notability of similar persons from the same time period. However I'm not sure if this approach has really been used, or discussed by a broad audience, so I suspect should a test case arise that garners a lot of attention, there may be considerable dissent. isaacl (talk)
Yes, just using media coverage isn't going to work for a lot of sports. For example Kim Rhode has won a medal in the last SIX Olympics but received little media coverage and virtually no major sponsorship because she's a skeet shooter and the liberal media says guns are bad. Eric Cable  !  Talk  17:46, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
... because you can cite a time back when the he-man red-meat conservative media covered skeet shooting? Eeeesh. Ravenswing 18:56, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Proposed new guideline

A curler is presumed notable if he or she
  1. Has won a medal in a World Curling Tour or World Curling Federation sanctioned event.
  2. Has participated in the Brier or the Tournament of Hearts.
  3. Has participated in a TSN Skins Game or Canada Cup of Curling game.
  4. Is a member of the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame or the WCF Hall of Fame.

Something is needed to replace

  1. Has participated in the Canadian Mixed, Junior or Senior championship.

But I'm not really certain how best to describe this.

Note that this doesn't mean that other curlers are a priori not notable: this guideline, just like all of NSPORTS, aims to describe which groups are nearly certainly notable, for those not meeting this the general rules of WP:ANYBIO apply. So please don't oppose these changes because "notable curler X doesn't fall into one of the proposed groups", but indicate how nearly everyone in group Y is notable and thus should be included as a line in the new guideline. Fram (talk) 11:24, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

World Curling Tour events don't have medals, and this guideline overlooks the importance of the Grand Slams. I would propose an alternate guideline:
  1. Has won a World Curling Tour event or participated in a Grand Slam of Curling event.
  2. Has participated at the World Curling Championships or the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship.
  3. Has won a medal at one of the following World Curling Federation sanctioned events: the World Junior Curling Championships, World Senior Curling Championships, European Curling Championships, World Mixed Curling Championship or the Pacific-Asia Curling Championships.
  4. Has participated in the Brier or the Tournament of Hearts.
  5. Has won a medal at the Canadian Junior Curling Championships.
  6. Has won the Canadian Mixed Curling Championship, Canadian Senior Curling Championship or Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Trials.
  7. Has participated in the Continental Cup of Curling, Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, TSN Skins Game or Canada Cup of Curling.
  8. Is a member of the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame or the WCF Hall of Fame.

-- Earl Andrew - talk 13:29, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

I suggest leaving out mixed doubles and mixed. Mixed is a pretty new variant, and neither versions get a lot of coverage. The most notable participants meet the standards of inclusion based on their play in regular curling. isaacl (talk) 01:53, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
The World Mixed is a fairly new event, but its predecessor, the European Mixed Curling Championship has a longer history, so I think winning a medal there makes a curler notable. I'd be open to restricting the World Mixed Doubles to maybe "making the playoffs". It's now an Olympic event, so I think the top teams are notable, but maybe not all the teams, considering how many countries regularly participate in it. -- Earl Andrew - talk 14:20, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, I mixed up the two in my mind; I meant to say that mixed doubles is the newcomer on the block. Perhaps European coverage of either variant is more extensive; I personally am not aware of a lot of significant coverage of Canadian participants, but of course that may be more a failing on my part. isaacl (talk) 23:26, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Fram's narrower formulation. Earl Andrew asserts above "it's not about the amount/popularity of coverage as much as it is the importance within the sport itself," an assertion that misstates the function of NSPORTS. In fact, NSPORTS is an attempt to identify categories where the amount and depth of coverage are presumed to be sufficient to pass WP:GNG in the vast, overwhelming majority of cases. The "Basic Criteria" section of NSPORTS notes: "A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of multiple published non-trivial secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject." Fram's reformulation appears to be more narrowly tailored to this goal. Cbl62 (talk) 21:17, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
    • Ok, but "Fram's reformulation" doesn't really address the other issues I brought up. But I digress, I believe as an expert on the subject, that my proposal does identify the appropriate categories where the amount and depth of coverage is sufficient to pass GNG for most cases. -- Earl Andrew - talk 00:59, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
    • Fram's proposal isn't narrower in some respects: Earl Andrew's proposal limits the number of eligible World Curling Federation competitions and limits the eligibility of World Curling Tour participants to only the event winners, which I think is preferable. isaacl (talk) 01:17, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
      • I would support Earl Andrew's suggestion. It seems to be more inline with how we would typical do things. Basically for the reasons Isaacl mentions. -DJSasso (talk) 15:53, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm in favor of Earl Andrew's proposed guidelines. They look like a reasonably pared-down version of the current guidelines, and I think they address the issues with overly broad or vague guidelines that have been brought up. I prefer them over Fram's proposed guidelines because Earl's guidelines properly reflect an understanding of how these major curling events are structured and achieve a specificity that makes the guidelines more clearly written and more helpful. I'm curious to see how well these proposed guidelines will mesh with the current spread of articles, and with those that may come up with some of the newer events (such as the Olympic qualifying event and the upcoming Olympic mixed doubles events, among others), but the point that articles outside of these guidelines can still be created with the GNGs in mind is well taken. I know I'm joining this a little bit late, but thanks to all those who've initiated and worked on this. I think it's a step in the right direction. Prayerfortheworld (talk) 07:56, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

