Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 12

Nutshell and WNBA

The following was asked in "Nutshell 2" thread above:

Can anyone show any evidence that this isn't merely a solution in search of a problem? In other words, do we have any evidence of the current nutshell leading to problems of misunderstanding in AfDs or in other discussions about content?

The ongoing Afd Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Amy Sanders is an example where the athlete met NSPORTS but GNG is questioned along with inclusion criteria in NSPORTS for players in the WNBA. Some comments in the Afd include

• "the guideline's assignments of what leagues make someone notable havbe been challenged in various sports, and I don't think there's reallly full consensus on them"
• I don't know if people in Europe care about women's basketball any more than they do in the US"
• "She played in the highest-level professional league she was permitted to play in. Period."

To me this indicates that there is a disjoint over the criteria where presumption should be granted. Is being the top level league sufficient? Is coverage of players in the league a factor? What is the consensus on criteria to be applied if the WNBA (or any league in any sport) is to be revisited or added?

Moreover, what is the criteria used to judge open-ended statements like these currently in NSPORTS:

• "or any other top-level professional league" in WP:NGRIDIRON
• "any other major senior level international competition" in WP:NTRACK
• "any other top-level national league" in WP:BASEBALL/N
• "any other major elite international event" in WP:NGYMNASTICS
• "other such league" in WP:NHOCKEY
• "similar major professional sports league" in WP:NBASKETBALL
• "similar international competition" in WP:NGOLF
• "similar international competition" in WP:NTENNIS
• "similar exhibition games" in WP:SPORTSEVENT

These are all likely arbitrarily applied and unaided by the nutshell as it is currently written.—Bagumba (talk) 02:00, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I put this point in the above AFD, but to recap: notability by NSPORT or any other guideline is a "presumed" quality, not a guarantee. If consensus decides that a topic may pass NSPORT or any other notability guideline but not suitable for an article, deletion can still occur. Short of changing the "played a single pro game" criteria, this is probably the best way to consider athletes from lesser professional sports that simply do not get the coverage that leagues like World Cup or NFL get. --MASEM (t) 02:15, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

And consensus can always fall back on WP:IGNORE. However, I believe there is opportunity to improve NSPORTS without resorting to overriding guidelines or policies (which I've rarely seen happen with AfDs and NSPORTS). One could also look at past archived discussions (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5), to see a discussion almost monthly about presuming notability on a group of players and confusion over the role of available sources on notability. IMO there is misplaced focus on playing in the top level or subjective inherent notability as opposed to focusing on whether sources exist. However, past confusion seems consistent with the existing nutshell of "actively participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level such as the Olympics". If sources are the driving factor, it needs to be the emphasis in the nutshell as opposed to "major" competition or "highest level".—Bagumba (talk) 05:44, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for providing this example. I'm trying to figure out to what extent these issues arise from the wording of the nutshell, versus to what extent they arise from the wording of the rest of the guideline page. I see evidence of both. I'm not comfortable with the conclusion that the nutshell should focus on the sources, as opposed to the accomplishments, because the whole point of this or any other SNG is to provide guidance as to how to use the accomplishments in order to be able to predict whether or not there would be sources that are required by GNG. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:00, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Source should be a greater focus in the nutshell, but I did not say it should be the exclusive focus. Similar to WP:BIO, I think we can consider having a multi-point nutshell (e.g. sources, leagues, accomplishments) and not necessarily feel restricted to cram everything in one sentence. Still it should be 3–4 points at most.—Bagumba (talk) 19:43, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

It won't be a nutshell then, though, will it? It will be an opening paragraph. Which is not a bad thing - every Wikipedia article I've seen has no "nutshell", but generally tries to give the general gist of the subject in the first one or two sentences of the article. And that works pretty well. I don't know why everyone seems to think we have to do it differently on these guideline pages and try to cram everything into a little box with a little picture icon beside it. If you can find a good nutshell for a page, then sure, why not (in most cases the pages don't contain anything that it's going to be worth most people's while reading). But if you can't, then just say too bad, and introduce the subject with an opening paragraph in the normal way. Victor Yus (talk) 20:11, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

MMA & other event based Sports Notability

There is an ongoing debate whether or not MMA events (UFC ones in particular) are inherently notable. One of the arguments against it is Wikipedia:SPORTSEVENT which from how I read it, applies to seasoned sports like NBA Basketball, MLB Baseball, NHL Hockey and NFL Football which all have seasons amongst teams with an overall champion being determined at the end of the season. With event bases sports like MMA, Golf, NASCAR, Tennis, Formula One and others, there seems to be no policy that can be followed for how events are determined notable or not notable. While all other event based sports have come to a consensus on which events are notable enough for inclusion and what's not notable, MMA seems to have a major problem coming to this consensus. So basically I'm just wondering what would need to be done to get a set policy for event based sports like how Wikipedia:SPORTSEVENT#Individual_games_or_series exists for seasoned sports. --Kykykykykyky (talk) 04:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

You're correct...wiki guidelines are too generalized to be able to be of much use for fine tuning what it notable in particular sports. But that's probably the way it should be as there is no "'one size fits all approach'" that will work with every sport. That's what the individual sports Projects are there for. Tennis has had to argue and vote many times before we found what seems to work, and set it down in our guidelines. We still find things we missed and occasionally tweak things when pro tennis changes its rules from time to time. I believe hockey does the same. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:09, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. The trouble is, is that MMA event articles are continually getting put up for AfD and recently other events have been put up for deletion under the same reasoning Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/2004_Estoril_Open. Even events that contain a championship fight which would satisfy the notability based on this sentence (The final series (or single game when there is not a series) determining the champion of a top league, e.g. 2009 Stanley Cup Finals, or Super Bowl XLIII, or 2006 UEFA Champions League Final) are being putting up for deletion in favor of 2012_in_UFC_events. I think it would be a shame to see MMA, Tennis, Golf, NASCAR and other event based sports articles continue to get deleted because of this lack of clarification.--Kykykykykyky (talk) 04:40, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

That happens in tennis from time to time... but it's usually by someone who hasn't bothered to read Tennis Project Guidelines or someone who hates the sport in general. It's a bother but almost always it's overwhelming to keep. If the same person nominates over and over the same type articles with no success, an administrator steps in and slaps them on the wrist with a ruler. It rarely ever goes further than that in tennis. I personally can't help on MMA events as I know zero about it, having never even watched an event. Good luck. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:57, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Fyunck, on the assumption (based on what you've said above) that you haven't been following the MMA mess, all I'll say is that this seems to be a very clear-cut WP:FORUMSHOP to me. The community's patience with MMA editors and their meatpuppet friends has been worn thin at AN and ANI over the past few months. —Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 05:09, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. I was just giving a general overlay of how things work. If editors are gaming the system or doing inappropriate things, it was not my intention to condone those. Consensus building is still essential. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:03, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I am a new editor. I figured that this would be a good place to see what the consensus was for event based sports and how those groups of editors in charge of those particular pages reached that consensus. I've followed this particular issue for two months now and am trying to contribute in a productive manner. I'm sorry that others before me failed doing so.--Kykykykykyky (talk) 05:18, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I dropped in here to check what notability guidelines it mentions for tennis events in particular and other sports events in general since we have an AfD case at tennis at the moment. What is immediately evident is that the article offers a wide coverage of notability guidelines on sports persons (and seemingly sensible ones) but insufficient guidance on sport events notability. From an article titled "Notability (sports)" I would expect it to cover both sports 'persons' and sports 'events' notability guidelines adequately. There is a section on organization and games but that is comparatively meager (and overly focused on the US). It for instance does not explain what the criteria are for defining some individual games or series as "inherently notable". Another omission is that it mentions "games", "(individual) seasons" and "series" but not "events". These shortcomings should be addressed to improve notability guidance. And this seems to me like the proper place for that so I don't quite follow the comment made by Strange Passerby.--Wolbo (talk) 10:45, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Check the WP:AN and WP:ANI archives. MMA editors have been trying to change Wikipedia guidelines on notability against consensus their way for the past few months. This seems like just another fresh attempt at that, in a new venue, hence WP:FORUMSHOP. —Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:21, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't really think you're being fair to me right now. I see that articles are getting put up for deletion and really it's just all up to the admin who reads the AfD and their personal opinion on what's notable on that very day. This problem stems from the ambiguity of this particular article and is a problem that all event based sports could possibly face if Wikipedia:Notability_(sports) stays the way it is. Again, I'm sorry that MMA has been such a terrible landscape for Wikipedia for the last few months but I'm trying to help make Wikipedia a better place. I can't help that I'm new and that others before me were not constructive. --Kykykykykyky (talk) 13:36, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

In liue of anything specifically written out here, I suggest consulting WP:NEVENT that describes notability guides for news events. I realize that a game or a planned sport event is usually not the same as the breaking news events originally intended to be covered by NEVENT, but at the same time the concept applies: while regular games/events get widespread coverage the day after the event simply due to the popularity of sports, they have no long-standing coverage, and thus should not be given their own articles. --MASEM (t) 13:55, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

After reading trhough Wikipedia:EFFECT#Lasting_effects, I see this particular sentence: "Events are often considered to be notable if they act as a precedent or catalyst for something else." Events that transpire do have very relevant notability in their respective sport in the sense that these events are what is determining the champion (ex. races determine who's the leader of the Sprint Cup Series in NASCAR, who gets to participate in the FedEX Cup in Golf, the top 8 for the ATP World Tour Finals in tennis and eventual Championship fights & number one contender fights in MMA and Boxing). --Kykykykykyky (talk) 15:57, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Arguably it is the season as a whole that leads up to deciding these elements, not one single game in isolation (whether it is based on a win-lose records or a points system or whatever). Yes, one game/match will influence the final standings, but not in isolation. Compare with, say, the NFL or MLB league championships that are a single game or set of games that in isolation determine who will move forward. I have no idea of the structure of MMA but it sounds like it is structures like the PGA/NASCAR in that it is a season-long points total that determines who competes in the finals, and not one single event in isolation. That's the difference here. --MASEM (t) 16:35, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Well actually the way the MMA is set up is that there are no seasons. Each event is it's own entity and fighters fight anywhere from 1-6 times per year on different events. Fighters fight head to head and the winner moves up in standing (which there is no official ranking for) and eventually fights in a championship fight. Of the 38 events since Jan 1, 2011 there have been roughly 17 championship bouts. This isn't like other season based sports like NFL, MLB or NBA where there are hundreds to thousands of games per year with the champion being determined at the end of it, instead there are 15-30 very important (in terms of standing in the organization) events with multiple (7-11) bouts happening on each of these events.--Kykykykykyky (talk) 17:06, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Given that there's 17 championship fights per year, that makes much of the coverage routine, when you compare it to even NASCAR or golf/PGA.

