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Protected edit request on 9 March 2022 (3)

Per Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability #3, please remove the section "Association football (soccer)", as all criteria within the section are participation criteria and there is a consensus to remove them. –dlthewave ☎ 23:21, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Football is also an olympic sport! You can't simply abolish this. The conclusion of what ever was written, it wouldn't work. You're just pressing GNG anyway and NFOOTBALL worked pretty well for the Football Project, I don't get the pains people go to to destroy it. Govvy (talk) 23:32, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Participation in Football at the Olympics has already been removed, per this discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 23:48, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support. Per RfC closer: There is a rough consensus to eliminate participation-based criteria. "Association football (soccer)" #1 & #2 are participation-based criteria. The note clarifies the use of a term used in #1 and #2. There is no way to leave anything behind after removing the participation-based criteria, so deleting everything is the adequate implementation of the rough consensus found at the RfC. Pilaz (talk) 00:57, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Objectively, there was clear no consensus about that subproposal. Ludost Mlačani (talk) 05:48, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support- this proposal gained consensus. Reyk _YO! 06:39, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Obviously there are problems with the RfC and implementation. This has already led to edit-wars and numerous continuation of discussion. This is just another attempt to backdoor the changes which have been flagged as problematic after protection of the page. --SuperJew (talk) 06:58, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose changes to the guideline are being discussed at WT:FOOTY, and fixing issues is better than nuking everything based on a thin consensus. The closer has also noted on the talkpage of the discussion that the point should be to discuss each one not nuke. Joseph2302 (talk) 08:55, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Discussing each point individually is what we are doing right now, and a well-attended Village Pump consensus supersedes a WikiProject discussion, per WP:CONLEVEL. Pilaz (talk) 17:26, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support per RfC consensus. Alvaldi (talk) 08:55, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Comment. We're not !voting here. The only question is whether this change matches the close; any comments that don't address that must be ignored. BilledMammal (talk) 08:59, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Well the close is being reviewed/clarified at AN, and the close didn't give a clear mandate on what to do, so you assuming it gave you a mandate to nuke everything is plain wrong, so stop pushing that. Joseph2302 (talk) 09:00, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  The close gave a clear mandate to eliminate participation based criteria. BilledMammal (talk) 09:03, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Please stop bludgeoning users. --SuperJew (talk) 09:13, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  I'm replying to an editor who replied to me. That's not bludgeoning. BilledMammal (talk) 09:14, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) The close is being reviewed at AN, and the closer themselves has said on the talkpage that Further drafting and consensus-building after an RfC close is typical, and while a little hectic, I think BRD is yielding better results than if I simply wrote my own policy wording. i.e. we should be trying to reach an agreeable solution. Nuking is not an agreeable solution, and certainly not the only way to interpret the vague closure based on a thin consensus. Sports editors are happy to work with people to fix issues, but nuking everything is not the way to build collaboration and sensible guidelines, it's the way to create nonsense like the version of this guidelines before it was reverted. Joseph2302 (talk) 09:16, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• oppose - the scrapping of NSPORTS was clearly rejected, yet this is exactly what Billed Mammal is trying to do by removing it. GiantSnowman 10:14, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

That is a fallacious argument since there is no prejudice against creation of new criteria or even reinstatement of individual removed participation criterion should they gain new consensus. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 11:37, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support per RfC consensus. If a sport only has participation criteria then clearly that particular sport should be removed from NSPORT. Nigej (talk) 10:29, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

except the close of #3 is being challenged and is probably wrong. GiantSnowman 10:32, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose any action taken to remove NFOOTY in its current form, it can be tailored better. But it had been working fine with most users for a long time. Govvy (talk) 11:41, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support. I voted against subproposal 3 and thought it was a really bad idea that would result in chaos. I also posted notices at the footy and other sports projects advising them of subproposal 3. Unfortunately, and after more than a month of voting, the supporters of NFOOTY, NGRIDIRON, NBASEBALL and other one-game criteria lost the vote. The burden is now on each of those projects to come up with criteria that are more precisely calibrated to GNG compliance. Cbl62 (talk) 12:29, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  and if you see comments from users who did not participate, they either were unaware or were aware but didn't know where to begin given the extent of the discussion! GiantSnowman 12:52, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Editors who choose not to participate in discussions do not get to arbitrarily overrule consensus reached by those that do participate. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 13:10, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  I hear what you're saying Snowman, but the notices I posted at the footy project included a link that took the reader directly to subproposal 3. If people didn't bother to read the postings or click the links, I don't know what to say. I wish the outcome was different, but I don't think we should go the "Trump"-ian route and claim that this was a "rigged" vote. Cbl62 (talk) 14:03, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per Joseph, GiantSnowman, Govvy and others. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 12:50, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Comment. This should probably be put on hold pending the AN review. However, all editors should now be working constructively to implement the consensus and formulate new guidelines where appropriate; they should not be gaming the system to prevent implementation of that consensus with fallacious arguments, particularly when they are simply rehashing the RFC or repeating "concerns" that were explicitly addressed in the close. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 13:10, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  They might've been addressed and even mentioned in the close, but concerns are legitimate and despite them being addressed and even mentioned in the close, we can already see cases of trying to grandfather, like in this AfD for a page created in 2009. --SuperJew (talk) 13:23, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  I'm not sure you understand what is meant by grandfathering. In any case, articles (new or old, grandfathering or not) do not get an exception to the eventual NSPORT requirement to meet GNG; and fwiw, it is commonly argued that articles that are over 10 years old have had more than enough grace in that regard. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 16:11, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Oh please, well since you're so smart, please explain to me what is meant by grandfathering. And fwiw, I have no problem with a discussion of "scraping by an SNG" vs "pure GNG" on an article basis, but that isn't the case with comments such as The notability guidelines for football have been altereed, and now only apply to managers, so he does not pass that. He clearly does not pass GNG, and so the article should be deleted. --SuperJew (talk) 19:27, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Not an answer to your question, but technically any AfD !vote worded that way ought to be ignored by any closer, because it is WP:NBASIC that applies to biographies, not the WP:GNG. I find the ignorance about this coming from many quarters in this discussion to be deeply irritating. Newimpartial (talk) 19:36, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support Replacements can always be discussed here, but removal of the existing participation-based standards was clearly the rough consensus of the RfC. Avilich (talk) 15:04, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

 Note: Temporarily on hold given the proposal at the bottom regarding how best to implement this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:14, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Village pump closure review

User:Wugapodes has asked for a review of the Village pump closure here: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#NSPORTS_closure_review Natg 19 (talk) 08:31, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Implementing the RfC - participation criteria - interim status

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.

---

Obviously, some form of consensus needs to form about how this part of the RfC should be implemented. Doesn't look like it will be overturned, so that leaves a few options as regards how the page should be until such time either a major rewrite or some replacement text explaining the situation has been agreed upon:

1. Remove all participation-only criteria which were not exempted (i.e. not those relating to Olympics or similar events). [i.e. this would be the solution that has first been attempted but reverted. This could and probably should be coupled with a copy-edit where required]
2. Keep the criteria, but add a clear indication that they are only a placeholder until such time as the existing criteria are updated or replaced.
3. Keep the criteria as is for the time being, and revisit this issue in a short while ["short while" would be something like, at the absolute most, a few days to a few weeks (2-3 being the upper limit): obviously, this cannot be a permanent solution, unless the closure gets overturned, but there might be a good argument as to let the dust settle and revisit this when any procedural objections have been settled].

What d'ya think? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:26, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

I think a placeholder and giving the various projects a defined time to come up with new criteria is best. But that isn't a few days. It also isn't 8 months. Rikster2 (talk) 15:30, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Suggestion 3 isn't really intended to be enough for that to happen, more to let the current matter at AN settle and be sure we are on solid ground. Of course, at that point it might make sense to let the various projects a defined time to come up with new criteria. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:38, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Then I guess I am suggesting something between 2 and 3 Rikster2 (talk) 15:42, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

To a certain extent I think it depends on how quickly new proposals can be formulated and, critically, how likely they are to be approved. Does the placeholder stay in place if new proposals fail or is it deleted at that point? As such I think option 1 is the clearest way forward. Nigej (talk) 15:36, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Well that brings an interesting question. Who signs off on the new SSG guidance? No offense, but there are a number of folks who have been active in this discussion for whom I can no longer WP:AGF. I'd prefer some unaffiliated panel or something similar Rikster2 (talk) 15:38, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

I was assuming it would be by consensus here. I'm only wondering whether a sport might come back here with a tweak to the criteria, expecting that to be approved and I'm wondering what's going to happen if it isn't. Nigej (talk) 15:43, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

No. Certainly anyone can chime in but I am not busting my butt to try to put good faith SSG guidance together (which, done right will take a lot of my and others' volunteer time) to satisfy people like BilledMammal who are coming at this from a clear bias against athlete bios. I want editors who are sincerely interested in ensuring SSG guidance approximates GNG and are open to what that means. Those folks probably didn't flock to this discussion or contribute 100s of lines of text to these discussions and affiliated AfDs. Rikster2 (talk) 15:47, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

The trouble is that one person's "good faith SSG guidance" is another person's "ludicrously loose criteria". At the end of the data they'll need to be some give-and-take from both sides. Nigej (talk) 15:51, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Not if we get some people who didn't go all-in on this shitstorm. I never said let the sports put their criteria out without review, now did I? Rikster2 (talk) 15:52, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Battlegrounding is not going to move us forward. Please stop. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 15:55, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Then lets make sure the path forward is clear. I have a legitimate concern in this area given how this RfC played out. Rikster2 (talk) 15:58, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

All guidelines need to be established by consensus from the general community. Practically, the editors most interested in a subject have the appropriate knowledge of the domain to craft appropriate guidance. So it falls upon them to figure out what guidelines are suitable and to convince the community, making revisions as necessary. isaacl (talk) 15:59, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

I suggested something akin to #2/#3 above. I do agree that there should be rapid movement toward new sport-based criteria (see the Rugby Union Project's discussion). --Enos733 (talk) 15:58, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

option 2 is best. We at WP:FOOTBALL are already working on new proposals. GiantSnowman 16:29, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1 is the clearest and simplest way to implement consensus from the RFC, and can be accompanied by a placeholder, so we should probably do that. Options 2 and 3 would only be acceptable as very short-term solutions, which seems an unlikely result, in addition to probably creating/prolonging confusion and uncertainty, so would be better avoided. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 17:41, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Option #1 is best This will actually implement the results of the RFC. #2 and #3 would turn out to be ways to avoid doing so. North8000 (talk) 18:44, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Placeholder text (suggestion no. 2)

Following an RfC, the current criteria based solely on participation have been rendered obsolete in most cases. They are kept here as a placeholder until a final implementation of that RfC. Editors are divided on their usefulness, and they should not be relied upon for the time being, although they may still, in some cases, be useful indicators.

