User talk:PAVA11/Notability of sportspeople

Purpose

I'm not positive of the purpose of this page yet. I think many can agree that WP:ATHLETE is lacking, and that something needs to be adopted that can satisfy everybody, and something that has specific guidelines for specific sports. Grsz¹¹ 22:36, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I generally disapprove of additional layers of notability guidelines as a kind of Instruction creep. Wikipedia is intended to be easy for anyone to understand and get involved and the more levels of guidelines and policies you add on the more it becomes bubbles within which only the few understand the rules and exclude others. The overarching policies here are that biographies must be verifiable, have no original research, have a neutral point-of-view, and respect WP:BLP. The general notability guidelines should normally be adequate here. i.e. "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." Everything else is just guessing whether classes of athletes would have adequate independent sources. Inherently, professional leagues and highest levels of amateur competition are given significant coverage by reliable sources and WP:ATHLETE reflects that. I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish here; perhaps some sort of checklist that must be met to be accepted by the Wikipedia? I just don't think it will work. It is far too prescriptive and narrow to say the person must have played for this league or that, or served in this capacity, or recognised by this or that body. The only inclusion policies that exist and matter are V, NPOV, NOR, and BLP. DoubleBlue (talk) 20:23, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

American football section ideas

Notability of NFL players should be:

• Drafted in an NFL Draft
• On an active roster of an NFL team during a season (game appearances or no)
• On full-pay status with a team during an NFL season (IR, etc.)
• Practice squad/offseason time across multiple NFL seasons.►Chris Nelson^Holla! 22:52, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

1. Change section name to Gridiron football to contain CFL too
2. All drafted players ARE notable, whether it be first round or seventh round
3. All undrafted players are NOT notable unless they had prolific college career in FCS or FBS (awards, All-American teams, significant third party coverage etc.) or if they make the team (see Chase Daniel)
4. All members of a team ARE notable, if they get cut and haven't played in a professional game in their careers and are not a member of a professional team (CFL, AFL, NFL) and haven't been for three plus years then they are NOT notable (see Eric Wilbur or James Wyche)
5. College football players are NOT inherently notable but see part number three for what makes them notable

These are just some suggestions that I personally would like to see be in use.--Giants27 ^T/C 22:56, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Are there any players we can agree aren't notable? Grsz¹¹ 23:02, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Undrafted players with non-notable college careers who have yet to make a team.

By the way, I believe the Arena league should be notable enough too. Not af2, just the main Arena. This is a high level of pro football.►Chris Nelson^Holla! 23:03, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. It is the pre-eminent competition of that particular sport. Added. Grsz¹¹ 23:06, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

• Regarding Giants edit, this is the main point of contention, so let's hold of on putting it in for now. I would be willing to concede that individuals on an active roster during the season are notable even without playing a game. Note that WP:ATHLETE is an accepted policy, and we can't easily over-rule that. Grsz¹¹ 23:27, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Although you're right that it's accepted you must remember that it's a guideline not a policy.--Giants27 ^T/C 23:50, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Simply being drafted should not be considered a bright line - it's still too WP:CRYSTAL However, active roster, full pay status for IR players, or multiple year practice squad strike me as perfectly reasonable guidelines. DSZ (talk) 23:53, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Second part I strongly agree with but how is being drafted too crystal ballish? I'm not saying they're going to be superstars but I am saying they were drafted which should make them notable.--Giants27 ^T/C 00:07, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Being drafted is part of the story, and if they are drafted and don't succeed that's the story too. If a guy was drafted, he probably had a decent college career and had some talent. So why didn't he succeed? That is the story.►Chris Nelson^Holla! 00:09, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

It's part of the story of the *draft* but it doesn't make individual players notable if they weren't otherwise, just like the pig swine flu outbreak is notable, but the individuals themselves aren't. This also keeps it consistent with notability guidelines of players in other sports, none of which allow an amateur player to be considered notable simply because of draft position and no other notability. And it keeps it consistent with the guidelines set in WP:ATHLETE. While guidelines aren't required by law, they're strongly recommended because they are the product of consensus and should not be contradicted without either a superseding policy or strong, compelling consensus to do so. Elsewise, what is there to stop someone from going on a delete war in the other direction? If people are free to simply ignore guidelines in order to be more inclusive, there's nothing that says that other people won't be free to ignore guidelines in order to be more strict and start AFDing players that *are* clearly professional.

Well-known players *will* have sources that confer notability otherwise. Remember, this is an encyclopedia, not a narrative, so while it might be interesting to trace the career of a little-known player in the 7th round from a small school that never plays, it's not encyclopedic. There's only 1 AFD for a college football player that I agreed with the last couple of days, but there are serious problems with ad hoc guidelines. We should strive to put a framework in place that's consistent with wiki standards. Expanding the definition of professional given by WP:ATHLETE to include players actively on a roster/IR during a season is consistent with existing guidelines, while including speculative professionals doesn't seem to be.DSZ (talk) 00:46, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

• I won't support the "being drafted" guidelines, can we move this discussion to Wikipedia:Notability (sports) please. Secret ^account 12:55, 28 April 2009 (UTC)