As it sounds like it just simply is an on-going thing with no season or annual schedule, I think the best way to handle these type of matches might be to create articles named (tentatively) "2011 events in the MMA", and summarize the major bouts including the championship. I have no idea how many single match bouts (non-championship or otherwise) there are per year, but perhaps that's a list of, say, 100-200 matches: then that could be listed in a table in something like "List of 2011 MMA matches". so that you have the first article that goes into detail of the highlighted matches, and the second that simply is like a season game summary that MLB/NFL season articles have. --MASEM (t) 17:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, there were 17 title fights since the start of 2011. So roughly a dozen a year and about 15-25 events per year. NASCAR on the other hand had 36 events (all covered on Wikipedia) with the final 10 all being a part of the Chase for the Championship portion of the schedule. So in my eyes those are directly comparable to each other.

I'm just seeing a lot of ambiguity in terms of the events themselves while the biography portion of this page is very straight forward and I think that we can help rectify this as a whole in order to avoid difficultly like what we were seeing from MMA articles on Wikipedia. --Kykykykykyky (talk) 17:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm talking about the non-championship matches: if there are 15-25 events per year, how many matches per event, etc?

As for the NASCAR thing, that and probably the PGA and probably the tennis leagues are sort of unique as nearly all the events are named ones. But if you notice for NASCAR, if I pull a specific event, say "Dollar General 300 (Chicagoland)", the event does not have per-year articles, but just a summary of the event results for all the years it has been ran. Similarly with the PGA Tour, again a random pull RBC Heritage is a summary of the event over the years but no specific article with coverage of the event each year. There are a few (four that I see) that have this: the 2011 Master Tournament, so arguably if there was one major recurring event in the MMA or boxing that was consider to be a top-tier, must-watch event, I could see individual articles for each time the event was run, but that doesn't sound like its the case for MMA. (since as I understand what you are saying the championship matches are run whenever people qualify for them, and not on any set schedule).

As for the larger problem, NSPORT as you see does not address "open-ended" sports where there is no regularly defined season (MMA and Boxing seem to be the big ones that qualify here); in which case an annual breakdown of the major events seems completely inline. This still gives a way to provide results of the "annual season" and some means to provide more context for the significant, championship matches, but understanding that most of the other matches are simply vying for placement and thus no need to go into great deal barring certain exceptional cases. --MASEM (t) 18:01, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

From what I've found, NASCAR has indivdual event articles for every race since 2007. Some examples of this: 2011_FedEx_400, 2012_Aaron's_499, 2008_Coke_Zero_400_Powered_by_Coca-Cola.

I'm failing to see where in policy it states that there should be "year in review" articles for these sports rather than individual articles (like how there is for NASCAR and Tennis). What I'm trying to do here is to remove the "Well, I think that this should be like this" aspect of these event based sports articles because WP:SPORTSEVENT seems to be solely American season based sports. --Kykykykykyky (talk) 18:40, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Then there's a larger problem here that's tied to the MMA articles. I will agree that the various specific MMA events would be equivalent to the individual NASCAR events in that how they are presently reported - say, 2012 Aaron's 499 - is all short term coverage in terms of just being a summary of the pre-race and race results and would thus be considered routine reporting that otherwise is not already well represented at 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series-type articles. (Individual races may qualify for their own articles if the event is notable beyond just the racing aspect, but I believe these are extremely unique cases). Similarly, this philospophy applied to MMA articles would mean the individual events aren't notable but year-by-year summaries would be appropriate. But it could be that consensus is the other way: that the individual per-year NASCAR races are notable, and to be unbiased, this would make the individual MMA/UFC events (the equivalent type of event) notable as well by the same manner...

Except that the only thing I will flag will be the type of sourcing available. NASCAR and golf are definitely published across the board in newspapers that are independent of the soruces, but MMA events seem to be highly localized to media specific to it. The lack of apparent independent coverage - a requirement for notability - is going to be the other factor to consider here. --MASEM (t) 18:56, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate your understanding in dealing with me here. :) I'm new and I would like to help make Wikipedia a better place.

So in terms of independent coverage I think that what goes on is that major newspapers don't cover these events full on (unless it's a major Golf event, then there seems to be more of a focus on it). These events do get covered with a great bit of detail when that event is in town so to speak. When it's near, it gets covered by the local (major) newspaper and this happens continuously in each of these types of events. So if I were to go through and find a good deal of newspaper sources for each of these events we'd be much closer in terms of what you (and Wikipedia's sourcing guidelines of course) are looking for?--Kykykykykyky (talk) 19:58, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

My personal stance is that articles like 2012 Aaron's 499 are a problem primarily because they are routine-type covers (just reporting the pre-race and race results but not any significant impact of that otherwise beyond the series standing), but I will work on the assumption that they are accepted.

To that end, NASCAR and golf events are reported nationwide regardless where they happen (though I would agree local events solicit more coverage often because of the impact on the economy, as well as certain sports gaining more coverage in certain areas of the US simply due to regional differences). Ergo, there is non-local, independent coverage of the event. So to that end, that seems appropriate.

As best as I can tell from the MMA/UFC events, there's not a whole lot of coverage of these events from newspapers. So if there is only local coverage (likely to draw people to the event and not so much focused on the sporting aspect), there is a lack of non-local, independent coverage. So that's going to cause a problem.

That goes back to my point that articles on the specific events are a problem to start because it does create a bias against the sports that have some - but not highly detailed - coverage. That's why my suggestion is normalizing the MMA articles to the effect "annual" summary articles to be equivalents to season articles that other sports have; those articles will be fine in terms of sourcing. --MASEM (t) 20:15, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

The problem with "highly detailed" within MMA is that because its coverage began in the age of the web, the detailed coverage is mostly on MMA specific sites which detractors feel are inherently "dependent". There's plenty of material, but users flock to where material previously existed, and that tends to be where things originated. This type of problem is shared with any burgeoning sport. For everything else, simply cast your gaze at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:LISTN#Stand-alone_lists. In this case, we should be able to find sources which talk about these events as a whole. This would help resolve the issue across all of sports and it would help everyone avoid drama if that were incorporated into WP:N for sports. Agent00f (talk) 20:47, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I recognize that's the problem with MMA is that, as best as I can judge by such sites, until there is more interest in the sport from non-MMA interests, its going to be hard to show any reliability of the online sources. Knowing what has been said in the various discussions of MMA articles to this point, it seems that it is going to be some time before the rest of WP considers the typical MMA source reliable.

But that's important to understand how systematic bias works. There's two ways to solve the situation : one to be more expansive but allow less-reliable sources in, or to be more restriction while maintaining use of reliable sources. That's why I've identified the various individual NASCAR races and similar yearly entries as a problem. When you compare what the NASCAR races have, what the MMA bouts have, and as an extreme, what one could do for individual NFL games (outside the end season), there is definitely an inclusive discrepency. The NFL editors don't see the need to include every game of the season as separate articles even though they would have more than enough sources to do so compared to the NASCAR articles. So, were I to have my way, unless the specific running of a single NASCAR race was more significant than jsut the end results, these all would be merged to the various NASCAR season articles and popular the overall article on the specific race that summarizes the year-by-year results (that is, it is not appropriate to have the 2012 Aaron's 499 article, but it is fine to have the 2012 NASCAR series article and the generalized Aaron's 499 article). That matches how nearly every other professional sport is handled and allows MMA to replicate that structure so that sport can report to the same degree. --MASEM (t) 00:03, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

"more interest in the sport from non-MMA interests". I don't think the significance of this is quite what's attributed to it. The people who do the interviews and write the articles are still individuals, regardless of the branding. For example, reporter Ariel Helwanis's won the most prestigious journalist award for the industry two years in a row, and he writes for mmafighting.com. ESPN, Fox, Yahoo, SI, etc also cover all major events, yet their writers are not as respected (ie. access), nor their depth of coverage anywhere close to, say, Ben Fowlkes, who also writes for mmafighting (and btw, SI on the side). It's entirely possible that one of major pubs contract them to expand their coverage, but I don't expect their work to suffer should that happen. When people search for sport news/info and whatnot on the net to find pages to read/bookmark, these are the articles they'll hit. The internet has changed the media game, and wiki should to some extent recognize this. Thus, perhaps there's some arbitrary definition of "independent" source, but let's be upfront it's not related at all to the highest quality sources.

"compare what the NASCAR races have, what the MMA bouts have, ...do for individual NFL games". Part of the distinction here is that an MMA card is around 10 separate contests of 15-25min "regulation" time. This is rather in the ballpark of regulation time in shorter games and a dozen games isn't unheard of for a season. Fighters themselves only average a couple tests per year. If we're arguing about making every fight its own entry, then point taken. But the competitions are already organized in a natural format to readers/editors who follow the subject. A more similar event example is Tennis. This isn't just fans being difficult and going against the grain for no reason, but rather promoting what would make sense to any objective observer who'll take a few min to listen. The reason why there's been such fervent opposition to the previous outside proposals for the sport is that they're being created arbitrarily with no domain expertise. For example, annual divisions make no sense, any more than calendar bimonthly divisions for football makes sense. All this has been said countless times, but the folks running the show don't listen. Agent00f (talk) 00:45, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

In most sports, which are run in seasons, there is a complete reset of stats and standings between seasons; as been explained, MMA is not like this, as players' records continue to change year-to-year. Because there's a lack of any reset, we can be free to group all MMA events into time periods that make sense, and per-year is a common convention for many other (non-sports) titles. This is one way - if individual MMA event articles aren't appropriate - to still provide almanac-like coverage of the sport.