One could also add a Until such time as the situation has been resolved, editors should fall back to the remaining criteria, including WP:SPORTSCRIT, WP:NBIO, and ultimately, WP:SIGCOV.. Would this be an acceptable compromise? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:22, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

I would go "Following an (linked) RFC, it was concluded that just participating in one game or event does not mean that the subject meets WP:NBASIC. Criteria based solely on participation are ..." Enos733 (talk) 16:27, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

I'd be fine with RC's wording, but not Enos733. GiantSnowman 16:32, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Conditional Support of RandomCanadian's proposal pending the outcome of the review at WP:AN. Seems reasonable, but probably best to hold off until the review is complete to avoid mass chaos given there is no deadline. I'm also open to including some other language referencing both the RfC and review until the latter is complete, reflecting the current uncertain future status of those guidelines, then adding in RC's language if the closure is upheld. Smartyllama (talk) 16:38, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  For avoidance of doubt since these proposals were not yet numbered when I commented, I Support Option 2 subject to the conditions noted above. Smartyllama (talk) 11:24, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

• Suggest replacing "Editors are divided on their usefulness, and" with "Since these criteria no longer enjoy consensus support,". Otherwise, looks fine including the additional pointer to our fallback guidelines. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 16:53, 10 March 2022 (UTC) (EDIT) Note: this comment should not in any way be taken as an expression of support for this option (i.e. 2). _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 17:47, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Shouldn't any changes happens after the closure review is complete? It seems awfully presumptuous to say Doesn't look like it will be overturned. Natg 19 (talk) 16:55, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  There's already a few dozen who have commented and most, nearly all of them do not really suggest overturning anything (there are a few isolated mentions, but that's about it). Anyway, there's WP:NODEADLINE so we can wait until that is concluded, if you wish - although there's nothing that prevents having this discussion now and waiting to implement it until then. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:58, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  The review has been open for less than 24 hours. People here really need to be willing to take things slow and let the process play out. Natg 19 (talk) 17:01, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose This would put it into a "RFC won't get implemented until something else happens" mode. And the "something else" would need to get done by the people who generally don't like the result of the RFC and so this is this would likely be a recipe to not implement the RFC. Any plan needs to acknowledge the underlying reality that the sentiments of the folks who maintain this guideline are, on average, in conflict with the sentiments of the overall community and the results of the RFC on this issue. There is no "good" or "bad" in this, it is just human nature. North8000 (talk) 17:28, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose suggestion no. 2 (including this) and 3 If the material was voted in the RfC to be removed, then it should be removed. I'm fine with removing what's there and maybe as a placeholder putting a link to the RfC in question with some sort of "under construction" note. Leaving it there is currently generating more "Keep because meets WP:FOOTY" votes at AfDs for stubs that would no longer meet the new FOOTY criteria. -Indy beetle (talk) 17:31, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose option 1 - there is no reason to knowingly create bad policy text while the AN review is ongoing; some kind of disclaimer would be fine if people really think that the RfC link itself won't have enough impact at AfD. I see a lot of editors jumping around celebrating their victories, and this from the perspective of someone who had no part whatever in the RfC or the subject area. (I also see lots of logical and conceptual flaws in the discussion itself - the real question, what counts as SIGCOV in the domain of sports biographies?, hardly seems to have been asked much less answered. New policy text that punts the question more emphatically to the GNG (sic.) won't do anything meaningful to resolve the real issues raised by the RfC, IMO.) Newimpartial (talk) 18:54, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose option 1 mass-removal of guidelines should wait until the AN thread is closed. NemesisAT (talk) 18:58, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support option 2 as multiple projects (football, rugby union) are working towards updated tighter guidelines based on the RFC outcome. Oppose option 1 as the attempt to do this led to a non sensical outcome where none of the guidelines made any sense. Joseph2302 (talk) 19:28, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support option 2 as a good compromise while WikiProjects are working on the tighter guidelines. --SuperJew (talk) 19:33, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose option 1 whatever we do does need to leave the guideline in a workable state and not an incoherent mess. Attempts to implement option 1 haven't done that. Hut 8.5 20:02, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Remove the rubbish now. That is what we voted. We had a proposal for change in participation numbers but that was not passed. It is time to remove the druk, and get rid of all this rubbish immediately. It is time to free Wikipedia from being a sports database.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:26, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support option 1 if it is remove all the language implying participation inclusion immediately. We passed this measure, it is time to let it be implemented. It is these guidelines making participation grounds for article inclusion that has made Wikipedia a mess. It need to go now.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:27, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
  • For the record, this is a great example of what I described above as a lot of editors jumping around celebrating their victories, FWIW. Newimpartial (talk)`
    • Wikipedia is being filled with rubbish sports stats pages masqueraading as biographies. This needs to stop. There are thousands of biographies sourced to one sports table. This is not at all acceptable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:33, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
      • That is an entirely sensible position, but is only tangentially related to the questions asked in that sprawling RfC, much less the consensus emerging from it. It seems to me that without high-level consensus about what counts as SIGCOV for a sports figure, editors are going to keep taking at cross-purposes in this domain. Newimpartial (talk) 20:42, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

        Indeed. and does it actually matter that half of all biographies of living people are sports competitors? And would it matter if that became 60 or 70% in 10 years time. Nigej (talk) 20:47, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