If noone objects, I'll replace the current NCURLING rules with Earl Andrew's version in a few days time. They may still need some finetuning, but they are certainly a lot better than what's there now (or than what I proposed). Fram (talk) 08:51, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Again, I'm joining this one late, but I agree that Earl's version is a balanced step in the right direction. Mattlore (talk) 09:05, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I've raised my concerns, but I agree it's a step forward from the current guidelines. isaacl (talk) 15:19, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Allright, I've implemented the new guideline. Feel free to tweak (or discuss here) where necessary, but it seems everyine agrees that the new rules are at least a big step in the right direction. Thanks! Fram (talk) 07:47, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Handball criteria

I just reverted the attempt to add handball criteria to the list, having grave reservations about it.

First off, looking at the diff [2], it's a near complete cut-and-paste of the ice hockey criteria, even down to including a cut-and-paste of NHOCKEY/LA, only substituting handball leagues for ice hockey leagues.

Secondly, in seeking to find what research went into determining what level of handball play might meet the GNG, or consensus gained for the same, I find that this WikiProject has only two members, and that its talk page has only four substantive edits in a year. I think we need to see rather more than that before adding new criteria. Ravenswing 17:14, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Handball is going to be tough because it's most popular in non-English speaking countries. Not that that limits its notability, but that it's going to be harder to gauge the importance of sources. I do think it's a good area for which to have a guideline, though. oknazevad (talk) 23:30, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
Indeed, but the answer isn't "no one needs to do the work because it's hard." It's "all the same, we can't have a notability guideline until someone does some legwork." Ravenswing 03:08, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Agreed. I just have absolutely no idea where to start that legwork! oknazevad (talk) 10:36, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Contradiction?

The first line of WP:NSPORT says:

This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) is likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia. [emphasis added.]

Wikipedia:Notability (sports)#Teams says:

This guideline does not cover sports teams.

Which is it? My head is spinning. --David Tornheim (talk) 13:17, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

It actually says:
This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) is likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia.
"organization" is a link. Said alone it would be confusing but it seems OK to me as "sports league/organization" with links. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:28, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Mm. I don't myself see how saying that NSPORTS gauges the notability of leagues when it doesn't do anything of the sort is OK solely because the words happen to be linked to articles. David's right; we ought to strike the words and leave this to describe people only, until and unless we're prepared to set up criteria to judge leagues and teams. Ravenswing 14:26, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
I think David assumed "sports organization" included "team" so the quotes contradicted eachother directly. But if the rest of the guideline doesn't mention notability for a sports league/organization then the formulation is a problem. I guess the intented meaning is sports persons in a league but that is not what it says. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:13, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

There might be a problem with WP:NFOOTBALL.