As for sources, WP has no problem with online sources, and recognize that some fields just don't have high quality academic coverage that we expect for more core topics. But that said, we can't treat MMA coverage in a walled garden (which is what was clear that some MMA editors wanted); sourcing for MMA has to be somewhat equivalent in quality to other professional sports. As a case in point, there was a recent discussion of adding eSports (professional video game players) to here, but it was quickly dismissed because the only sources that covered them in detail, while online, were far from reliable. My take on the prior discussions that the bulk of MMA sourcing is perhaps a notch above eSports, but far below the bar set by even NASCAR or golf. If there is not a good amount of reliable sources, we just can't cover it in detail. That's a fallout from WP:V and other core policies, which notability is built on. We have to find a middle ground that removes any walled-garden effect on MMA articles, even if that means other sports articles that presently exist need to be rethought too. Again, I point to the coverage of some of the specific NASCAR races are no better in sourcing and type of content than an individual MMA article, and that we don't report on every NFL game (though summarize seasons without an issue). Given that MMA is driven by the rankings of players and subsequent results of championship matches, and less about the specifics non-championship matches, this points to some broader coverage instead of per-event articles. --MASEM (t) 06:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

And just to add - while there's probably a few anon editors or the like that are desperately fighting against any attempt to trim down MMA coverage at all costs, I don't think the majority involved are intending to make MMA articles a walled garden, but in attempts to define MMA notability, I believe that have unintentionally slipped too far in that direction, which is why it is putting other editors off. I think there's a larger issue that is beyond just MMA articles to be considered in light of fixing the bias. --MASEM (t) 06:33, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Strange Passerby, this is the appropriate venue for this topic. Simply compare the similarities between entries for many others sports and MMA. If MMA cards can be deleted with the same hardline interpretation of GNG or EVENTS (inherent non-notability for anything without "enduring significance", etc), then all sports are similarly affected. If these arbitrary AfD's which destroy the values of the lists are effectively perpetrated on other sports, there'd also be somewhat of a similar mess ensuing. In that sense other sports editors should be thanking those on MMA for enduring the brunt of the AfD enthusiasm. Also, your characterization of MMA editors seems to commit a wholesale ad hominen fallacy; please try to avoid this. Thanks. Agent00f (talk) 20:47, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Another MMA apologist, huh? Not surprised. Just waiting for this section to turn into another MMA meatpuppet and sockpuppet SPA fest. —Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 02:55, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

We're already aware of that stance on MMA, there's no need to repeat it. Instead, can you please provide any insight into this content problem also common to Tennis, Horse Racing, etc, etc? I think that's the point of this page. Thanks. Agent00f (talk) 03:08, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

No, the apparent point of this thread is "we couldn't get our way with MMA, so let's fuck all the other sports up, too!" —Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 03:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't understand how solving the same notability problems which put a target on ALL similar EXISTING sport entries is fucking anything up, given that's the point of this page. If you look at the links I've supplied above, in addition to all sorts of motorsport (incl. Masem's nascar example above), triathlons, etc. All of these are vulnerable to the same kind of AfD's, and it's not exactly fanboys of any sort filing them. Agent00f (talk) 03:23, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I came here to discuss an issue with Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(sports) in that it only talks about team sports that are set up in a seasoned structure. I see how the issue that the MMA community on Wikipedia is experiencing in terms of trying to come to a consensous with editors who want to strictly enforce policy. When I read Wikipedia:DOGBITESMAN#Routine_coverage & Wikipedia:PERSISTENCE#Duration_of_coverage and try to apply it to bigger events like say the Super Bowl, it's still really tough to justify it because it's routine in the sense that there's a Super Bowl every single year in early February.

I just want to see if there was a way to maybe prevent this type of hailstorm for individual sports because there is a lack of a policy regarding their events on this page. Again, I'm trying to make this place better and the last thing I want is to see more of this needless drama.--Kykykykykyky (talk) 04:05, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It does seem that the inherent lack of clarity in the guidelines is having a destructive effect here. People ought to know, when they come to create an article, whether or not the topic of their article is a legitimate one. If you have one group of people putting effort into creating articles, and another group putting effort into getting them deleted, then clearly a lot of effort that could have been put to constructive purposes is going up in smoke (not to mention people's goodwill towards the project). I suggest that on one hand the deletion wonks lighten up a bit - does it actually do anyone any harm to have articles sitting around that push the notability envelope a bit? - but on the other hand we make a proper effort to produce guidelines that really tell people, without (more than an inevitable minimum of) ambiguity and circularity, which topics we want to have articles on and which we don't. Victor Yus (talk) 06:53, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

"Another MMA apologist, huh? Not surprised. Just waiting for this section to turn into another MMA meatpuppet and sockpuppet SPA fest." That doesnt help the discussion at all and is quite pathetic. Next time try to move the discussion forward in a positive away instead of attacking MMA fanboys. Portillo (talk) 07:58, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Per the implications above that this is a broader issue worth discussing in a more public venue, a very relevant conversation has started at the Village Pump over policies which can change interpretation of this page. Participants here can voice their questions/concerns about wiki policy there. Agent00f (talk) 18:36, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Removal of requirement of notability for articles on individual sports events

At WP:VPP#Observation a number of sports events have been cited and there is a discussion relevant to this notability guideline. A change to WP:SS would mean that notability would definitely not be required for spin out articles. This would mean that if one can establish a series as notable then by putting in a big database of all the games in it one could say it was too large and all the separate parts of it could become spinout articles and need not satisfy WP:Notability (sports). Dmcq (talk) 13:34, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Uh, can we hold off jumping to conclusions until some discussion on this actually happens? Agent00f (talk) 13:46, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

The wording is at WP:SS put in by this edit by JJB [1]. I reverted once but he shoved it in again and the BRD is in progress. If that wording stays in then that seems to me to be what the effect will be. So something has actually happened. Agent00f has listed a few sports event articles there showing support for ignoring the notability requirements of WP:SPORTSEVENT if they can be phrased as part of a series as support for changing WP:SS in this way. Dmcq (talk) 14:55, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

In fact this seems to have been all sparked off by the MMA business above. Dmcq (talk) 13:36, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

The "MMA business" has been going on for many many months with minimal progress. It's a pretty slow burn if that were the case. Agent00f (talk) 13:46, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

As I've hinted in the other discussion, I think to make this an issue of notability is, to some extent, asking the wrong question. We ought fundamentally to be asking what amount of detail of sports coverage and results we want Wikipedia to provide. Knowing that, when we have a certain amount of legitimate information on a topic, we would be able to make presentational decisions about how to merge it or split it between pages. We wouldn't then be troubled by the red herring of having to consider whether the topic of each resulting individual page is "notable". Victor Yus (talk) 14:05, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Posibly but what you have supported is a change which would make it okay to include articles on sports events which don't satisfy WP:SPORTSEVENT. Dmcq (talk) 14:59, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I haven't supported any change, at least not knowingly, but I have no problem per se with Wikipedia's including articles that fail to satisfy WP:SPORTSEVENT or WP:ANYTHINGELSE, if there are other good reasons for their inclusion. Victor Yus (talk) 18:43, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I asked if you supported the explicit removal of any notability requirement and you said "Myself, I don't think these various guidelines are worth a crock of beans." That sounds to me like support for removal of notability requirements. Policies and guidelines are supposed to reflect current practice and should cover the large majority of cases so one doesn't need an AfD for every article. Even WP:CONSENSUS is a policy. What you are talking about is throwing out the documentation of accepted practice and leaving people to fight it out all the time. See the first sentence of WP:POLICY "Wikipedia policies and guidelines are developed by the community to describe best practice, clarify principles, resolve conflicts, and otherwise further our goal of creating a free, reliable encyclopedia." and later "Guidelines are sets of best practices that are supported by consensus". If the guideline does not describe accepted practice it should be changed. If the guideline does describe accepted practice and you think they are not worth a crock of beans then you are rejecting consensus. Dmcq (talk) 22:59, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I see. So yes, I certainly support changing the guidelines wholesale, so that they describe accepted practice as you say they should, and do so clearly, concisely and unambiguously as they so grossly fail to do at present. I meant I hadn't knowingly supported any specific change. Victor Yus (talk) 06:50, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Well you're on the right page to gain consensus on which sports related topics in general merit an article about them. WP:AfD decides on the corner cases so if there are a number of AfDs which are going one way or the other which isn't covered by the guideline properly then that is a definite case for changing the guideline. It is a guideline so it doesn't need to be followed as closely as a policy so AfD can easily decide something quite different from the guideline.The AfD gives the consensus in the particular case and particular cases form a basis for a general case. You can also make a substantial change without such evidence by getting a wide consensus here perhaps with an WP:RfC. Dmcq (talk) 07:03, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd be wary of widespread changes that allow WP:RECENTISM to allow over-creation of articles on games or events that really wont be notable in a few days/weeks/months, under the veil that is a part of a notable season or other topic. A lot of the reasons in WP:NEWSEVENT should be applicable to sports as well.—Bagumba (talk) 07:44, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

The issue with sports events at AfD is not these guidelines, it is the What Wikipedia is not policy (or rather the Wikipedia is not a newspaper section) any change here (or at any number of the other places MMA fans are trying to change guidelines) is meaningless if it is not reflected in a change of policy, so if MMA fans want their article per event, only one thing to do, go to WT:NOT propose a change to exempt sports events, and hold a wiki wide RFC on the change, then with the policy changed agreed the guidelines will flow from that. As it stands it makes it very easy to oppose any change on the grounds of not in keeping with the WP:NOT policy. Mtking ^(edits) 08:06, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so, since the "policy" you refer to is far too vague to be of any use in establishing which sports events should have articles (clearly some should) and which shouldn't (clearly some shouldn't). Victor Yus (talk) 08:14, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

WP:AfD is what decides the consensus when it comes to the crunch, not any of the policies or guidelines, because it establishes common practice and the policies and guidelines follow established practice. The arguments from policy are simply people citing previous consensus for what they think should happen in the AfD. Dmcq (talk) 08:26, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

@Mtking. While I am sympathetic to the idea that there is too much sports coverage on WP, and some cleanup would be good, I am not sure how to tackle the problem. Where to draw the line when it comes to "sports events"? Is there any reason to handle them differently from the yearly season articles we have for shows like "Idols" or "Big Brother", for which we also have tons of articles, even on a country to country basis. What is the "lasting notability" of , e.g. the Idols 2007 season in South Africa?