    • It's all looking a lot like Brexit to me, so we've got a few more years of this to go. Nigej (talk) 20:39, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
    • @Newimpartial: I don't think that the mentality implied by your "celebrating" phrase is the case. I think that there are folks who are thinking that this change is needed and widely supported and so are happy about the decision and want to make sure it gets implemented but that's pretty well the extent of it. Knowing that it might be a tough moment for the people who think opposite to me who are also dedicated wiki volunteers doing their best to me makes the psychological aspect of "winning" a minus. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:53, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
      • Being happy about - and rushing to implement - the part of a closure that your one's team agrees with, while ignoring the parts of the consensus/close that you disagree with, is what I personally mean by jumping around celebrating. By no means do I attribute that activity to anyone based on their !votes or POV in the RfC, only their subsequent edit history. Newimpartial (talk) 21:01, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
        • At least some of those relate to the changed rules for Olympic notability. That policy was approved in October. No one is rushing to implment it at all. A rush would have implmented it in 2021.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:29, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
          • Are you suggesting that, because some of those edits relate to 2021 RfC, we are not to notice the ones that rely on an RfC from which the dust has not yet settled? That has the appearance of sleight of hand. Newimpartial (talk) 21:39, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
        • @Newimpartial: I am not in any way a member of any "team", and I think that it is harmful to the process to posit such things or view things in that way. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:36, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
          • Did I state or imply that you were, though? Nope. Perhaps recalibration of filters is required. Newimpartial (talk) 21:42, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
            • @Newimpartial: Well you did say "your team" in a response that was specifically to me. But if you indicate that that's not what you intended, cool. North8000 (talk) 01:58, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
              • I believe I have now clarified this, above. I don't think of that use of "your" as ambiguous, but it clearly is. Newimpartial (talk) 02:01, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
        • I fail to see how implementing the result of an RFC is jumping around celebrating. At some point, the result needs to be implemented, and it is generally better to do it earlier rather than later. In regards to your later question about 190,000 redirects to properly sourced lists, say, and 10,000 non-redirect articles, that would assuage my concerns even if it doesn't assuage it for others - although I believe there is sufficient coverage for more than 10,000 non-redirect articles. BilledMammal (talk) 03:24, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• there are porbably in excess of 100,000 articles on Olympians in Wikipedia sourced only to databases. The sheer number of articles involved is staggering. I estimated that there may be about 150,000 total Olympians, but the number may actually be in excess of 200,000. I estimate we probably have "articles" on over 95% of them, but the articles are in the vast majority of cases very poor. In many cases one editor created 10 or more such articles in about that many minutes.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:31, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
  • If we had 190,000 redirects to properly sourced lists, say, and 10,000 non-redirect articles, would that assuage your concern? Newimpartial (talk) 21:46, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Well, every attempt I have made to create a redirect in this matter has been reverted, often with zero improvement. Also even when we have clear cases of a name having other uses that are at least as notable we have to fight to get some improvment. Over 90% of the very small improvement has been brought about by under 10 articles making nominations, maybe under 5. I have severe doubts that there are 10,000 people who competed in the Olympics who are notable, and if there are over 9,000 of them are notable despite Olympic actions not because of it. Which is another huge problem with the druk produced by a certain editor, he did not product Biographies, he produced Olympic actions reports for both athletes and artist in the Olympic arts competition, that neglected to say anything of substance about the rest of the person's life, even in cases where other parts of their life, such as being a military leader, were actually much more noted and covered than their brief participation in the Olympics.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:52, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
      • I'll take that as a "no". Carthage must clearly be destroyed. Newimpartial (talk) 21:55, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
        • I will not be satified until every article is sourced to sources to a level to meet GNG. This is not an unresonable expectation. The fact that Wikipedia has articles that have lasted for over a decade with no sources at all, and other articles that have lasted that long sourced only to a source we consider unreliable is not a good thing.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:01, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
          • If that is your goal, how often would you say you look for and add sources to these under sourced/unsourced articles? Rikster2 (talk) 23:13, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
            • Every sport figure that had been an Olympic competitor I have done searches for information in multiple ways before nominating them. The bigger question is why we tolerate editors creating such sub-standard articles in the first place.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:33, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Allowing Sports specific projects to build there own guidelines is highly questionable. They engage in rhetoric designed to drive away and keep away those who do not support flooding Wikipedia with sports stats tables masquerading as bios. Such as this statement "Quote: Wikipedia has way too many articles on football players. We need to severly reduce that number, and we need to reduce it now. This from Johnpacklambert really does disturb me. There are millions of football players who are notable on this planet. You want to purge it? If you act like that you don't belong on wikipedia. You should be perm topic banned from anything related to this subject with that attitude. Govvy (talk) 21:35, 10 March 2022 (UTC)" This is not a place that is open to any and all views on the acceptability of sports bios. It is built around an a priori assumption that sports bios are good, and involves invoking rhetoric to try and silence and drive off those who hold any other view of sports bios. Exactly why should we let places that engage in this level of rhetoric and intimadation and abuse towards those who do not hold the party line be where we develop our notability guidelines. They show no recognition that there is a problem, that their refusal of any and all improvmenets is constantly feeding the problem, and they contenance this type of rhetoric which tries to silence those who do not tow the party line.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:41, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
  • • • • • • • If the actual problem is the bot or bot-like creation of stubs, that is a behavioral issue to be dealt with under the bot policy ((q.v. WP:MEATBOT, not a problem for notability policy. Just as geostubs aren't a problem to be solved by GEOLAND reform, sports stubs aren't a problem to solve through NSPORTS repeal. This is somewhat akin to using a nail gun to deal with a rodent infestation - just not a tool suited to the task. Newimpartial (talk) 23:49, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• why are you going to the Football project and stirring up trouble anyway? You aren’t there to help them build a workable guideline so why don’t you just stay away and let them work through it? Rikster2 (talk) 23:11, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• I have made suggestions on what level of participation should be included. All thoughts and views should be welcomed. People should not be hounded and attacked for sharing their views, and suggesting that being payed to do something for one day should not be seen as stirring things up.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:30, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Then go over there without an agenda. You have typed walls of text saying the same crap and it’s only going to serve to inflame people over at that project. You are not going there as a neutral actor. Just frigging drop it Rikster2 (talk) 23:32, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support option 1 per the closing statement for subproposal #3, which makes it crystal-clear that consensus is to eliminate certain criteria: "I gave little weight to the 'no replacement'-type arguments as they miss the point of the proposal and are procedural rather than substantive concerns. To be clear on how they miss the point: the replacement is the GNG which applies to all articles; the proposal was to eliminate certain special criteria, so of course no alternative criteria were specified." This doesn't rule out developing replacement criteria in the future, but we shouldn't wait until that time to implement the current consensus. I also share North8000's concern that this could be used to filibuster or delay implementation of consensus, perhaps indefinitely. After all, this is the topic area where "eventually" (i.e. "reliable sources must eventually be provided") effectively means "never". –dlthewave ☎ 02:34, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support option 1. We don't delay introducing consensus; we introduce it, and if that raises new issues that need to be settled, we do that. For example, we are already working to resolve the issues it will introduce with Rugby Union, and I believe we are making good progress on developing a solution that all sides will be happy with. BilledMammal (talk) 03:24, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support option 2 (and happy with RandomCanadian's placeholder text). Oppose option 1 as it has proved unworkable, RfC or no RfC. I would also add WP:NOTPAPER. A lot of sports biographies are not necessary, but their existence doesn't mean there's no room for more useful content. --Nicknack009 (talk) 13:04, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  Option 1 certainly proved contentious but it has not proved unworkable (how could it when bold implementation and cleanup was never completed), and nor would it since SPORTCRIT/BASIC/GNG still apply. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 13:30, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose option 1: Find workable solutions within each WikiProject, as is currently happening on Rugby and Football. Nuking isn't a viable option. Felixsv7 (talk) 18:16, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support option 1 Consensus should be implemented immediately. Potential replacements are a separate discussion. Avilich (talk) 00:25, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
• You folks are wasting your time. This poll is local consensus and can't modify the global consensus of an RfC. There is WP:NORUSH, so we can wait for the RfC close review before attempting to implement the RfC. If the RfC close for #3 is endorsed, the participation criteria will be removed. Levivich 16:38, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 4 Per the close, the placeholder is other SNG criteria or the GNG are met. Therefore, call out another SNG, WP:NBIO, and use as a placeholder: has received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject. Although this is redundant, it will provide clarity in cases that would otherwise be confusing (such as with Rugby, where it appeared that the only way to be notable was to play in the Women's World Cup). Failing that, Option 1. --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 20:26, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose option 1 Removing would provide no quick guidance for page patrollers, and invite mass AfD nominations w/o WP:BEFORE and a future visit to WP:ARB.—Bagumba (talk) 11:35, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

  Not true. See GNG/BASIC/any other relevant notability guideline (as now). If page patrollers do not know this, they shouldn't be patrolling. Likewise with AfD; BEFORE applies irrespective of meeting the criteria of any notability guideline. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 12:03, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Wjemather: Can you clarify what you are referring to with (as now). Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 12:15, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

  Sure. The process does not end at the first notability guideline that gets looked at (whether it is met or otherwise), and that would not change by implementing option 1. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 12:29, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

  The quick guidance that SNGs provide would be gutted from NSPORTS, without a replacement. Sure, BEFORE should be followed, but I'm trying to be pragmatic about what would really happen. Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 12:40, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

  Indeed, but since the relevant criteria no longer enjoy community consensus (because they do not reliably indicate notability) they are providing bad guidance, so surely it would be misleading and counterproductive to leave them in place? _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 13:18, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

  The other options offer replacements too, but with a different timeline, though it differs from what you prefer.—Bagumba (talk) 03:50, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support option 1. The fallback guidance is GNG (etc.). There is nothing special about sports bios that makes them unmanageably difficult for patrollers to assess notability or perform an adequate BEFORE for, and certainly nothing that makes them entitled to more AfD leeway than any other biography subject. Removing these SSGs should actually make clueless nominations less likely since the vast majority of those that did occur were of the "doesn't meet NFOOTY" (without the nom even looking for GNG) type, and now the only guideline a topic can fail is the one that was necessary all along (GNG). If the concern is that, in the past, AfD keep !votes could hinge entirely on the subject meeting an SSG without regard to actual coverage, and now those !votes are (more) worthless, well, all I can say is: tough luck, it's time to get off your lazy ass and actually look for SIGCOV like the delete !voters have had to do this whole time, and like all !voters have to do for the numerous subjects that don't fall under any SNG. Sports editors' time is no more valuable than that of any other volunteer's, if you can't deal with a higher AfD load then that's YOUR problem. JoelleJay (talk) 14:38, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 per JoelleJay. This has basically been the default position since the 2017 RFCs established that sports people have to meet GNG, with the SNG acting just as a bellweather; and which the recent RFCs roughly reaffirmed, given the need for at least one source to be present. JoelleJay also makes the case eloquently as to why a carve-out for sports people over other bios is undesirable and unnecessary.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:45, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Amakuru: The 2017 RfC that you referred to didn't decommision NSPORTS:

  There is clear consensus that no subject-specific notability guideline, including Notability (sports) is a replacement for or supercedes the General Notability Guideline. Arguments must be more refined than simply citing compliance with a subguideline of WP:NSPORTS in the context of an Articles for Deletion discussion...Follow-up discussion should be held to determine (in no particular order):
  The appropriate result for an article at AFD about a sportsperson where they verifiably meet a NSPORTS criterion, but various levels of effort have not yielded significant sourcing (especially for older athletes or athletes from non-Anglophone locations)...

  My interpretation was that meeting NSPORTS shouldn't supercede a WP:ROUGHCONSENSUS in a given AfD that might cite a failure to meet WP:GNG. That RFC does not say to ravage NSPORTS.—Bagumba (talk) 04:31, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

  The RFC does rather specifically describe the typical "Keep passes NSPORTS" issue at AFDs (do I need to cite any of the recent examples, some of which went to DRV, to show that this is still an issue?) and explicitly says NSPORTS does not supercede GNG. That this is still an issue five years later means that more definite action needs to be taken. Since the more recent RfC has found that participation criteria should be removed, the only real solution is either A) to remove them [and rewrite where this poses textual continuity issues] or B) to remove them and maybe replace them with something better. Of course, both of these can be given some time until they are acted upon, but something needs to be done. My proposal no. 2 was essentially a stop-gap until that can be resolved. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:26, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support option 1 per Joellejay and Randomcanadian. The sticking point has always been that people treat SNGs as an exemption from notability and verifiability requirements despite their actual wording, the results of previous RFCs, and hundreds upon hundreds of AfDs that clearly show the community has recognised the problem caused by database entry microstubs. Reyk _YO! 23:24, 24 March 2022 (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.