I am coming from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andy Ainscow. During this deletion discussion, I noticed this: "This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) is likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia." on the heading of this guideline. When I tried to compare this to the WP:NFOOTBALL criteria, it didn't add up in my mind. And Andy Ainscow is possibly a good example for a low-importance professional association footballer who did not get any coverage beyond routine news coverage, broad listings of statistics or employer websites. And when comparing this to WP:NOTNEWS and its remark about enduring notability then lots of players who meet WP:NFOOTY will be, in the long term, not more than some person in some statistics nobody, or nearly nobody cares about anymore. The criteria should probably be altered to reflect this.Burning Pillar (talk) 22:55, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Football is not unique. (See also Wikipedia_talk:Notability (sports)#Suggested change to Association Football above.) Cricket is another example. There are many SNGs that fail GNG, allowing what will forever be permanent micro stubs of nothing more than what would be much much better in a table in one article of club members or similar. Yes they are of encyclopedic interest but should never be an article in their own right. There needs to be a major review of all SNGs, there are so many inconsistencies, both within NGs generally and other content guidelines, and distinguishing between encyclopedicability and articlability. Aoziwe (talk) 03:05, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
@Aoziwe: - wrong. There is substantial AFD consensus that scraping through NFOOTBALL (e.g. by playing in a professional game for 5 minutes) is not enough if you fail GNG. GiantSnowman 06:58, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
Agree with GS, a list can be provided to underline this if needed. I'm also not sure what you mean by There needs to be a major review of all SNGs, there are so many inconsistencies. There are inconsistencies between guidelines because players in different sports do not achieve the same level of notability by reaching a given level across all sports. If you try to eradicate all inconsistencies, then you are left simply with GNG. Fenix down (talk) 08:06, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
Help me out here. Just one of many examples, how does Subrata Banik pass GNG? Aoziwe (talk) 14:30, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
I would say he doesn't in all probability, but the error you are making is in assuming that any section of NSPORTS guarantees notability, it does not, it merely presumes it. If he were a footballer, he would be deleted per the following consensus: one appearance a number years ago (to technically meet NFOOTY) is not enough when he comprehensively fails GNG. Plenty of AFD precedent exists to say that barely passing NFOOTBALL is not enough when you fail GNG, see Oscar Otazu, Vyacheslav Seletskiy, Aleksandr Salimov, Andrei Semenchuk, Artyom Dubovsky, Cosmos Munegabe, Marios Antoniades, Scott Sinclair, Fredrik Hesselberg-Meyer, Matheus Eccard, Roland Szabó (2nd nomination), Metodija Stepanovski, Linas Klimavičius, Takumi Ogawa, Nicky Fish and Andrei Nițu, amongst others. I don't think anyone here has a problem with that, no one is arguing that just crossing the threshold is enough, there is plenty of scope to revisit notability. Fenix down (talk) 14:58, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
I think we are in furious agreement. Not an error on my part. It is my point exactly. See for example this reversion. The application of the SNG for cricket guaranteed notability, when it should not. This is one example of one type of what I mean about inconsistency, between SNGs and their application. Aoziwe (talk) 13:25, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
But that edit is not applying NCRIC as a means to guaranteed notability. The edit is perfectly valid as NSPORT presumes notability, but there is nothing to prevent the matter being taken further to AfD as the removal of the tag is simply following the logic that NSPORTS presumes notability, the subject passes NCRIC, Lugnuts therefore presumed notability, and so he removed the tag in the same way the person who added the tag had presumed a lack of notability. There's nothing in that train of logic that guarantees notability or precludes AfD. Fenix down (talk) 13:42, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
In terms of good faith editing by the two editors, I agree with you. But two reasonable editors should not so easily be able to come to opposite conclusions if the guidelines are consistent. I think this reinforces the fact that the SNG is not consistent with the GNG. Aoziwe (talk) 14:27, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
There's a long-standing consensus that a footballer (and many other sportspeople) meet the notability criteria based on one appearance for a notable team/league/event. I see you've been active on WP for all of five days, but know quite a bit about AfD and ANI, amongst other wiki nuances. Lugnuts Precious bodily fluids 11:05, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
WP:Consensus can change. "We always did it" is an invalid argument. Giving faulty arguments only doesn't help you getting consensus. Please elaborate in detail why there should be no change, otherwise I am going to change the guideline directly to force you to either back up your position with valid arguments(which is fine), or to accept the change because you don't have real arguments(which is also fine).Burning Pillar (talk) 13:22, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
"otherwise I am going to change the guideline directly " And then you'll be reverted for going against a long-standing consensus. Can you tell me what other account(s) you've used to edit WP? Lugnuts Precious bodily fluids 13:45, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Sure, consensus can change, but you arbitrarily changing the policy does not equate to consensus. I suggest that you slow your roll, figure out how things work around here, and give some thought to what you are really trying to accomplish before you find yourself indeffed for disruption. Lepricavark (talk) 14:03, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Only because I'm one of the long-term "opponents" of NSPORTS's seemingly loosing guidelines, the reason that such criteria is allowed is that if they have made a professional league, that strongly suggests they must have been a good player in an earlier league, such as in university or similar. As such, background about that person's career can usually be found to support the article to eventually lead to the GNG. But a clear point is that these are all presumptions of notability. If you can demonstrate a strong effort (as outlined at BEFORE) that there are seemingly no secondary sources about a player (Keeping in mind you need to look at print works too), then that's a fair argument that the presumption has failed and then deletion is reasonable. --MASEM (t) 13:52, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