Or how are athletes different from artists for example? Athletes compete in tournaments or matches, artists perform songs or act in movies. Both have their audiences. Is an international tennis tournament held in e.g. Germany in 2007 (with participation of some top players) of any more or less "lasting notability" then e.g. a not wildly successful movie from 2007 in which a few famous actors performed?

Whatever are our answers to these questions, we will also have to take into account that not all sports are equal. For example there are no less than 5 tennis players in the 2012 Forbes Celebrity 100 list, probably more than any other sports. What does that mean for our coverage about tennis events vs e.g. badminton or wrestling?

My point is: this question of "lasting notability" can also be asked of many articles we currently have outside the sphere of sports. MakeSense64 (talk) 09:07, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

The point that comes into play on these questions is the idea of what would be considered as "routine" coverage for the event (or topic otherwise) and what sources exist that go above and beyond routine.

Any sports event (regardless of sport, league, etc.) we know gets wide coverage reporting a run down and stats of the game in the days that follow. That's routine. If the only information supporting that event falls under routine coverage of any type of sports event, then we shouldn't have an article on it. However, if there is more information, such as a discussion or impact of the results, broadcast figures and information, and other types of information that is not routine for any sporting event, then an article is going to be likely acceptable. In some cases there are yearly events that get the same type of coverage which may seem routine for that specific event, but that's not the routine nature I'm talking about: I'm looking at routine as what one expected from a mid-season regular season baseball or basketball game. --MASEM (t) 13:28, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

So, the difficulty is in drawing the line between "routine" news coverage and "non-routine". And that's not as easy and unambiguous as it sounds. In a way, previews of games/tournaments and discussion of impact (or possible impact) of results is also "routine" weekly (or even daily) stuff that the news media serve us. For the major sports (and events) we will find such routine coverage in the major news media, for more niche sports we will find it in more specialized sources. Even one-day events that happen every year may be highly anticipated (and covered in depth in media) at least within the country or region. What if there is beyond-routine coverage in the country where the event takes places, and normal routine coverage in international media? If we use the WP:ROUTINE criteria very strictly then we would be deleting 1000s of articles like 2010 Shanghai Masters, 2006 Paris–Roubaix or 2008 World Grand Prix (darts). It looks like the bar has been put a lot lower in most sports, so either we delete lots of articles or we adjust our policies and guidelines to reflect the reality that we already do cover a lot of routine sports events.MakeSense64 (talk) 14:43, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Seems to me that rather than worry unduly about the extent and routine-ness of the outside coverage that any particular event might generate (which are nebulous quantities in any case) we should try to come to a decision as to what level of coverage we are realistically capable of providing (in the long term, ideally) for any given sport. No one is really harmed if we record the results of events that the newspapers happen to largely ignore; the only harm I can see is that people might spend their time writing up, say, their local soccer league results onto Wikipedia even though we know that we are not capable of recording all or even most local soccer league results (thus leaving those that happen to have been recorded as a kind of egregious blip, giving people the false impression that they are somehow specially significant, and in a way having wasted the editor's efforts, which might have alternatively been put into doing something more relevant to Wikipedia's practical mission). Victor Yus (talk) 09:31, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't think much of articles which don't have any lead describing why the article is notable and giving some interesting details. A number just launch into a table of statistics and the citation at the bottom goes off to something that looks to me like some enthusiasts personal web page. When I see something like that my finger wanders over towards the delete button as it were. Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a database dump, databases should be handled by outside sites. The figures on Wikipedia can be vandalised any day of the week, only the reference to the database and some interesting details should be in Wikipedia. Dmcq (talk) 00:25, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

If there is little coverage, there will be little neutrality based on the limited sources of information. And there is harm in WP hosting pages obscure local and weekend leisurely sports events. You know all these requests from WP for more money to host more servers, and those notices that all servers are busy, come back later?—Bagumba (talk) 00:59, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I think Dmcq means articles like this Maria Kirilenko career statistics, of which we have a bunch [2], and articles like 2009 Cellular South Cup – Singles and 2009 Cellular South Cup – Doubles, of which we have 1000s. The latter type of articles is usually based on a single source (the official drawsheet), so why not just link to that source in the main article about that tournament? I have made proposals to reduce that kind of articles on the project tennis and even on WP:NOT Talk page, but got little support for it. MakeSense64 (talk) 05:29, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Two points I would make here on the tennis articles you mentioned. Per discussion and tennis guidelines the "career statistics" pages are perfectly fine but "only" when the main article is already large. If they can both fit in 100k, and the page is not likely to grow much larger, then it is supposed to be merged. No reason for Kirilenko to need a separate stats page that I can tell. As for the draws, linking only is not the best idea. From experience I have seen many many times that the official drawsheet is deleted after a season or two. It would be gone forever if not duplicated. However those 2009 singles and doubles as separate pages could certainly be merged in a single 2009 tournament page (with the draws at the bottom) if it's not too large or unwieldy. I had just done a merge request today on the 2004 Estoril open. Anyway, my thoughts. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:11, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I know, we are making efforts in that direction. But I guess we have to understand that uninvolved editors frown upon such articles when they come across them. They probably wonder whether we need such detailed coverage about a given sports. And that problem is of course not limited to tennis. Basically, a culture has emerged where editors say "look how much coverage there is about ice hockey or baseball, we should create more articles about <name your sports>". This has led to ballooning coverage in a number of sports. What is probably needed is a clear wp wide decision how much sports coverage it actually wants.

As for official tennis drawsheets being deleted from the internet after a few seasons (unless we store them on wp). Doesn't that bring up the question whether these drawsheets are notable enough? The argument that was being made in this section is that many of these events are only of "passing interest", and drawsheets disappearing after a few years would be more evidence for that. MakeSense64 (talk) 06:45, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I would say no. The tourney is notable and will continue to be, and if someone like Federer ever played in them readers will always want to know who he beat. I go to those websites "wanting" to really see the draw from 10 years back, only to be denied now. And remember, it's not just teensy weensy tournies... the 4 Majors also pulled the draw sheets...And those are 100% absolutely notable. Our only source lately has been tennisforum.com. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:30, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Small correction, The Australian Open has draw sheets for all the its competitions since the event started (1905). And I agree that the disappearance of draw sheets does not in itself indicate that the events are no longer notable. In the specific case of the ITF the drawsheets seemed to have disappeared because of the the launch of their new website. --Wolbo (talk) 08:51, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

If there isn't some database in a reliable source where the stuff is stored then Wikipedia really ought not be storing it. How do you know if the data in Wikipedia is correct? That's what I mean about Wikipedia can be vandalized any time. Wikipedia is supposed to be summarizing reliable sources. How can anyone tell if one of these articles has been vandalized or not? There's some grounds for keeping a little stuff that once was in a reliable source but has gone, but mass storage of such stuff is not I believe what people in general think Wikipedia is about.

If someone really thinks some statistics are worth looking after properly they should set up a wiki for the express purpose with some reasonably strong control over the editors and editing like Citizendum has and start populating it with all these figures. The strong editorial control is what is needed to give it a reliable source status. Then there wouldn't be much trouble at all in Wikipedia having a table linking to entries for each and every game somebody played and the articles can concentrate on text saying something vaguely interesting.

So you see either way I believe most of those big tables of statistics should be elsewhere rather than either people trying to turn Wikipedia into a primary source or duplicating stuff that is far better looked after elsewhere. If an official drawsheet is deleted after a a season then Wikipedia is not the right place to try storing it in. Set up a wiki with some discreet ads and if people really are interested in things like the statistics for the fifth match in the Barbados junior open tennis competition in 1993 or whatever then you or the service provider will make money out of it and that'll help with looking after it. Dmcq (talk) 07:24, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

@Fyunck. I was not trying to say that the tourney is not notable. But is the drawsheet (for which we make standalone articles) notable if it disappears from our sources after one or two seasons? I am sympathetic to the idea that this kind of information should not be lost and will be of historic interest to tennis fans. But I agree with Dmcq that wp should not become used as a data storage service for information that would otherwise get lost. And there are also WP:V issues if the only source for a drawsheet article has disappeared after two seasons. The better solution may indeed be for some external website (like tennisforum.com or other wiki site) to store these drawsheets and for our tournament articles to link to them. MakeSense64 (talk) 07:48, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I am not a tennis expert, so will only speak in generalities. If there are not multiple independent sources of significant (i.e. non-trivial) coverage of an event, it fails GNG, and should probably not have its own article. WP is not about covering all sports or all subjects; it's about covering topics for which there is enough coverage to write something meaningful and objective. On the subject of deadlinks, WP:LINKROT explains ways to recover them and even to proactively archive them.—Bagumba (talk) 08:05, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Linkrot is a bandage. You get all sorts of problems with the archive database like people sticking on a robots text saying they don't want their stuff archived - and that affects everything you thought was safely archived in the past. It needs to be in a good straightforward reliable place. Dmcq (talk) 08:33, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

@Bagumba. In the case of the examples I mentioned about drawsheet articles, there is a main article about the event here: 2009 Regions Morgan Keegan Championships and the Cellular South Cup and it is definitely notable by our current guidelines (although I notice that this article has no refs at all). The problem is with the spinout articles (there are four in this case, of which I already mentioned two), which you can find linked from the "Champions" section. These spinout articles are typically based on a single source (which may disappear after a few seasons). I don't want to pick on tennis, and think all sports on wp should be treated as equally as possible. But we clearly have some problem here and these spinout articles seem to be the topic of this section, so this makes for a very good example. MakeSense64 (talk) 09:15, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Echoing Fyunck(click), it would seem the solution is to merge articles to their parent if the child article cannot satisfy GNG and the parent article is not too big, which is the case with "2009 Regions Morgan Keegan Championships and the Cellular South Cup".—Bagumba (talk) 09:37, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Possibly for some. There is a general problem though where people have been sticking everything abut a series into one article then saying it is too large and making spinout articles out of it and then saying the spinout articles don't need to satisfy notability. I see it as an end run round this notability guideline. It would be far better to deal properly in all cases of this problem of people sticking entire databases of stuff into Wikipedia as if it was a storage medium for undigested facts rather than an encyclopaedia summarizing and citing stuff in reliable sources. Dmcq (talk) 09:44, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Can I reiterate. Wikipedia is no good for storing stuff in if the original disappears. Vandals will corrupt the stuff and nobody will know what is right. Even if you could force a bit through saying Wikipedia should record all these results it just isn't a good storage medium for them. There has to be a reliable source it can refer to. Dmcq (talk) 09:48, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

@Bagumba. I agree with Fyunck that merging our articles would easily reduce the amount of spinout articles. The question is: who is going to do it, because we would have 1000s of articles to merge and it is not a simple job.