New NFOOTBALL guideline proposed

I have put together a new guideline proposal. It can be viewed at Wikipedia:Notability (sports)/Association football and discussed at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Association football. Godspeed! GiantSnowman 12:40, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Suggestion for team sports

I haven't had as much time to contribute to this discussion as I thought I would, but I wanted to make a suggestion that would suit coverage of team sports. I'm in the process of writing an outline history of Ulster Rugby in the professional era with team/season articles, on the model of what's already been done for Munster and partially done for Leinster and Connacht: the current season being 2021–22 Ulster Rugby season, the earliest being 1995–96 Ulster Rugby season. It seems to me this is a more informative way of covering team sports than having lots and lots of short articles that say no more than "player x played for team y in season z". If each team/season page has a squad list, that information is available there, without the need to make a separate page for each player, with the information presented in a better-organised way, and sourced to reputable media sources. I'd like to suggest that WikiProjects for team sports might like to encourage interested editors to take this approach rather than make lots of uninformative articles on individual players. --Nicknack009 (talk) 16:47, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

@Nicknack009: How would that work? Say take the page of Jack McGrath (rugby union), to what page do you redirect him? 2021–22 Ulster Rugby season, 2020–21 Ulster Rugby season, 2019–20 Ulster Rugby season, or 2018–19 Leinster Rugby season, etc? --SuperJew (talk) 17:58, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, but almost all sports leagues and teams fail WP:NSEASONS and the resultant articles your suggest would undoubtedly fail WP:NOTSTATS and/or WP:OR. However "List of x-nationality/country y-sport players" would almost always be ok (and provide suitable redirect targets, unlike season articles for players with multi-season/team careers). _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 18:06, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not proposing to redirect anything anywhere. Certainly not a player like Jack McGrath, whose achievements with multiple teams, including not only Ulster and Leinster but also Ireland and the British and Irish Lions, certainly make him notable. I'm suggesting it as an alternative to making masses of new articles about non-notable or marginally-notable players, which I thought is what this exercise was all about, not mindless deletion of players with distinguished careers, although maybe this is the mask slipping. Undifferentiated lists of players are uninformative and, frankly, worthless. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Information needs to be organised to be useful. I'm doing my best to be constructive and make the encylopedia informative and useful. If policy makes that impossible, then that policy is wrong. --Nicknack009 (talk) 18:49, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

You seem to have overlooked that sportspeople at the margins, or those who simply don't meet the criteria for an article, are those most likely to be a member of a team that doesn't meet NSEASONS. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 19:19, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

I fail to see what that has to do with it. The point of the RfC is that we can't say a player is necessarily notable as an individual just because he's played for a notable team or in a notable competition. Non-notable teams and competitions don't come into it. All I'm trying to do is find ways of complying with the RfC without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. --Nicknack009 (talk) 19:35, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Most teams and competitions that are notable don't meet NSEASONS. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 19:51, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

OK, I get the message. I've tried to assume good faith, but I'm clearly trying to compromise with zealots. --Nicknack009 (talk) 19:54, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Please try and be civil. It's not that your suggestion isn't welcome or appreciated, it just doesn't provide a global solution without changing (or ignoring) multiple policies and guidelines. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 13:04, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 27 March 2022

Per Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)#Bolded sentence again, change the sentence in bold ("The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below") to "Notability must be demonstrated with significant coverage in multiple secondary sources that are independent of the subject". To sum up in the lede what is already said at WP:SPORTCRIT. Avilich (talk) 14:25, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

• I oppose this change. I do not see how a discussion with four participants can change the long-standing wording of a major policy. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:10, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. There is no consensus for this change. Cbl62 (talk) 16:23, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
• This would need yet another RfC, which I guess nobody is in the mood for... And the proposed sentence is one amongst many possible options. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:27, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Bolded sentence again

Although subproposal 9 to erase that sentence was closed as no consensus, this needed to be eventually revisited. The current wording is "GNG or the sport specific criteria set forth below" but I suggest that this be changed to something more straightforward like "topics should be shown to have received significant coverage in multiple secondary sources". This is what the "sport specific criteria" (SPORTCRIT and each individual sport's guideline) already say now that "presumed notable" has become "significant coverage is likely to exist" (if there was ever much of a difference), is basic enough that it deserves a mention in the lede, avoids an unnecessary and controversial mention of GNG, and makes the guideline more consistent with itself. Avilich (talk) 03:23, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support This wording is much clearer and puts what is actually said later clearly in the lead. However we should say it clearly at the top instead of making it look like there are two conflicting avenues, when ultimately all articles need significant coverage in multiple secondary sources. One question though, should we also modify secondary with reliable, thus saying "topics should be shown to have received significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources"?John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:59, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

This is more about the basic idea than the specific wording, which can be adjusted as needed, though 'reliable' is in any case trivial and already mentioned in SPORTCRIT down the page. Avilich (talk) 15:29, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I can still see some people trying to rules lawyer that their source is secondary even if unreliable and that it is not mentioned as needing to be other than secondary in the specific place they are quoting from.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:07, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

• Wouldn't it be simpler instead to rewrite it as "In all cases, the content of articles should be supported by reliable sources."? I mean, sure, that is essentially a repetition of WP:V, but it looks like the actually intended meaning, and if so, then this is a clearer way to say it, a more concise way to say it, and a way to say it which is less open to misinterpretation (this would also make FAQ no. 5 redundant). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:48, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Ideally the whole FAQ should be redundant, it only even exists to make sure the guideline isn't misinterpreted (not that it has helped much). This change will simply sum up in the lede the most basic criterion of notability (SIGCOV) which the guideline already adopts, while getting rid of the last sentence that is likely to cause problems. Avilich (talk) 20:28, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

The point of that sentence was to indicate an article on an athlete who passed NSPORT subcriteria could be created and permitted in mainspace if their claim to notability was sourced, either directly by GNG citations or with RS verifying they met the SSG subcriteria and therefore were presumed to meet GNG. Since we now have the requirement that articles not directly demonstrating GNG must include a source verifying they meet an SSG and at least one source providing SIGCOV, it would make sense to modify the wording to reflect this change. JoelleJay (talk) 20:54, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose removal of the bolded sentence. Cbl62 (talk) 16:33, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
  • WP:JUSTAVOTE. On top of that, nobody is proposing the removal of the sentence, only rewriting it... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:48, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support- the proposed wording describes more clearly what the requirements actually are. Reyk _YO! 22:39, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Moto3

Is Moto3 considered to be under WP:NMOTORSPORT #2? It can be argued through bullet 3 that Moto3 is a (somewhat) top-level feeder series to MotoGP since there are riders, albeit rarely, that directly jumped from Moto3 to MotoGP, like Jack Miller and Darryn Binder. Moto3 might also pass bullet 1, although some might argue that even if it is a primarily-professional single-class series, it does not have significant international importance. Since Moto2 is the only series explicitly stated and a user has notified meabout this, I think we need to know some thoughts. ^{Engr. Smitty Werben} 03:14, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

If Moto3 is ranked below Moto2, then it is not a "top-level feeder" Spike 'em (talk) 16:45, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Though I know nothing about the structure of motorbike racing so am fully prepared to have my view debunked! Spike 'em (talk) 16:48, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Not an expert, but this seems a bit like Formula 3 (vs. Formula 2 and Formula 1 - although I don't think there has been an instance of a driver skipping straight to the top level from F3 to F1). In which case, it is clearly not the "top-level feeder", although of course individual drivers might still pass GNG despite that (as might be the case with, I guess, some F3 drivers as well). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:30, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Max Verstappen went from Formula 3 Europe (which is now Formula 3) to Formula One. Joseph2302 (talk) 18:47, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I did say I was "not an expert", right? and I kinda hoped there was one exception which proved the rule... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:00, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

From the replies, it might not pass #2 bullet 3. But what about bullet 1? It is still professional, even if most riders are teenagers, with the youngest being just 16. I could say it is of significant international importance since after all, it is a World Championship, althought I know that's arguable. Thoughts? ^{Engr. Smitty Werben} 10:19, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

My intuition would be that 1) if it fails another criteria rather explicitly, that doesn't really matter and 2) if you're spending time considering which criteria it passes or not, you're asking the wrong question. What you should really be asking is: can you find enough good sources about [whatever it is you want to write about] to write an article? If so, then go ahead. If you find something but it's marginal, then go ahead too, that's the purpose of the criteria, somebody might be able to find something more thorough. And if you can't find anything, then don't bother. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:23, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Engr. Smitty The fact it's excluded from Criteria 3 in the same bullet is a good enough hint it doesn't pass Criteria 1 either. Feeder series are steps on the ladder to fully professional series, the seats in F3 and Moto3 (just like in Moto2 and F2) are fully paid by the drivers themselves without any salary. And I'd argue Moto2/F2 are of higher international importance as that top step before Moto/F1 (which is again why criteria 3 exists). Jovanmilic97 (talk) 08:59, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 29 March 2022

Per #Figure skating, in Wikipedia:Notability (sports)#Figure skating please change Have competed at an Olympics or at an ISU senior World Figure Skating Championships to Have competed at an ISU senior World Figure Skating Championships. BilledMammal (talk) 10:18, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I think this shows the problem of just considering one small part of a guideline: as a disinterested layman, I would say that appearing at the Olympics is far more likely to result in coverage than at a World Championships. Spike 'em (talk) 11:58, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I would tend to agree too, but that's not what the consensus for Olympic participation came out as. Support BilledMammal's change, to be consistent with the general Olympic guideline, and the clear consensus linked above by BilledMammal. Joseph2302 (talk) 12:19, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

If there was consensus to remove mere participation at the Olympics, I'd say that would also include mere participation at lower events, unless some overriding reason why interest (and consequent reliable source coverage) in the Olympics might be lower than the other events (for example, with football). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:12, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree in principle, and some of the sports have already been changed from "participated" to "top 3" where appropriate. I already suggested it for athletics which uses "top 8" for some non-Olympic sports. But figure skating is clearly an uncontroversial change (as it has an explicit consensus above), so should definitely be done now. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:07, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: The page's protection level has changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. However, please be aware of #A note of caution following unprotection below.—Bagumba (talk) 08:17, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Bootcamp

These discussions are about the community trying to implement this proposal, agreed at a RFC:

"Remove all simple or mere "participation" criteria in NSPORT, outside of ones related to Olympics and equivalent events. This would eliminate several sections on specific sports where this is the only type of criteria give (such as for NGRIDIRON), while merit-based ones, like several in NTRACK, would be left.