The problem, User:Masem, is more that there will be sources that have routine coverage-such as one line in a newspaper mentioning the player as part of the team, or these broad databases in the web that list nearly every player that has ever existed, and that have usually bad fact-checking standards, and that these sources that do NOT establish notability paired with the article meeting the WP:NFOOTY criteria seems to lead an article being kept. And no, even if playing professionally usually indicates that you played good in lower leagues, then that does not translate into notability. And here is why:
Association football is a team game. Just because someone plays above average then that doesn't mean that someone is going to write a book about them. You seem to assume that playing good in lower leagues will, most of the time(because that is what these notability criteria are for), lead to coverage beyond minor news stories in an obscure or local newspaper(which is still routine coverage!, and those local newspapers have a big bias towards local events, making them unreliable sources), listing in broad statistics databases(routine coverage), and passing mentions in sport articles... but can you back that up?Burning Pillar (talk) 14:40, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
It's backed up by consensus established through hundreds, if not thousands of AfDs, players who have played senior international football or who have played in agreed upon fully professional leagues are deemed likely to be notable. You're the one coming here with an alternate view. If you want things to change the onus is on you to provide evidence as to why it should, not badger other editors to provide evidence to support the current consensus. Fenix down (talk) 14:49, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) These broad databases have bad fact-checking standards? You didn't probably any reliable evidence to support that claim. And you still haven't explained how your efforts here are helpful to our readers. If you can't answer that question persuasively, then perhaps you are only looking to create drama instead of working to build an encyclopedia. Lepricavark (talk) 14:53, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Fine, I'll try to back my view up, even if I don't need to because my view is the negative one(there is nothing most of the time, and it is indeed difficult to prove the absence of something), and because the argument that previous consensus backs up consensus is a circular argument. This might take some time, and I won't be able to prove it,(you cannot prove absence) but I can show why it is likely to be wrong. As for bad fact-checking standards, please try to convince me that those broad databases use peer review or have at least fact-checking standards that are actually enforced. Because that is what is needed for them to be a WP:RS. Besides, that was a minor point-they still constitute routine coverage.Burning Pillar (talk) 15:25, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
You do need to back up your view. You said those sites aren't reliable. You prove they aren't reliable. You should not be making value judgments on sports stats websites as you appear to be unfamiliar with how they work. Also, it's not a circular argument to appeal to previous consensus because that consensus still stands. You can talk all you want about how consensus can change, but it hasn't changed. Perhaps you should stop disregarding the opinions of everyone else. Lepricavark (talk) 15:43, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Of course such database entries are usually routine coverage; but "meets WP:GNG thanks to being in a lot of databases" is, thankfully, not a common argument. Database entries aren't used as direct evidence that a player meets GNG; rather, they're used as a source for basic facts and statistics (like "player A has played N games for team X in league Y"); which typically show that the player meets WP:NFOOTY and thus (according to consensus) create a strong presumption (but don't guarantee) that he'll also meet GNG.
You're not the only editor who thinks NFOOTY is too lenient, but it has consensus support and is unlikely to change any time soon. Sideways713 (talk) 15:52, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Further to Sideways' points, there's no need to do that, NFOOTY and NSPORTS simply make the presumption of notability, not a guarantee. The correct place to try to gain consensus is in individual AfDs, by arguing that a player might pass the subject specific guideline, but that you can only find routine coverage of the player. I think this would be unlikely to gain much initial traction from a subject-wide perspective for two reasons:
  1. the consensus that playing senior international football or playing in an FPL makes a player notable is a very long standing consensus based on the fact that it essentially states that of the millions of players who have played football at any reasonably high level either generally or specifically within their country, those who fulfill NFOOTY are essentially those that have played at the highest level, or at least a level at which coverage of / interest in the league they have played is generally accepted to be widespread.
  2. one of the main reasons for the subject specific guideline is to try to counter the inherent lack of readily available / comprehendable sources for either historic players or those based in countries where non-English language sources are standard and so to avoid bias due to either recentism or inherent lack of language skills amongst the editing community.
  3. the notion of what constitutes non-routine coverage is by no means clear. I would argue that those involved with WP:FOOTY, generally require a higher level of coverage than the wider community. For example, this AfD, where the player in question did not even pass NFOOTY, was one where I pressed very strongly for deletion on the grounds that coverage was routine. However, the no consensus outcome was a direct result of a number of editors not normally involved n football related AfDs arguing the exact opposite. The sort of coverage in this AfD is generally available for an awful lot of players, many of whom would not pass NFOOTY at all.
Regarding your questioning of the reliability of sources used, this is difficult to answer but three main sources spring to mind: RSSSF, Soccerway and National Football Teams. RSSSF is one of the most widely respected statistic sites globally, Soccerway is based on data provided by Opta Sports and National Footall Teams is recognized as reliable through experience. There are sources such as Transfermarkt, which many editors do try to use, but have been the result of widespread discussions outside of WP:FOOTY, where it has been deemed unreliable and is not accepted as support for notability. Fenix down (talk) 15:58, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