And Dmcq is perfectly right in pointing out that the main reason why we have so many spinout articles in sports is a widespread failure to summarize-summarize-summarize. A couple months ago I added WP:NOTDIARY, because some of our articles started to look like a day-by-day saga. Merging and summarizing in our sports articles would bring them back to a manageable size again. But there are not enough hands. MakeSense64 (talk) 09:58, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

If somebody could set up a separate wiki at Wikia perhaps they could copy the stuff there and start up a good reputation system with strong edit controls, then people needn't be worried about their baby here disappearing and could reference an appropriate section there. Strong editorial control is essential to get reliable source status and would also minimize the vandalism problem. There's no problem I think about having a Wikia devoted to just the statistics of games. Dmcq (talk) 10:13, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

While it might not be in a single compact PDF, are the results of these events not tracked through other reliable sources (even offline)?—Bagumba (talk) 10:30, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

The ATP website has an extensive archive of tournaments incl. draws that dates back to 1968 and the WTA site has this as well (but less comprehensive for the older years). The Grand Slams have history overviews of all winners (finals) but only the Australian Open at the moment has the draws as well. Somewhat baffling that the other three Grand Slams don't have this. --Wolbo (talk) 10:44, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Gaelic games

I would like to add something like this to the Gaelic games section, but this looks ugly, can someone who knows this template better do it for me, or teach me how to do things like this?

. --MATThematical (talk) 20:20, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Are you intending to start another discussion? Since the one you link to is of course archived. -DJSasso (talk) 19:34, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Discrimination against Paralympians

According to WP:NOLYMPICS an athlete is presumed notable if they have competed at any Olympic games, but for Paralympic athletes the barrier is set far higher as only medallists are presumed to be notable.

"Athletes from any sport are presumed notable if they have competed at the Summer or Winter Olympic games or have won a medal at the Paralympic Games"

I propose to change this so that Olympians and Paralympians are treated equally:

"Athletes from any sport are presumed notable if they have competed at the Summer or Winter Olympic or Paralympic Games. Roger (talk) 13:56, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

These guidelines are used to give an indication of when an athlete is likely to have coverage in reliable sources. Most participants in the Paralympic Games will never be mentioned in a reliable source. Thus the requirements that they medal. -DJSasso (talk) 13:58, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

It is inherently discriminatory to hold Paralympians to a higher standard than Olympians per se. WP:RS is a separate issue because all articles on WP are required to comply with RS anyway. Claiming that the reason for the discrimination has something to do with RS is thus simply illogical. Roger (talk) 14:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

The purpose of a subject notability guideline is to identify the point at which we can presume that the subject is notable. We can presume that an Olympic athlete will receive enough RS coverage to create a verifiable biography. I would support your proposed change we we can trust the same is true of any Paralympic athlete. By the same token, a notable Paralympian is notable regardless of this SNG. If they have the RS coverage to pass GNG regardless of whether they medal or not, the article will stand. Resolute 14:16, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Not at all, every threshold on this page is intended to be the point that we can presume that the athlete has coverage in Reliable Sources. To quote the guideline "This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) will meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia." We can't assume that every Paralympian will have enough sources to meet the GNG thus we set the barrier at getting a medal. However, if a Paralympian who didn't medal has coverage in reliable sources they will still get an article. This page does not determine who can and can't have an article (as is thoroughly described on the page). All it does is tell you when an athlete is likely to meet the GNG. It isn't discriminatory because it has nothing to do with them being disabled, its simply a matter of fact that Paralympians don't generally have the coverage necessary to be notable unless they medal and those that do can still have an article because they will have met the GNG anyways. -DJSasso (talk) 14:40, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

So what harm is there in acknowleging that any Paralympian who has the necessary RS coverage can be presumed notable exactly the same as Olympians? The way it stands now it is saying that a Paralympian must win a medal to be presumed to be equally worthy of an article as someone who "just filled the numbers" in an Olympic team. Given that all articles must pass GNG anyway, what harm is there in lowering the bar for Paralympians to the same level as Olympians? As I see it, there will be no harm and in fact it would remove the impression of unfair discrimination against elite athletes who just happen to have a disability. BTW if you really think Paralympians don't get RS coverage, you've been fast asleep for the last twenty or so years - "cripples" aren't hidden in back rooms anymore! Roger (talk) 15:52, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Because the whole point of this page is to be a barometer on when those sources will 99.9999% exist for those people in other words this page determines who is likely to have the necessary RS coverage. This page exists to allow pages to be kept even though they don't have the sources on the page yet but are all but guaranteed to have them. They just have to be found. Lowing the level for Paralympians would defeat that purpose as it would allow non-notable ones who don't have the necessary RS coverage to be kept when they shouldn't be because people would expect them to have those sources when they don't. Some Paralympians do get coverage, but the vast majority don't. I never said Paralympians don't get coverage, what I said was we can only be 99.9999% sure that medalists get coverage, we can't be that sure with every other athlete. I think the issue here is that you don't really understand the purpose of this page. You mention that all articles need to pass GNG anyway, however this page allows pages to be kept when we can't prove they meet GNG immediately. This is why lowing the bar is an issue, because it would allow for keeping Paralympians who would not be able to meet the GNG. -DJSasso (talk) 15:59, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

You're right about one thing - I don't understand how this guideline can exempt an article from passing GNG. If a subject doesn't pass GNG it doesn't get an article, period. GNG is a minimum barrier to entry (together with V and RS), circumventing it is completely unacceptable. Guidelines such as this are supposed to set the barrier to entry higher than GNG, not lower. Roger (talk) 16:25, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

There are a number of people who do feel the bar should be higher than GNG, but in reality most of the SNGs lower the bar. I can think of only one that actually raises the bar. This guideline goes to great lengths to explain it saying things like "Please note that the failure to meet these criteria does not mean an article must be deleted; conversely, the meeting of any of these criteria does not mean that an article must be kept". Or maybe a better part is "All information included in Wikipedia, including articles about sports, must be verifiable. In addition, standalone articles are required to meet the General Notability Guideline. The guideline on this page provides bright-line guidance to enable editors to determine quickly if a subject is likely to meet the General Notability Guideline." Also note that GNG isn't a hard and fast rule either technically, its just a guideline not a policy which is how the one SNG I can think of has a higher bar than GNG and how things like WP:BLP1E exist which stop articles from having articles even though they meet GNG. -DJSasso (talk) 16:30, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

It sounds to me like at least part of the concern in this talk thread is one of "discrimination". I certainly do not want to see discrimination against persons with disabilities! However, here we are talking about Wikipedia articles, not legal rights in the real world. No one has a "right" to have an encyclopedia article about them. Realize that, and then there really is no a priori reason that our notability guidelines should be the same for Olympians as for Paraolympians, any more so than for Nobel laureates and Ignobel Prize winners. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:19, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I think this guideline sets the bar about right for Paralympians. I've been working on Wikipedia articles for the cross-wiki project about the History of the Paralympic Movement in Australia, and with a few exceptions, finding reliable sources for these articles has just been a matter of luck. For example, a few months ago I was trying to find sources for the article about Roy Fowler, one of the most successful Australian Paralympians by medal count. I didn't have any luck finding any, and had no idea that he'd passed away in 2002 until I was told in person. This is despite the fact that I have access to several Australian newspaper databases that generally have good coverage from 2000 onwards. If one of Australia's most successful Olympians had died in 2002, it would have almost certainly been covered internationally and I would have had no trouble finding information about the person's death. I'm just trying to demonstrate the magnitude of difference in media coverage between the Olympics and Paralympics, at least in Australia (though admittedly the media coverage for the Paralympics has improved since 2002).

I don't have any objections to people creating articles about Paralympians who haven't won medals, as long as they can find some significant coverage somewhere about the person, and this guideline broadly agrees with me as discussed above. I just don't want to open the floodgates so that every person who has *ever* competed in the Paralympics will be automatically notable enough for an article. I don't think this position is discriminatory, just pragmatic, and a reflection of the lower level of media coverage of Paralympic sport. Wikipedia deals with the world as it is, not as it ought to be. Graham87 02:55, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I would like to contribute to what is a very interesting discussion and, to me, one with wider relevance to society’s treatment of people with a disability in a range of areas. It is easy for me to understand and accept that V and RS are core conditions for acceptance of an article for any Paralympian or Olympian. What I cannot understand is that, if these conditions are met, why the SNG for Olympians should be different than for Paralympians. These athletes compete at the two largest regular multi-sport events in the world (in terms of number of competitors, number of spectators, media audience, event cost, etc.). Both Games are the peak events for athletes – one for able-bodied and one for athletes with disabilities. At the Olympics, there are many athletes who compete in team sports or in minor sports, who have an extremely low profile and may struggle to meet V and RS. I can’t understand why those athletes should have a more “relaxed” SNG than Paralympians. It is not about discrimination, it is about equity. The standards shouldn’t be easier for one group or the other. So, Graham87 – you are doing a fantastic job on a fantastic project, but I would have to disagree with you. I think it’s little things like this that constantly send the message that people with a disability are second class citizens. Tony.naar —Preceding undated comment added 03:30, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Having worked on more Paralympian articles than I would ever have thought possible, I can tell you that Australian Paralympians as a whole easily meet WP:GNG with the sources existing even if they have not won Paralympic medals. If we're going to argue that Paralympians who compete but do not medal do not qualify under WP:GNG to make an automatic assumption of notability, I would like to see some evidence to support this, especially amongst the ones from 2008 and 2012. I was looking for information on national football teams and I was stumbling across more information for African Paralympians in African sources than for national teams in some places. --LauraHale (talk) 03:40, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