The fundamental problem with NSPORT is the idea that participating in 1 or more games means the person is notable, but there's nothing about this criteria that assures more sources will come. On the other hand, holding a record, winning an individual championship, or awarded a well-recognized award, are things that are generally assured that more coverage about the person will come in time. Otherwise, we'd just expect individuals to meet the GNG to have an article. There should also be some type of grandfathering so that if passed, there is not a sudden rush for AFD." Techie3 (talk) 09:29, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Content removed again

I see it took just a few hours from the page being unprotected for someone to again try and mass remove everything. Not at all in the spirit of collaboration, when people are trying to improve and fix things (see all the positive discussion on this page and subpages). Was there ever a consensus to delete everything? The closer of the RFC literally said that changes should be further discussed, which isn't what some editors are doing.... Can this page please be reprotected so thag the collaborative discussion can continue without the constant mass deletion of content? Joseph2302 (talk) 22:40, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Per the RfC close, subproposal #3: "There is a rough consensus to eliminate participation-based criteria (except those based on olympic or similar participation)"; " I gave little weight to the "no replacement"-type arguments as they miss the point of the proposal and are procedural rather than substantive concerns. To be clear on how they miss the point: the replacement is the GNG which applies to all articles; the proposal was to eliminate certain special criteria, so of course no alternative criteria were specified."; "Taken together, there is a rough consensus that participation-based criteria are a problem and that the best way forward is to remove them." This gives a clear mandate to remove participation-based criteria. Note that the close review was archived with no action, and the proposal to develop interim criteria of some sort is not approaching consensus. I did intentionally leave NFOOTY and NCRIC since my understanding is that those projects are discussing replacement criteria. –dlthewave ☎ 22:53, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

"Remove" is clear and needs no further discussion. The others should be removed too. Replacements are great but will need an RfC to implement anyway; in the meantime there should be no NSPORTS participation criteria except Olympic or similar, per the RfC. The page needs to accurately reflect current consensus because editors rely on it. Levivich 23:46, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

And again the NSPORTS makes no sense again, because for certain sports, lots of the text has been removed with no thought for the text left. And so people can be notable for winning a college sport award, or winning a junior level event, but not for being a professional of any adult level team sport? Seems logical to me..... Replacing instances of participated with "won" or "finished top 3" would have at least made the guidelines resemble some level of sense... Yet apparently, I'm the disruptive one, not the people creating illogical nonsense. Joseph2302 (talk) 00:59, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

And the fact that NSPORTS in its current form considers US college sports as more notable than major non-US sports such as the Premier League, simply because the Premier League has fewer named trophies that can be awarded to people, seems like a clear US bias to me. Joseph2302 (talk) 01:04, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

If you disagree with the current consensus or think something needs to be added/changed, I would suggest opening a new RfC to gain consensus. –dlthewave ☎ 01:13, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

As per the review of the RFC close there is no clear uncontentious consensus for proposal 3 and readding without proper discussion and a clear consensus is just edit warring and why the page was protected, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 01:16, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Atlantic306, are you aware that the review at AN did not reach consensus to overturn and has been archived? The consensus is clear and needs to be implemented. –dlthewave ☎ 01:35, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

The consensus is unclear and that's why we had the review. Let's wait for Wugapodes views on this and I for one will respect his view, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 01:39, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

What's unclear about it? –dlthewave ☎ 01:40, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Well for a start proposal 3 was closed as a rough consensus and then in the review Wugapodes summed things up three quarters through that there was the most opposition to proposal 1 and 3 and that more discussion was needed regarding proposal 3, but then that discussion didn't take place at least at AN. There have been a number of discussions at the Football Wikiproject and Cricket proect regarding new Sngs that still involve participation criteria but strenghened to be less inclusive so there is ongoing discussion at this stage.Atlantic306 (talk) 01:47, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

• Am going to ask Wugapodes for his views as he started the AN review after making the RFC close Atlantic306 (talk) 01:23, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
  • But then you'll stop reinstating the removed criteria, right? Levivich 01:44, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Ive only reinstated it once and as I said ill respect his opinion, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 01:48, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

• At some point the stalling and obstructionist tactics are going to get on peoples' nerves. Reyk _YO! 02:35, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
• I'm not entirely clear what I'm being asked to give an opinion on, so feel free to ask follow-up questions if I'm not clear. I just read through the archived close review. Two important points to keep in mind: most participation was from involved editors and given it's a review of my close I probably am not the best person to "close" it. That said, I'll do my best to be objective in summarizing it in hopes of moving things along. I don't see the review as coming to a consensus to overturn the close of proposal 3. The main concerns with the close of that proposal were related to lack of clarity around the implementation (which I guess we're still seeing) rather than the outcome. There were a few editors who took issue with the outcome of 3 specifically, but compared to the editors who specifically endorsed the close of 3 it seems unlikely that it would be overturned.
  With that in mind, I do take seriously the concern about implementation, and I would encourage everyone to think about how to collaborate on implementation. Going through Dlthewave's recent edits, I do think the close was misinterpreted slightly. I'd encourage looking back at Masem's original proposal in order to get a sense of what "participation-based criteria" were under discussion. The problem identified was simple or mere participation, and given my reading of the discussion the main issue editors brought up were criteria like cricket or football where playing a single professional match was sufficient. By contrast, consider this removal for motorsports: the first criterion involved qualifying for high level championships which is "participation" based but also merit based. Personally, I wouldn't consider that "mere participation" given the merit-based aspects of qualifying for major events.
  So while there is generally consensus to remove (merely) participation-based criteria, that doesn't mean we can be robotic about removing any criteria that mentions participation. Productive discussions (as part of the bold-revert-discuss cycle) would center around whether a criterion is sufficiently merit-based to warrant inclusion. Qualifying for (and participating in) highly selective national or international events leans towards the merit-based side of things; playing in a single professional match before being sent back to the minor leagues leans toward the "mere participation" side. For criteria in the middle, editors can and should discuss whether it's sufficiently merit-based.
  If I can offer my opinion for a second, I think a helpful guideline would be the "average professional athlete" test. Over at WP:NACADEMICS, the guiding question is whether a person is more distinguished than the "average academic" in their field. Are they more cited, do they have more awards, etc. My opinion is that the line between "mere participation" and "merit-based" lies somewhere around what would be expected of an average athlete in the sport. Becoming a professional footballer is certainly an accomplishment, but not compared to the average professional footballer. Qualifying for a national or international team might be. This is just an idea based on my experience with another SNG, and maybe it won't work out, but hopefully it helps give a sense of where the line is when implementing proposal 3. — Wug·a·po·des​ 02:51, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  If the principle of predicting suitable coverage meeting the general notability guideline continues to be followed, then the standard of an average professional athlete isn't a good dividing line. Since talent at that level is the upper end of a bell curve, average athletes (within a given elite level of competition) have considerable value and so receive corresponding coverage. isaacl (talk) 04:19, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  It's not meant as a dividing line for the whole policy, but for determining the difference between "mere participation" criteria and "merit based" criteria for the purposes of revising the document. Playing a single professional cricket match is surely an accomplishment I'll never achieve, but my understanding of the RfC is that unless the GNG is actually met, simply participating is not sufficient for a presumption of notability. Every professional athlete participates in professional events by definition, but not every professional athlete qualifies for national or international competitions. Given the discussion around proposals 3 and 4 I think it's clear that the community wants the bar higher than "what every professional athlete has done" even if that is far beyond what most people would be able to do. — Wug·a·po·des​ 05:23, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  Wugapodes, using your example of a cricketer. It is complicated because cricket has variants (unlike football and other sports) but there is a standard called first-class cricket which, I think, serves as a benchmark for NCRIC. Anyone who has played in the English county championship, a national competition, has achieved first-class standard. Although there may be some rare exceptions, there is wide coverage of first-class players in cricket literature, which is vast. So, anyone who has achieved that standard, even with a single appearance only, is highly likely to have SIGCOV, though it might not be immediately available. The same is true of the fully professional leagues in English and Scottish football. No Great Shaker (talk) 05:41, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  As dozens of cricketer AfDs will show, merely playing a single (or even more) games of first-class (or the relevant highest-level of domestic cricket for shorter forms) is not a reliable indicator of notability. And same thing for the football leagues (many of which were not fully professional until much later than some have been arguing). But anyway, I'm not going to re-argue the consensus. The consensus is that that kind of criteria should be removed, for exactly the kind of excess it has led to. If you don't like it, can't help you. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 05:47, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  The point is that an average player in, say, Major League Baseball, has considerable merit and thus ensuing coverage. The line where players stop meeting the general notability guideline is far below the average MLB player. A merit-based criterion based on an average player in a given elite level would be considerably more restrictive than the general notability guideline. I feel the high false negative rate could have a net detrimental effect on deletion discussions. (On the other hand, it would be more inclusive than just having the hall of fame standards currently listed for many sports.) isaacl (talk) 05:51, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  That has not always been the case (which is one of the main limitations of most of those criteria) and sometimes isn't the case even in more recent times. And the fact is, if someone is an average Joe who doesn't stand out from the rest (and if the only thing we can say - and there are plenty of such examples in many sports - is that "X played Y sport for Z team[s]), then WP:ROTM is also pertinent. Being at the top level of a sport is an achievement beyond the reach of most (by definition: to be at the highest level, you must obviously be better than most others), but Wikipedia is not a meritocracy. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 05:57, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  Naturally each sport will have to be examined separately. For many, though, the distribution of talent within the top level of competition is the extreme rightmost portion of a Gaussian distribution, and so an average player at that level is not a run-of-the-mill player. (A replacement level player would be much closer to the general public's concept of a run-of-the-mill player.) And since English Wikipedia's general notability guideline is indeed based on coverage and not merit, identifying statistically run-of-the-mill players isn't necessary, anyway. isaacl (talk) 06:16, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  (edit conflict)Inclusion on the basis of merit does not make the site into a meritocracy; it is a means of establishing the true extent of a subject's notability. As Isaacl rightly points out, the average player in a major league does have considerable merit with ensuing coverage. This is precisely where the GNG is so badly flawed because, among other things, its coverage requirement must embrace a vast quantity of tabloid-based trivia which doesn't increase the player's notability – it devalues it. The merit-based criterion, as Isaac says, is at a much higher bar than GNG. The SNG, providing it is sound and sensible, should take priority with the GNG a safety net for those exceptional cases which fall outside the interest of all projects. No Great Shaker (talk) 06:20, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  its coverage requirement must embrace a vast quantity of tabloid-based trivia which doesn't increase the player's notability That kind of non-significant coverage and routine stuff is explicitly excluded by GNG (now, whether some people dutifully apply those requirements, is an open question, but one for another place). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:15, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  Personally, at the present time, I still favour the principle of predicting suitable coverage meeting the general notability guideline. The general notability guideline is biased towards popular areas, as that's what gets a lot of coverage (and this is to the benefit of many athletes), but for now it's the best tradeoff the community has found with the constraints of its consensus-based decision-making traditions. isaacl (talk) 06:31, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  Agreed. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:01, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  I mean, if it doesn't work then don't use it. The bottom line is that "simple/mere participation" criteria need to be removed, and editors will need to figure out where the line between simple and complex is. However you all want to do that is fine; I just gave my observation from an SNG that I am familiar with as a starting point. — Wug·a·po·des​ 08:53, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  To wit on my proposed #3, I know the libe prior on NSPORTS has been that playing professionally, even at least one game, implies accomplishment in the sport prior (a college sport career, or a minor league success), you don't just stumble into that level of success. But the participation criteria were leading to stub articles that made no effort to document these prior achievements, and the mass creation of stubs from databases. The community was clearly tired of these articles, and as there was no significant effort to amend the NSPORTS criteria to encourage better starting articles that had more direction towards including GNG type sourcing. Hence the proposal to simply nix simple partipation criteria, given that the GNG remained an option for most sports people. --Masem (t) 13:16, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you Wugapodes for the explanation. As the editor who removed most of the participation criteria, I can see that there are some grey areas (you made a good point about motorsports) and I'm happy to discuss these in the sections below. However, the editors who reverted did so almost entirely en masse rather than addressing specific sections that they disagree with. I'm hoping that the sport-specific discussions started by RandomCanadian will lead to consensus-based collaboration so that page protection can be lifted, and I'd also like to see admins address individual editor behavior instead of simply locking the page because of "content disputes" and edit warring. These wholesale reverts that we've been seeing are disruption, not content disputes. –dlthewave ☎ 14:25, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Decision #3 needs to be implemented; those criteria need to be removed. As acknowledged in the close, any interim "replacement" needed is GNG. This can't wait indefinitely for consensus on some new standards which could take forever or never happen. North8000 (talk) 12:58, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