While I am generally sympathetic with your view, I agree with others that this is an issue best settled at individual AfDs. I would also note that your concerns are hardly unique to NFOOTBALL (see e.g., Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Henry Oxley). Jogurney (talk) 19:07, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

@Burning Pillar: please see WP:STICK. You made a bad AFD nom, get over it. GiantSnowman 19:51, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
@Jogurney: just didnt want it to get lost to who I was referring to. To summarize the point I made in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andy Ainscow, that is also applicable for Henry Oxley, these guidelines are helpful in a few instances. One of the main ones are older players, especially pre-Internet athletes. Sources will be hard copy, most likely newspapers. Its unrealistic to ask a volunteer website with volunteer editors to go to New York City and check all the papers from 1884. And much as people may think otherwise, to me newspapers are still very poorly archived online. A judgment call has to be made and the community has decided that we are going to presume sources exist for someone like Oxley and Ainscow. Is it a perfect system - no. But a decision has to be made. So to me, I support the presumption more strongly for a player in 1884 than 2014. In 2014, we should be able to find some sources online - maybe not enough, but enough to support the presumption. That is my take. Side not, the other major instance where the guideline is useful is foreign athletes where the native language is not English, or even worse not a Latin-based language. Again, not reasonable for English volunteer editors to figure that out so we make a presumption. Those are at least my thoughts. RonSigPi (talk) 20:14, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
@RonSigPi: I think that I should check this presumption on a larger number of new players. That should help to get some idea if this assumption is likely to be correct. We should also not forget that association football had a different importance 1900 than now. Then we might get something. If the end result is that your assumption is clearly correct, then everything is fine. If the end result is less clear, then we probably will discuss this more. If the result is that your assumption is clearly incorrect, then it's time for change. I will only drop the stick insofar as I will now evaluate new evidence.
  • "We should also not forget that association football had a different importance 1900 than now." This is a very important statement I think we don't come close to realizing when it comes to gauging early sources and importance, and that much sports-wide. Certainly, by way of example, no one who wasn't demented would claim that lacrosse was remotely as important a sport as ice hockey, but in Canada in 1900, it was the more popular sport, and Newsy Lalonde was more renowned (and paid a great deal more) for being Canada's preeminent lacrosse player than he was for being its preeminent hockey player of the first twenty years of the century. Perhaps we should stop airily assuming that a subject lacking early sources should get a handwave because such sources are scarce to find online, and ask ourselves whether it's that instead that the sport just wasn't all that notable to the people of the time, which would be an entirely different thing. Ravenswing 10:30, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
    • Attendance figures for the English Football League, which are a fair indicator of importance, are available back to 1889. In 1900 the averages in Division One and Division Two were 9,521 and 3,843, similar to to figures for League One and League Two in 2010 (9,144 and 3,855 respectively), so I think it's fair to assume that the players back then were at least as notable as we consider the modern players in those divisions to be. And from what I've seen of the newspapers of that era, football was well covered in the press too. Number 57 10:40, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