No one is arguing that they don't qualify under GNG for an article. In fact have said the exact opposite, that they don't meet the SNG for automatic assumption that they meet the GNG. If they can be shown to meet the GNG then they get an article like anyone else would who meets the GNG. Living in a country that held the last Paralympics I can tell you that there was almost no coverage of the individual athletes except perhaps in sledge hockey since this country is obsessed with hockey. If the host country isn't talking about them much then I doubt there is much hope for every other Paralympic athlete out there. Of course there will be some who don't medal who have coverage....and then if they meet the GNG they get an article. Not sure why this is a hard concept to grasp. -DJSasso (talk) 11:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I randomly pulled Carlee Hoffman from Category:Paralympic gold medalists for the United States. This may or may not be representative of other medalists. The sources in the article are not WP:INDEPENDENT to satisfy GNG. I look for more sources, but still don't find GNG being satisfied. Did I overlook something or are there offline sources that meet GNG? Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL —Bagumba (talk) 17:02, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

I will note that Google News archives is not working for me right now for other search items, so this needs to be revisited.—Bagumba (talk) 18:02, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

With Google archives working again, can strike my earlier concern over medalists. Perhaps some examples of non-medalists and their coverage would sway the naysayers.—Bagumba (talk) 09:08, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

The problem isn't the higher standard for paralympians, it's the absurdly low standard for any athlete that competes at the Olympics. The presumption of notability when they medal is fine. Presuming notability for mere competition is inappropriate. The standard should be changed to only medalists for either games. If a non-medalist is actually notable, then they will satisfy the GNG and won't need to rely on this SNG. Gigs (talk) 01:24, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, I'd have no objection to raising the standard for notability for Olympians. Especially those in minority sports don't get much media coverage. Graham87 01:29, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I dont follow Olympics enough to have an opinion either way. Assuming due diligence was used to add the criteria initially, some examples of Olympians that fail the NSPORTS assumption would help the decision.—Bagumba (talk) 01:52, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

There's a long-standing consensus on Wikipedia that all Olympians are notable, going back to the days when the athlete standards were still part of WP:BIO. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Valery Kopayev, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bruce Haslingden, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christine Robinson, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Albert Baumann, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lecomte for examples of this consensus as far back as 2006 and 2007. I would oppose any attempt to make the standards for Olympians more restrictive, and in the event that other editors want to make the attempt, we would obviously need to open the matter up for broad discussion in light of the existing consensus on the matter. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 14:18, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the AfDs, the consensus was that Olympians are notable, but the issue of whether they all presumably receive coverage to satisfy GNG was never raised. Agreed that a broad discussion would be needed, but consensus can change. However, it could be the case that coverage would be ignored for Olympians.—Bagumba (talk) 15:38, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Part of the reason that none of those discussions address whether or not the articles satisfy the GNG is that that three of the discussions took place before the GNG was even written - see here for an example of what it looked like in its earliest days. Old Wikipedia didn't care as much about whether or not sources were in the articles of subjects that had obvious notability. The current focus on sourcing grew out of the Siegenthaler situation, but since nobody is disputing the accuracy of the contents of bio stubs for Olympic athletes, Wikipedians from back then would've been shocked at the idea of deleting a bunch of Olympic bios. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 13:36, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

An SNG with a threshold lower than GNG is actually useless because GNG trumps it anyway. Roger (talk) 14:14, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

That's not true. The way SNGs are used is to trump the GNG. More accurately they are used to provide a "presumption of meeting the GNG" even if there is no present evidence provided that an article meets the GNG. But the end effect is that the SNGs override the GNG. Gigs (talk) 15:32, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

An SNG with a lower threshold cannot overrule GNG indefinitely - at some point the RSes must be produced. It's only a temporary "get out of jail card". Roger (talk) 15:37, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

A topic-specific notability guideline is supposed to only act as a temporary reprieve to prevent immediate deletion, providing time for notable, reliable sources to be found. The topic-specific guideline should be well chosen so that if it is met, it is almost certain that notability can be established. If it is not well chosen, though, then subjects not meeting notability after a thorough search has been made for sources can be considered for deletion (and the topic-specific guideline should be revisited). The only exception would be cases like historical persons where by comparison to similar persons, we do not doubt there was notable coverage of the subject, but it is difficult to locate these sources today. isaacl (talk) 15:43, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Consensus

I think a lot of the examples where disagreement over the NSPORT guidelines are brought up in AFDs are the result of some sports simply lacking consensus on the sport specific guideline provided. I am wondering if perhaps a solution would be to place a consensus mark next to the sports or guidelines that have consensus. For example, the Gaelic games section is written by 1 person with pretty much no consensus from others. None of the regulars on this page felt like they knew enough about the sport to comment. Having a consensus marker on certain guidelines will emphasize which ones are currently agreed upon and which ones are disputed or lack enough people to confirm consensus. --MATThematical (talk) 00:52, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

That would be counterproductive with the policy that consensus can change. It might discourage needed discussion on past guidelines since there was previously a strong consensus, and encourage potential unneeded discussion based solely on number of past participants. It might be useful to add a {{FAQ}} to the talk page for repeated questions on the same topic .—Bagumba (talk) 17:45, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

It sounds to me like it would certainly solve a lot of problems. You could have a definitely yes, definitely no and maybe with some extra qualification. If consensus changes then the table can change. It would form a good basis for seeing if there was any general consensus on overall standards. Dmcq (talk) 18:00, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Definite no's should just be deleted outright. Maybe's should tag with {{Under discussion}} with a link to related discussion. Just marking "maybe" without a discussion is not productive, and focusing on the apparent lack of participants is bordering on polling.—Bagumba (talk) 18:13, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Really we should be going back through all the SNGs and providing evidence demonstrating that when the sport-specific criteria is met then the GNG is also likely to be met. The collated evidence should then be placed on some kind of sub-page of this one. Eldumpo (talk) 18:27, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

One place to start are these open-ended criteria/loopholes from the earlier "Nutshell and WNBA" discussion:

• "or any other top-level professional league" in WP:NGRIDIRON
• "any other major senior level international competition" in WP:NTRACK
• "any other top-level national league" in WP:BASEBALL/N
• "any other major elite international event" in WP:NGYMNASTICS
• "other such league" in WP:NHOCKEY
• "similar major professional sports league" in WP:NBASKETBALL
• "similar international competition" in WP:NGOLF
• "similar international competition" in WP:NTENNIS
• "similar exhibition games" in WP:SPORTSEVENT

—Bagumba (talk) 18:42, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, you've just linked to the SNGs there. I'm on about the evidence base (if any) that determined that the particular SNGs were pitched at the right level to accurately confer automatic GNG for articles. Eldumpo (talk) 23:09, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

What I meant was that those open-ended SNG portions could not possibly have evidence of notability, so those snippets of "any other ..." or "similar ..." would IMO be candidates to start removing.—Bagumba (talk) 23:22, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I see what you mean. Yes, any 'weasel words' like the phrases you've highlighted should be strongly considered for removal. Eldumpo (talk) 23:32, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

The reasoning for some of these words is that the lists are far too long to include every single league that would qualify. This is the case for hockey for sure. We would have to list something like 50 leagues, so instead we give an example of the level of play that meets the guideline. -DJSasso (talk) 16:13, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

My concern is the 51st league that doesnt get coverage could be snuck in with a free pass. Too often "level of play" is automatically equated to assume the same level of coverage across "similar" leagues. While it may not be a problem with hockey editors now or ever, the wording in general allows the potential for misinterpretation. I see this too often in baseball or American football when a league in a non-US country is argued to be the highest level of play relative to that country, and thus is assumed to be notable. However, the key for NSPORTS is the level of coverage, not the level of play.—Bagumba (talk) 16:41, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Level of play equates to level of coverage in most cases. That being said the hockey guideline specifically says the highest level in a country is notable so we don't have that issue like baseball or American football. The thing to remember here is these are just rules of thumb, there will always be a potential to debate them. And frankly they should be debated from time to time. I think the guidelines work better when you are more concise instead of overly verbose to the point that people don't read them. -DJSasso (talk) 16:44, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Agree in general on being concise over verbose, but an objective detailed list of leagues is more concise than short subjective criteria. If <your league> is not on the list, fall back on GNG or discuss individual merits of <your league> to get consensus to add to NSPORTS.—Bagumba (talk) 17:03, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I see what you are saying, but I think that opens more cans of worms than it solves. Very rarely do I see this actually come up as a problem, I do see it once in awhile in baseball, but I think that has only really been because of one countries top league (Mexico) also being a minor league to MLB which causes a contradiction in baseballs guidelines. I could agree with this in sports like soccer where every league in the world is ranked. But this isn't the case for most other sports, it would end up causing endless discussions about adding or removing leagues. Most of these sports projects came up with these wordings as being the best possible way to avoid unnecessary discussion. For the most part I really think this is a solution in search of a problem. That being said if some of them had to be fixed I think Baseball, Gridiron are fine as they are pretty explicit that they have to be the top level league in that country. Hockey I think isn't an issue because the guidelines for it have been hammered out pretty extensively and have been refined a large number of times and we have never had any major misunderstandings on what falls under what. The others though are a little more generic and could possibly be refined, however lacking any evidence that this is an ongoing major problem I don't see much point opening a can of worms that this would open. This guideline needs to be somewhat flexible. -DJSasso (talk) 17:20, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