This is just a blatant attempt to delay implementation of a consensus RfC result. Admins should treat obstructionism accordingly. JoelleJay (talk) 21:36, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Comment re: "GNG"

Editors really need to stop pretending that some local consensus on NSPORT overrides the site-wide consensus on WP:N, which is that WP:NBASIC, not WP:GNG, applies to biographies. I know the differences are not large (NBASIC being slightly stricter about source independence, mostly), but a decade of loose language on sport talk sub-pages and at AfD really doesn't override site-wide consensus about how Notability works. Some SNGs, like NBASIC, NBOOK, NORG and NFILM, apply to their domain without exception and take the place of the GNG in that area. Pretending that NSPORT follows a different logic that skips NBASIC is a violation of WP:CONLEVEL, and is also just confusing for editors who may not have been following the last decade of inside-baseball discussions as closely as we perhaps should. Newimpartial (talk) 13:12, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

This is really needless verbiage. NBASIC reads People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject.; GNG reads A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.. They're essentially equivalent, at least in spirit, and almost entirely in the letter too. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:17, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I have previously proposed language to fix this issue on the NSPORTS page and in the FAQ - it wasn't difficult to figure out what is required. Reflecting community-wide consensus correctly is scarcely needless verbiage, in my view. Of course the requirements OF GNG and those of NBASIC are nearly the same, but that isn't really an excuse for getting the relevant reference wrong. Newimpartial (talk) 13:33, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

NBASIC also has, at the very top of it, See also: Wikipedia:Notability § General notability guideline... That multiple people have been citing them interchangeably doesn't mean they're wrong, it just means the difference is so minor as to be negligible in practice (and given Wikipedia is not a court of law or some other bureaucratic process, that there might be a negligible theoretical difference should indeed not have much practical impact). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:42, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Re: the difference is so minor as to be negligible in practice - that's not a good reason to write (or revert to) misleading policy text, IMO, nor it is a good reason to be lazy when discussing policy on Talk (and I'm not saying that all editors do this, BTW - I have absolutely seen some editors trying to get this right and refer at times to both NBASIC and GNG as required). Newimpartial (talk) 13:47, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

WP:KISS. Both guidelines say essentially the same thing (the requirement for an article is significant coverage in independent reliable sources). Where they differ is on a few details, but these are not materially significant. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:06, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Citing a guideline that is similar to the one that applies, but that does not itself apply, is a misapplication of WP:KISS (to put it charitably). Newimpartial (talk) 14:37, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Both guidelines are (bare a few non-materially significant differences) the same thing, one is just a concrete application of the general guideline (which it explicitly links to using {{see also}}). The fact we need multiple guidelines to say the same thing might mean that there's some WP:CREEP ongoing, but more likely one of these is intended as redundancy to convey the same message as the other one and so interpreting them as being essentially the same is the correct thing to do. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:20, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

The general notability guideline section has bullet points that provide more details regarding the first sentence. The basic criteria is a capsule summary of the general notability guideline section, with some additional explanatory notes on how to apply the general notability guideline. isaacl (talk) 15:51, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

The additional bullets/sections available at WP:GNG explain why the cross-reference is there, but that doesn't change the status of NBASIC as applying to all biographies. And the text of NBASIC explains the applicability of WP:N to biographies, not narrowly the GNG. Newimpartial (talk) 15:57, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

• IMHO, editors need to stop getting their knickers in a twist about such a trivial distinction. As RandomCanadian says, this isn't a court of law, although I would be very interested in from where the OP derives his "site-wide consensus" that the GNG does not apply to biographies. Ravenswing 15:40, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
  • The language of WP:N and WP:NBIO seem quite clear to me on this point, and both occupy a higher CONLEVEL than NSPORT (which, in its current language, conflicts with the senior guidelines). Newimpartial (talk) 15:57, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

As I said earlier, nowhere does GNG or BASIC or N require use of BASIC to the exclusion of GNG for determining biographical notability. They are functionally the same, and SPORTCRIT covers BASIC anyway, so this is a pointless avenue of discussion. I also don't know how you come to the conclusion that NBIO "supersedes" NSPORT any more than other GNG-dependent SNGs do. "Meets GNG or a GNG-independent SNG" perfectly covers all notability standards, there's no reason to make it complicated by enforcing verbiage that has never needed to be clarified and does not even represent a consensus interpretation. JoelleJay (talk) 21:15, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

As I have replied to you elsewhere, that just isn't how the SNGs work. SNGs that offer more specific applications of WP:N requirements, similar to the GNG but specific to their domain, have to supercede the GNG in their respective domains, otherwise what would be the point of those more specific requirements? If editors argue that a book doesn't meet GNG even though it passes the equivalent NBOOK criterion for RS reviews, or that a film meets GNG even though it doesn't comply with NFILM, those simply are not policy-relevant arguments. (I have picked these two examples because they are not GNG-independent SNGs, if I understand your framing - they are parallel to NBASIC in the sense of not setting the principle of significant coverage by reliable sources aside but regret offering precision about that principle.)

I don't know what exactly you are arguing about NBIO vs. NSPORT. What I am saying is that NBIO applies to all biographies, without a "carve-out" for athletes. It would he the worst kind of wikilawyering to argue that because of a "local consensus" around NSPORT, biographies that meet GNG but not NBIO therefore pass NSPORT and have WP:N sanction. Is that really what you want? WP:N embodies a higher level of consensus than NBIO, which in turn has a higher level of consensus than NSPORT; in WP policy we are supposed to fix these issues by aligning lower-level guidelines to the higher-level consensus, not any other way around. Newimpartial (talk) 21:32, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

If editors argue that a book doesn't meet GNG even though it passes the equivalent NBOOK criterion for RS reviews, or that a film meets GNG even though it doesn't comply with NFILM, those simply are not policy-relevant arguments. What are you talking about?? A book or film that meets GNG but (somehow) does not meet NBOOK or NFILM is notable. Neither NBOOK nor NFILM requires the respective SNG be met, and in fact both explicitly state subjects under their purview can be notable through GNG or other SNGs.