International Futsal & Beach football (soccer) notability

Hello, I'm just writing to know if players who have appeared for the senior national teams in FIFA futsal, and beach football (soccer) matches are considered notable to have their own articles. User:Shotgun pete 3:58, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

No, not unless they meet GNG separately. They're certainly not covered by NFOOTBALL. GiantSnowman 08:33, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Why would it not be considered notable when it is the highest FIFA sanctioned level of play for futsal and beach soccer?Shotgun pete 12:56, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
NFOOTY is intended to deal with the eleven a side game only, hence why the section covering it at NSPORTS is entitled association football as it is intended to cover players involved in games adhering to those rules. Fenix down (talk) 13:15, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
I know that NFOOTY deals with defining notability for association football that's why this issue is being discussed at NSPORTS to see if this topic deserves its own section in defining what constitutes its notability, or if it should be defined under a subsection in NFOOTY. Shotgun pete 13:38, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
That's my point, it can't come under NFOOTY for the reasons outlined above. No problem trying to start discussion on specific notability for these variations but think you would need two separate discussions as they are very different formats of the game. My personal view is that GNG is fine for both variants given that they are both massively less popular than the 11 a side version. Fenix down (talk) 14:04, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Ok I believe your right that both formats need to separated into two different discussions. Just a proposal of course I suggest that for futsal that notability should be allowed for any player who has appeared in a senior international match as defined by FIFA. After all the FIFA Futsal World Cup and the continental tournaments receive coverage from the worlds major sport broadcasters. Shotgun pete 10:05, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I would be completely opposed to that, since it is essentially saying that international futsal players are presumed to be as notable as international eleven a side players when that is patently not true. My personal view on this is that since futsal is only really popular in selected countries and beach soccer is generally much much less popular globally in terms of the coverage they receive. As such I don't see why GNG is not enough.
For futsal though I do appreciate that in certain parts of the world it is very popular and that significant coverage of players in non English sources probably does exist. As such I would not actively oppose a specific guideline, but would want that to be very brief and along the lines of: futsal players are presumed notable if they have appeared in the finals of the FIFA Futsal World Cup. Fenix down (talk) 07:19, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
I agree with you on the beach soccer issue as at the moment the topic isn't that significant. Regarding futsal I think to be fair since the World & Continental tournaments are themselves notable I think its safe to allow notability for players who have appeared in those international tournaments. Shotgun pete 1:46, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
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