If you are correct that "endless discussions about adding or removing leagues" would be started, its also an indication that the application of the "other leagues" isnt being applied uniformly. That's different than saying "we all know which leagues are notable, but this is just shorthand to avoid having to write down 50 leagues." Perhaps the reality is nobody wants to give up their "free pass" :-) I'm ok with grandfathering in old uses of "other leagues" as long as there is no reported problems. However, I think it should not be allowed for any new additions. Hopefully there is consensus to enforce this.—Bagumba (talk) 17:59, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Well I do believe it is short form...I just think the more areas you give people to wikilaywer and argue about the more areas they will argue in....it was only like 2 years ago I think when all that was said on wp:athlete was the they had to have played in the olympics or a fully pro league.....this was seen as a way to stop the endless arguing about what really fit into that one size fits all policy.....but now that we have a more specific criteria I think we get even more arguements.... -DJSasso (talk) 18:19, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Looking at it from a slightly different direction: if we have to nail down all of the specific leagues where notability is virtually assured, it will take a lengthy conversation, drawing upon the expertise of a diverse set of editors, and the resulting benefit may not warrant the expense. It may be more efficient to simply handle any contested cases as they arise, examining each individually and pulling together the expertise for that specific instance. isaacl (talk) 19:06, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Surely the best way to end up with a robust set of 'free passes' is to present some evidence that (a sample of) the players in each league, who have the lowest no of apps/who played furthest ago, are shown to actually meet GNG. That can at least give some confidence that the SNG has been set at the right level. Eldumpo (talk) 20:26, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I notice that a recurrent theme in this discussion is that some sports, such as hockey, are managing just fine with some wiggle room in the criteria, whereas some other sports have run into problems. Please let me suggest, then, that the language be tightened up only in those cases where there have been problems, and not across the board. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:22, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

The thing is, most of these guidelines (though I am sure not all) are set way above where it is already almost guaranteed that a player will have that notability. The hockey ones for example could be relaxed significantly from where they stand today and still be assured that the player will have had coverage at some point in their career. I would think that would go the same for any of the other big 4 sports in North America as well. The discussions that went on around creating the hockey one for example centred around the fact that we would make the list higher than any reasonable person would be able to question just so we wouldn't have to have such discussions about are they high enough. I agree with Isaacl, this is much better to deal with when/if there is a problem than to go trying to do it now. In fact that has been how its been handled for the last two years. Each time people find something that is slightly too loose a new discussion is held to tighten it up or if its too tight to loosen it up. -DJSasso (talk) 11:55, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

In the first line you say most of these guidelines are set 'way above' the notability level, but have you any evidence for that. It's sounds like some discussion on this occurred from the Hockey perspective, and I think this evidence should be shown somewhere accessible. Picking up on Bagumba's point, the 'such as' statements in the hockey criteria should really be deleted. If robust discussion did occur at the time, then presumably discussion on what the 'such as' leagues were, should have arisen? Sorry, not trying to have a go at hockey; it's just it's your area, and it may well be the criteria for hockey are better than some other sports. Eldumpo (talk) 20:15, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Well most of them have been discussed in the archives on this page or in their respective sports projects. When this page was created that was sort of the point of this page being created was that experts in their particular sports could best show when GNG was likely met. And then when they were moved onto this page the general community could attack specific guidelines as necessary if they were shown to not be adequately accurate. So basically if you have a specific one in mind that you think isn't strong enough then have at it. But there really isn't a point to put them all through the test again. -DJSasso (talk) 19:34, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

The community has attacked specific guidelines here. When they do, they are always drowned out by sports fans who favor the sort of inherent notability loopholes that Bagumba listed above, regardless of whether or not such achievement has any implication on the potential to meet the GNG. No other subject area has such loose notability guidelines, with the possible exception of WP:PROF and gazetteer type articles. It has lead to the proliferation of literally tens of thousands of articles about professional benchwarmers that will never have any kind of significant coverage. This will eventually come to a head, if for no other reason than the massive BLP liability it creates. I was one of the people who had to clean up the NSPORTs mess during the unsourced BLP cleanup. I'd say probably a good quarter of the articles I worked on from the unsourced BLP backlog were nearly unknown professional sports players, who, by virtue of warming a professional bench, were immune from deletion. Gigs (talk) 01:17, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

That isn't true at all, a number of times the guidelines when attacked have been tightened up in whatever way consensus went. You imply that once the guidelines were set they have never changed and that is simply not true, they have changed considerably in the time since they were created. -DJSasso (talk) 11:46, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Picking up on your previous response, I'm aware there was some discussion at the time the guidelines were being compiled, but did anyone try and present evidence to back up their argument. Otherwise it can be argued that the 'sport experts' could lean towards criteria that help inclusion of their sport's players. I still think we should be seeking to remove those woolly words outlined by Bagumba above. Eldumpo (talk) 22:32, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Depending on how you look at it. It is usually proved in the opposite fashion. No one has ever been able to produce a person (that I am aware of) that meets a particular guideline and hasn't had sourcing. Every time someone has said these guidelines allow any bench warmer to get an article people ask them to come up with an example, and each time I have seen that happen the person that has been offered as an example has had sources found. -DJSasso (talk) 15:48, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I would say that in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Amy Sanders, the consensus was to keep based on the presumption of NSPORTS without significant, independent coverage in multiple sources being clearly identified. Many expressed the opinion that they did not feel comfortable overriding NSPORTS. Some said they would !vote differently if NSPORTS were changed for the WNBA.—Bagumba (talk) 16:17, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

That is a little different, that is an Afd. Rarely do people take the time there to actually go find sources because few people want to do that if the article is going to be deleted in a few days. I meant more along the lines of in discussions like this one. When people give examples of people who are bench warmers. They have always had sources found in such discussions from what I have seen. I would wager a bet in that case that you mention that sources could be found for her amateur career. To get a cup of coffee as someone in that afd said in a professional league you usually had to have an outstanding amateur career. That is where the sources for such people are often found. She may not have any that relate to her short time in the WNBA. People always look at the end result for sports figures and forget that to be that bench warmer in a pro league they usually had to have a pretty significant amateur career which likely lead to some pieces having been written about them where they played their amateur sport. -DJSasso (talk) 16:31, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Definitely an athlete can meet GNG and not NSPORTS. If she indeed has the coverage, it has not been identified and I'm not sure that the coverage for women's amateur basketball is any more comprehensive than it is for professional. Hypothetically, if the only significant coverage that was eventually found was from a local paper in her college city and a local paper in her hometown, would that satisfy multiple sources of significant coverage being needed for GNG?—Bagumba (talk) 17:32, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

As it stands, yes it would. Though there is a group of people trying to get wording about local coverage into the GNG. As long as they are from a couple different papers/sources. -DJSasso (talk) 18:05, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Actually, no. There is a part of NSPORTS that states that athletes need non-local coverage, and it is excepted that this is a specific restriction on the GNG. --MASEM (t) 19:19, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

It only says that most local coverage is WP:ROUTINE or not WP:INDY. It doesn't entirely discount coverage merley for being local.—Bagumba (talk) 19:40, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

If all that is needed is "a couple different papers/sources", I would guess that any starter of a major college sport in a major metropolitan city would pass the threshold.—Bagumba (talk) 19:40, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Unless it was a multipage indepth biography of said player, that type of coverage falls under routine (the idea that you can say that "any starter of a major college sport in a major metropolitan city" would be notable is a strong indication that you've found something that is routinely covered. ) --MASEM (t) 19:51, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

That's a fallacy, because that would make coverage of every president routine, because all presidents get coverage etc. Routine coverage is the kind of coverage where a local paper has an " high-school athlete of the week" type coverage and does a puff piece about that player. But if a player is a on a major college sport and is getting lots of local coverage, that is still notable. Just like it would be notable for a politician in that area who gets coverage in that area. Masem, would be the small group I was referring to when I said some people are trying to get local coverage excluded from GNG. Nowhere in WP:N does it say that notability has to be world wide. -DJSasso (talk) 19:55, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Notability doesn't have to be world-wide but it has to be more than just local routine sources; this is the core at WP:IINFO and why we don't have articles on every garage band or local landmark. And by routine, we're talking day-to-day coverage type report, not elections that happen every few months or other events that are less frequent. And the sources have to be significant and more that just "age, hometown, degree, position" and a rundown on stats. For most college players this just isn't happening. We don't cover local politicians automatically (people like mayors, city councilmen, etc.), even if they get a lot of local coverage, either. --MASEM (t) 20:13, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

It is not uncommon for a large metropolitan paper, like the Los Angeles Times to at one time or another have done a large piece on a starter. The same is likely for that player's hometown. That being the case, I've always thought the bar was higher than just a couple of sources.—Bagumba (talk) 20:00, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

All that GNG has ever required is a handful of references from separate sources. So if multiple papers in Los Angeles do up a large piece on a starter, then they meet GNG. -DJSasso (talk) 20:02, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

I have no problem with coverage being local, but I usually expect at least three sources of significant coverage. For example, one hometown source, and two local sources from a large college town.—Bagumba (talk) 20:10, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Such sources are fine; that's what I'm trying to get at. Even some high school athletes may get coverage that way. As to the number of sources, there's no set number but most likely if you can find two significant sources you probably won't see the article deleted quickly, but over time you may find pressure to locate more. If the sources are only local (even if they are from the LA Times about a local LA college athelete) you may find more pressure to find a significant source from a different locale to show more than just local acknowledgement. --MASEM (t) 20:13, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

For a player that meets NSPORTS, I have never seen it overturned for failing to show the sources required for GNG. The Amy Sanders AfD expressed some interest to make the NSPORTS requirements more stringent for the WNBA, with most feeling uncomfortable to override it in an AfD. This would be a good litmus test for determining what is the guideline for the number of significant sources needed to assume notability, or conceding that there will never be a consensus on this matter.—Bagumba (talk) 20:40, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, again, remember that GNG doesn't give a number. One source - a 1000pg volume dedicated to a topic - could do it. Another topic may take 5 or 10 if its only partially covered (but more than just a name drop). If we did set a number, it would gamed sooooo hard (both ways). Really, the measure is how much significant coverage there is, and that's not just simply observable by counting sources. --MASEM (t) 20:47, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