NBOOK:A book that meets either the general notability guideline or the criteria outlined in this or any other subject-specific notability guideline, and which is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy, is presumed to merit an article.

NFILM: For the majority of topics related to film, the criteria established at the general notability guideline are sufficient to follow. JoelleJay (talk) 16:47, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Now you seem to be wikilawyering. You left out the immediately following, highly relevant sentence of NFILM, This guideline, specific to the subject of film, explains the general notability guideline as it applies to film and also takes into consideration other core Wikipedia policies and guidelines as they apply to determining stand-alone articles or stand-alone lists for film (emphasis added). One of the ways it does the latter is to specify that Films that have not been confirmed by reliable sources to have commenced principal photography should not have their own articles, as budget issues, scripting issues and casting issues can interfere with a project well ahead of its intended filming date. Many such films would pass GNG, and the whole point of this section (one of the main points of NFILM) is that we should not have articles on them, even if they pass GNG.

My point for NBOOK represents the flip side of this: point one of the SNG specifies that a book is notable if it: has been the subject of two or more non-trivial published works appearing in sources that are independent of the book itself. This can include ... newspaper articles ... and reviews. There are a number of editors who would argue at AfD (if properly motivated to do so) that a newspaper article and a review did not meet WP:SIGCOV requirements and therefore that a book did not meet GNG, but NBOOK states that, while books can meet GNG, they can be Notable even if they do not, for example through reviews.

So your statement that A book or film that meets GNG but (somehow) does not meet NBOOK or NFILM is notable is wrong for films. For books, I never said that a GNG-meeting book isn't notable, I said that a book that passes the equivalent NBOOK criterion for RS reviews is notable and any GNG-based arguments are not relevant in that instance.

Is that helpful at all? Newimpartial (talk) 17:11, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

GNG is relevant for all subjects. Maybe in some cases there are considerations that override it if there is consensus to do so for a particular subject, perhaps based on an SNG, but GNG is always relevant. Rlendog (talk) 17:34, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

That depends on what you mean by "relevant". There are SNGs like NORG, NNUMBER and NFILM that say, "these are the notability requirements in this area; if they aren't met, the subject isn't Notable and doesn't merit an article". If you want to read the much more stringent requirements of NORG as "specifying" GNG, leaving GNG as still relevant, then more power to you, I guess, but that doesn't empower you to make an argument at AfD that this corporate topic that doesn't meet NORG still meets GNG so it should still have an article. That's what I meant by policy-compliant above and in that sense the GNG is superceded by the SNG, when applicable. If you have a sufficiently broad idea of "relevance", I suppose the GNG is always in some sense relevant, but good luck defending your GNG-compliant favorite number at AfD if it doesn't meet WP:NNUMBER. Newimpartial (talk) 17:44, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Newimpartial, I disagree with you. WP:notability is a fuzzy ecosystem where not every question has a clear-cut answer. But IMO you are making a clear-cut error in a case where there IS a clear cut answer. At the beginning of WP:Notability it says (paraphrasing) that the topic just needs to satisfy either GNG or an applicable SNG. So if it satisified GNG, it clearly does not need to satisfy the SNG. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:56, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

So you're saying that GNG-compliant articles on corporations or numbers don't have to meet NORG or NNUMBER? I think you're the one making a clear-cut error, in that case. Newimpartial (talk) 18:02, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, the short answer is yes, I am saying that, and the basis is the one I gave. But regarding NORG, there is a complexity that the tougher (than GNG) sourcing criteria specified by NORG is applied in GNG testing. Once could call this a conflict, or one can reconcile it by saying that the NORG source criteria also calibrates GNG for orgs. I don't have practical experience NNumber, but at first glance it appears that GNG would be tough to meet on those and that the SNG would be the more viable way in. But that would not affect my statement. The differentiating question on numbers would be that if a numbers topic meets GNG (i.e. had in depth coverage in multiple independent RS's)would it also need to satisfy NNUMBERS? IMO the answer is no. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:24, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

This guideline, specific to the subject of film, explains the general notability guideline as it applies to film and also takes into consideration other core Wikipedia policies and guidelines as they apply to determining stand-alone articles or stand-alone lists for film

This refers to additional considerations that can potentially push a GNG-failing subject into a "keep" at AfD, like what happens at NSPORT. It does not at any point restrict all film subjects to meeting NFILM, and as the sentence I quoted earlier makes clear, for the majority of film subjects GNG is the relevant guideline. Films that have not been confirmed by reliable sources to have commenced principal photography should not have their own articles, as budget issues, scripting issues and casting issues can interfere with a project well ahead of its intended filming date. This is essentially an application of WP:CRYSTAL to NFILM. It is also entirely compatible with GNG: the GNG section on "presumption of notability" accounts for situations where an otherwise-GNG-meeting subject can still fail to merit an article. NFILM is just giving examples of when this may happen in the context of films.

has been the subject of two or more non-trivial published works appearing in sources that are independent of the book itself. This can include ... newspaper articles ... and reviews. There are a number of editors who would argue at AfD (if properly motivated to do so) that a newspaper article and a review did not meet WP:SIGCOV requirements and therefore that a book did not meet GNG, but NBOOK states that, while books can meet GNG, they can be Notable even if they do not, for example through reviews. Where are you getting the idea that reviews would not be acceptable sources of SIGCOV for GNG? NBOOK merely reminds editors that a book review is a SIGCOV avenue that exists, it isn't implying such sources aren't already considered acceptable for GNG.

At least half of the SNGs ultimately boil down to or are easier to meet than GNG; meeting the GNG implies meeting the SNG and the distinction of which guideline is met is irrelevant. But unless an SNG explicitly says it overrides GNG, per WP:N the GNG is still a perfectly acceptable notability standard for all subjects. JoelleJay (talk) 19:28, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm afraid you are still misreading NFILM and NBOOK. Concerning the latter, I have already specified what I mean. To elaborate a little, SIGCOV is a somewhat loose guideline, and editors tend to argue at AfD with higher or lower thresholds of significance based on what they would like to delete. In some cases (I have seen this), they will argue that a couple of newspaper articles or reviews is not sufficient for a GNG pass. While this is potentially a valid argument for certain other topics, it is not a valid argument for books, and in this sense NBOOK "supersedes" GNG, by specifying ways of evaluating sourcing that do not apply to books (e.g., by insisting on more depth than a review). This is exactly the same operation that NORG performs, although the latter is more clear about the way its sourcing requirements supersede GNG within its domain.

Similarly, NFILM specifies that even if certain topics meet GNG, this does not lead to a valid presumption to have their own article if they do not meet certain criteria - yes, this is an application of CRYSTAL, but it is also a limit to the application of GNG-based Notability that is specified in the SNG. Certain SNGs (probably most of them) specify that certain topics that might meet GNG are not presumed Notable due to subject-specific factors (many of which are applications of NOT). NBASIC is one of these, with its standards of independent sourcing that are stricter than SIGCOV. Your argument that such guidelines as NBASIC, NBOOK, NFILM (and NORG and NPROF?) are not overriding GNG (why? Because they don't use the word "override"?) flies in the face of the text of all of WP:N and also the common sense purpose of the SNGs themselves. I don't know where people get the idea that SNGs are all just choose-your-own-adventure alternatives to the GNG, but to my knowledge they have never been that and that is certainly not the status of most of them now, by site-wide consensus. Newimpartial (talk) 19:53, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I think you will find that NNUMBER is quite a bit more strict than the GNG: Have professional mathematicians published papers on this kind of number, or chapters in a book, or an entire book about this kind of number? is a higher bar than WP:SIGCOV, IMO.

The fact is that NORG isn't just criteria (to be) applied in GNG testing. GNG includes SIGCOV, and NORG sets aside SIGCOV in favor of WP:SIRS. This supercedes SIGCOV; other aspects of the GNG are also set aside (a tighter reading of Independence, just as with NBASIC, for instance).

The fact is also that the framing text you are paraphrasing from the top of WP:N is misleading out of context; the guideline as a whole would be better reflected by, to merit an article, a topic needs to satisfy either GNG and/or an applicable SNG, depending on the subject matter area. But you know as well as I do how resistant the text of WP:N is to change. Newimpartial (talk) 19:40, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, I gave my opinion in an area where we disagree. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:03, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

GNG also requires the equivalent of SIRS, NORG is just framing it in the context of typical business sources and telling editors to be more vigilant about RS than they would for other subjects. NORG helpfully mentions that Forbes profiles are often sponsored by the companies and are therefore not independent; this doesn't mean GNG would still accept a Forbes profile of a book or person that turns out to be sponsored, it just means such relationships are rarer outside of orgs and therefore editors don't have to watch out for them as much. JoelleJay (talk) 19:40, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

This is not the current state of consensus at all. SIRS requires that a set of criteria be met by each source counting towards Notability, while SIGCOV allows these criteria to be assessed globally for the sources as a whole. There have been proposals to extend SIRS (and CORPDEPTH, and AUD) outside the domain of organizations, and to date these have not met with community support. Your reading that NORG simply interprets but does not supersede GNG and SIGCOV in particular defies both the text of NCORP itself and the way it is used in deletion discussions. Newimpartial (talk) 19:58, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

A note of caution following unprotection

Following a request for unprotection and discussion with other administrators I have unprotected the page with a log entry directing administrators to use blocks instead of page protection moving forward. For the most part, I've actually been very impressed by how many editors have been working together to not only implement the RfC but also start follow-up discussions to clarify or improve the guideline. Unfortunately these collaborations are made harder by disruptive editing and the page being protected for long periods. I will continue to monitor behavior on the NSPORTS guideline page myself, and I want to note that my tolerance for disruption is at an all time low.

Unprotection is not a warrant to continue disruption. In order to let others get on with editing the guideline, tendentious or stonewalling editors will be blocked for extended periods. Moving forward, I would recommend editors consider the following:

• Make as few edits as possible, ideally consolidating multiple edits into one to avoid flooding watchlists and page histories
• Voluntarily abide by a one-revert-rule or zero-revert-rule so that you avoid even the appearance of edit warring
• Attempt discussion first rather than being bold or reverting, and avoid discussions through edit summaries

These are my recommendations for how to move forward while minimizing disruption. Whether you follow the recommendations is your own decision, but three full protections in three weeks demonstrates a serious behavioral problem that needs resolved. Following the recommendations makes will make sure that your participation on the guideline page is constructive and not disruptive. — Wug·a·po·des​ 05:31, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

@Wugapodes There is a discussion above at #Implementing_the_RfC_-_participation_criteria_-_interim_status regarding how to proceed post RfC. It seems that should be closed first. Otherwise, this is heading for a repeat of Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Sports_notability and its 13 parallel subproposals. Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 05:52, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

@Bagumba: That discussion is a bit moribund (and redundant) at this stage. Most of the discussion is now in the #Sport by sport review section (and related sections which follow or precede it). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 05:55, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Proposal Here are all the bold guideline edits made prior to the most recent full protection and the now new sport-by-sport review section. I'd propose reverting to the status quo before those bold changes, and await the results of the per-sport discussions.—Bagumba (talk) 06:02, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Unless you believe that a specific edit removes a guideline that is not "mere participation" then I don't believe reverting is appropriate. BilledMammal (talk) 08:21, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I think there should be a discussion on if it's a mere participation, even if that discussion consists of 4-5 people quickly saying "yes, this is clearly just participation". That way there is no justification for it being re-instated. Some of the top sports leagues do look like a merit-based inclusion, and so I see their removals as controversial and in need of discussion. Attempt discussion first rather than being bold or reverting Agree with this 100%. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:24, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I oppose this proposal, per WP:GAME. Time to move on with implementation; there is absolutely no need for further discussion on the removal of most of the simple participation clauses. Objections to, or collateral problems with, the removal of individual clauses should be fixed/discussed without reverting everything else. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 10:36, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

The RfC orginator had started #Implementing the RfC - participation criteria - interim status, so your reference to GAMING is curious.—Bagumba (talk) 11:20, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Discussion is also exactly what we should be doing- collaborating to get something that works rather than removing, reverting and being inflexible about anything. There are already many good discussions started, and we should continue those rather than blanket deleting. Joseph2302 (talk) 11:24, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I suggest that the criteria for implementing an edit that gives RFC implementation as it's basis would be that it does that and does the bare minimum needed to do that, including avoiding turning any remaining text into nonsense. And that any discussions on those would be on whether or not this criteria has been met.North8000 (talk) 20:29, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 29 March 2022 (2)

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.

---

Delete WP:NAFL (not being discussed above as of now), per WP:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability, "there is a rough consensus that participation-based criteria are a problem and that the best way forward is to remove them"). Avilich (talk) 21:54, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose add it to the things being discussed in #Sport by sport review, and have a discussion. If it gets consensus (which seems reasonably likely), then and only then should it be removed. Edit requests for removal without any discussion are akin to the blanket removal that users were doing that ended with the page fully protected in the first place... Joseph2302 (talk) 15:24, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
  • The RfC was the discussion. Levivich 15:43, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Per the RFC closer in #Content removed again thread above: So while there is generally consensus to remove (merely) participation-based criteria, that doesn't mean we can be robotic about removing any criteria that mentions participation. Productive discussions (as part of the bold-revert-discuss cycle) would center around whether a criterion is sufficiently merit-based to warrant inclusion. Qualifying for (and participating in) highly selective national or international events leans towards the merit-based side of things; playing in a single professional match before being sent back to the minor leagues leans toward the "mere participation" side. For criteria in the middle, editors can and should discuss whether it's sufficiently merit-based. So a discussion is needed, rather than a unilateral demand of removal. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:53, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
      • NAFL is "mere" participation criteria that should be removed per the RfC. Levivich 16:09, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

        @Levivich The Australian Football League is the highest level of Aussie Rules, and so most players in it have coverage. It can be considered a "Merit" based participation criteria. Techie3 (talk) 09:14, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

      • You don't get to use a lack of discussion as an excuse to obstruct, you have to give an actual non-procedural reason to begin a discussion in the first place. Otherwise no additional discussion is needed at all. Avilich (talk) 21:18, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support removal per obviously being "mere participation". JoelleJay (talk) 16:34, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
• The RFC WAS the discussion. It's time to implement the results of the discussion. The only question is whether or not the edit (only) implements the discussion and it looks like that is a yes. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:03, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support removal as this section is clearly participation-based and no valid objections have been raised aside from "keep because the current criteria work well" which is a non-starter. I don't think we're required to discuss and reach consensus for every section; normally we follow BRD which means that discussion is only needed if the substance of the change is challenged (and variations of "more time is needed" don't count). And if someone has a reason why the section would be considered merit-based, I'm all ears. –dlthewave ☎ 00:32, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

• I believe the Australian Football League could be considered merit-based, as it's the biggest competition in the sport in the world, therefore reaching that level is an achievement. It has way more coverage than other leagues (like Australian state leagues), and I would expect that almost all the players would pass WP:GNG (though my subject knowledge isn't great, albeit knowing anything about these sports doesn't seem to be a prerequisite for people commenting on these discussions). Joseph2302 (talk) 08:51, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose - I see nothing automatic with the wording as it stands and the wording could be tweaked a bit if really needed. Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:29, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

"have appeared in a match" is straightforward enough, if you want to suggest a replacement be everyone's guest, otherwise your opposition ought to be disregarded for the same reason as those in the RfC. Avilich (talk) 01:45, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes it is but in the opposite way you are thinking. Saying "Significant coverage is likely to exist for athletes (who) appeared in a match of the Australian Football League..." is absolutely 100% true. It tells us that those are the players we should be creating articles for provided one can find those likely sources. That is straightforward for me. I don't see where it needs to be clearer but be my guest to make it so if you are unsure. Otherwise I would disregard this whole discussion being brought up by you as biased. The problem may not be the wording of individual sports but the "nutshell" definition at the page top. Change that to:

"An athlete is very likely to be notable if the person has actively participated in a major amateur or professional competition or won a significant honor, as listed on this page, and so is likely to have received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. GNG still applies." That gets rid of presumed. Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:56, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand what point you are trying to make. The question being asked here is whether NAFL is based on mere participation. BilledMammal (talk) 02:04, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm simply opposing its removal based on what it says. There is nothing automatic based on participation, just that significant coverage is likely based on that participation. Why would we remove that fact? If it said you are automatically notable if you participate... that is a different story. But it doesn't. Fyunck(click) (talk) 02:41, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

The problem is that no matter what it says, it gets misused in practice. There was a consensus to remove this kind of easily-misuseable and usually not very accurate criteria, and this is one of the more blatant examples. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:13, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

But that is a problem for that user, not the wording if as you say "it gets misused." Don't delete the truth. Refine what it says if you find it can be misused. I don't see where it should be misused but part of the problem could be the intro to the page, not the actual sport by sport wording. To be honest I'm not really that astute on Australian football as I am on tennis and a couple other sports, so perhaps I am wrong on how often folks are found to be non-notable with their project wording, but I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater unless someone shows it is really inaccurate, not just because it says "Significant coverage is likely to exist for athletes (who) appeared in a match of the Australian Football League." If that statement is pretty much true why would we remove it? It becomes a great guide as to what to expect when making a new article and helps our new editors. Make sure they understand they will need to provide that coverage notability upon insertion into Wikipedia, but don't delete this helpful insight and guidance. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:17, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

We've already had the discussion about whether we should have criteria in NSPORT based on mere participation, and the consensus is that we shouldn't. You may disagree with that consensus, but that is the consensus - all we need to do here is decide whether this criteria is mere participation, and it seems obvious to me that it is. BilledMammal (talk) 06:23, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

And that's where we read it very differently. I can't see where it's criteria, by definition. It is guidance as to what is likely, but not a mandate at all. It is simply helpful insight, especially for our new editors, who are very difficult to keep anymore at Wikipedia. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:48, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

These used to be actual criteria for notability. These criteria were often, "If a sportsperson has appeared in one game of this major league, they are notable."(i.e. mere participation citeria/guidelines) The community founded that editors created articles about sportspeople only sourced by a database, or a couple of links, which was not good. An RFC agreed that the mere participation citeria/guidelines should be removed. Techie3 (talk) 08:27, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

"Used to be" might be true, but that is certainly not what it says now. Oh I see you simply removed it anyway. Goodness. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:41, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Some of those leagues are the highest domestic leagues, which could be an exception as a merit-based participation (which is allowable as per the RFC closer)- my knowledge of Aussie rules is limited, but I expect players in the Australian Football League are almost all notable. I don't agree with removal until this discussion had had more input, but not going to edit war to put it back. Joseph2302 (talk) 08:46, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I would agree, and ditto on why I didn't put it back. But it was pretty audacious to remove it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:56, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: The page's protection level has changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. However, please be aware of #A note of caution following unprotection below.—Bagumba (talk) 08:18, 31 March 2022 (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.

NFOOTBALL now removed

Further to the recent RFC on NSPORTS, NFOOTBALL has been removed from that page. I invite further comments at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Association football on a replacement. GiantSnowman 12:23, 2 April 2022 (UTC)