But this is not GNG exactly. We are talking about the number of significant sources NSPORTS expects to see so that a presumption can be made that an athlete meets GNG. For example, if athletes in a sport routinelyregularly are found to have received significant coverage in X number of sources, they can be presumed notable and added to NSPORTS. Otherwise, they are not part of NSPORTS, and must demonstrate GNG on their own—Bagumba (talk) 21:00, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Er, that's not that works, particularly when you say "routinely". If the only coverage of an athlete is routine (read, what you get in day-to-day coverage), it will fail the GNG and the general aspect of the GNG that NSPORTS states under "Basic criteria". NSPORTS cannot specify how many sources an athlete needs and override the GNG that requires "significant coverage". You can state which sources aren't good for notability in terms of GNG coverage, but those general GNG criteria will still apply. --MASEM (t) 21:48, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Striking my use of "routinely" for "regularly" above, as it caused a misunderstanding. Let me rephrase. In order for an athlete to be considered to be added to (or remain in ) NSPORT, how many sources of significant coverage are expected before we presume notability and allow the additional criteria for the athlete to be added/remain into NSPORT? For example, how many minimum sources do we presume to find for an NFL player who played one game?—Bagumba (talk) 23:24, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Presently because of #1 in NGRIDIRON, you need exactly one source that says X played in a game to presume notable. That ain't nowhere close to meeting the GNG, but criteria like NGRIDIRON#1 were created on the basis that a player with one game under their belt would likely have a plethora of GNG-meeting sources that eventually can be added to the article. The question to be asked if that if we take a player that fails to meet any of the criteria listed under "Notability guidelines on sports persons"/"Professional sports persons", what does it take to meet the GNG and avoid routine sport coverage that the more general "Basic criteria" warn about. And to that end, the GNG does not say a number, only begging for what "significant coverage" is. --MASEM (t) 00:03, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

This guideline has taken off on the awkward premise and continues to pound away at this backward way of thinking. WP:NSPORTS only presumes the standard of WP:GNG will be met if . . . That backward logic defeats all the other words in the guideline. The only thing that counts is GNG. We say presumed, at AfD there is a population of deletionists who still say prove it. And even when you do, the inclination in that forum is to support deletion whenever possible. So what this guideline should have prevented (a challenge to the subject and thus to the life of the article) merely leads to the demand to show the sources. Now, how many source are sufficient GNG? 5, 10, 20?

Bottom line, I don't support this supposed consensus. My opinion is we should shortcut past the misdirecting language and go straight to the point. If someone has achieved what we defined in these guidelines, they ARE notable. Trackinfo (talk) 08:04, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Can't do that because if you read GNG, even people who meet GNG are not automatically notable. They are also still just presumed notable. You can meet GNG and not get an article. -DJSasso (talk) 11:58, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

All notability guidelines are giving a presumption of notability. It is not a quantity that can be measured, and is something that always can be challenged. A hypothetical case: a pro NFL player that played the barest amount of time in one game and then his career is over (say, from a broken leg), is presumed notable by GRIDIRON, so one can create an article in good faith. Years later and if the only thing that can be sourced about that person is that brief stint, someone can challenge if we should have an article on that person; that doesn't mean deletion is necessarily the result but those wanting to keep that person are likely going to need to base their keep on something stronger than GRIDIRON. None of NSPORT, or any other sub-notability guideline, is an absolute assurance that a topic is notable. That's generally why the criteria need to be selected to make the chance of false positives as low as possible. --MASEM (t) 12:04, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

What both of you are saying is we have wasted countless hours and words writing this guideline, because it can simply be ignored by one aggressive editor, falling back to GNG, which itself can be ignored, throwing the fate of an article into the hands of the prejudicial deletionists and the opinions of a few passersby in AfD at the time it is up for deletion. Then a negative decision permanently stains the subject of the article, even if it succeeds in being revived later on. That should not be the way it works. This guideline has been written and hammered by people who, in theory, are experts in their various subjects. Their judgement should matter--that's why this exists. If a point in the guideline is poorly written or unfair, then that should be litigated. Here. But for the sake of consistency, this guideline should stand for something, rather than the wimpy, wishy washy "presumed" language that makes it mean . . . nothing. Trackinfo (talk) 18:30, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

That's not what I said. The criteria on this page (like "played one pro game") should be sufficient to have all other editors treat the article as one in development in good faith and with no DEADLINE to get it better. But, as time progresses (on the order of years), if that article still is only based on one source saying the athlete played one pro game, and an editor believes they can't find any other sources, they can nominate it for deletion. Of course, consensus still is the decider, and even if no sources are available, if the consensus agrees that GRIDIRON#1 still applies, it still applies. And of course, in the future, consensus can change and we may want to limit short, stubby articles that just can't be expanded, but that's a future I don't know if it is going to happen or not.

Now, to me personality, considering that, as said those that created the criteria "are experts in their various subjects", that some of these guidelines make sense in terms of ultimately providing sources when the criteria are met, while others feel like efforts to include just because - the "one pro game" ones are the biggest problem and don't seem to be built on this sound logic. I know it's been explained and consensus here is for it, but that's a big caution here: consensus at AFD can override any of these criteria because of the idea it is presumed notability, though ideally the criteria are vented by the global editing community before they are put into practice to avoid bad criteria to start. --MASEM (t) 18:49, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I am not asking for any change in the "One pro game" criteria. I think we have been over that and we have done our best to negotiate equivalency amongst the various sports. A single pro game at the NFL level is a huge achievement. They've made movies about people who have done that, or less. I've made that point before. That is an aside. We can argue such points about lesser sports ad infinitum.

The point is, what we say in this guideline should carry the weight of authority. Achieving (sourced) one of the items specified in this guideline is, in it self, sufficient to establish notability. We should not have to go beyond that and have to prove it to the ambiguous levels of GNG in the opinions of a couple of il informed voters at any point in time at AfD. Achieve the guideline defined point=speedy termination to the AfD argument. If the nominating editor don't like it, argue the issue about the guideline here first--theoretically amongst experts. That is what this should mean. Trackinfo (talk) 19:21, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Again, you're asking for an authority that does not exist anywhere less. Every subject-specific notability guideline grants presumed notability, and that presumed notability can be challenged even if it is granted by a subject-specific criteria. The closing admin will weight the arguments that likely will fall between "keep - this is a criteria in NSPORTS" and "delete - no further coverage has been found in X years since creation", and will judge whether an article remains or not based on that.

It is important about the criteria, though, to understand why this is the case. I have been told by those that support it that if a player plays at least one pro game, it is nearly assured that one can locate literature from their amateur/college days that go into more significant coverage than just a box score. I do assume in good faith that this is true, particular in the day/age of new media. But it is completely possible to imagine a case of a pro third-string special teams that makes one play at the last minute of a pro game, was a fifth string and never played in college, and otherwise never had significant coverage. All an article about this player likely will ever say is his name, birthtown, school, and team history based on these limited sources. That is a completely fair case to challenge notability on, because that's never going to be an encyclopedic article. Mind you, based on the supporters of that, it sounds like this is extremely rare, and at AFD, I would assume !voters would consider all the conditions that apply: is he still active on the team and more sourcing may come later, will harder-to-locate print sources be needed, etc.,, and then decide to keep/delete based on that. But the underlying factor is that that criteria is only a presumption of notability, and not an assurance of notability, because notability - or more specifically the retention of an article - is subjective; the idea of these criteria is to immediately weigh in favor of retention if there's any doubt, but other factors can count against it. --MASEM (t) 19:38, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Certainly every decision we or anybody else makes here on WP should be subject to challenge. It is the placement of that challenge that is the problem. I know I should not be involved in writing WP:SCHOLAR. Its not my area of expertise. But by using the wimpy language of "presumed," the challenge, the discussion doesn't happen here before experts, it happens at AfD, hidden from us the interested parties. If any editor has a challenge or wishes to present an exception to the guidelines we have put forth, they should be directed make that presentation here in the light of day. We might find cause to rewrite our guideline. That's reasonable. At AfD, the decision can likely be made by people with very little knowledge of the subject, nor an interest in the consistency or validity of our articles. You place a lot of faith in administrators, but in all seriousness, the quality and consistency of your administrator may vary. And there is a large enough number of deletionists who roam our pages just looking for opportunities to remove content. Even if their nefarious deeds are detected later and replaced, a previous vote for deletion allows for the speedy deletion of that article again with extreme prejudice. All this damage could be prevented if ANY proposal for deletion that goes against this guideline be directed to us or additionally people involved with the appropriate project--people who know the subject. Trackinfo (talk) 21:47, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

"Experts" may design the criteria, but the criteria and resulting articles created under that have to meet global consensus, which AFD is one proper venue for (and technically before being added to NSPORTS there should be an global RFC); this is necessary to prevent a topic area from becoming a "walled garden" that has excessive or broader coverage that the rest of WP does not enjoy, all other factors taken into account. This is the current problem with the MMA articles, for example, in that the "experts" (MMA fans) are trying to include more than the coverage of their sport necessitates, compared to other professional sports and other non-sport topics. And there's a reason why the various Deletion Sorting efforts were created as to put AFDs into broad groupings to alert editors with an interest in that field (Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Sports is the one for sports-related) , so to call it "hidden from interested parties" is a bogus argument. And what's being put out is not a challenge to the criteria as a whole but a challenge to a specific case of it (I would expect that a challenge to the criteria as a whole to take place at WT:NSPORT, not at AFD). Even in the broader sense of the picture, no guideline or policy is absolute: there are always exceptions. --MASEM (t) 22:00, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

The problem with the system you describe is the failure of AfD. It is such an overwhelming avalanche of deletion that it is not a realm where one can go to play defense. Our guideline should provide that defense, except that we readily allow it to be circumvented outside of our view. The outside of our view part is where I have the major issue. Yes there will be exceptions to our guideline. Those exceptions will give us cause to learn and improve the guideline. But the guideline itself should have enough force of procedure, that when ANY article challenging the guideline is presented at AfD, that the people watching this guideline and people in the appropriate project (via the project page) are informed. Same thing for other guidelines. It should be a mandatory step for any administrator to inform the related guidelines and projects before a subject is deleted (and I use the word subject rather than article because while the article is deleted, it is because of our cumulative failure to present the subject as viable). Our expert advice should be part of the discussion, rather than a complete deletion process happening in virtual secrecy--a secrecy of volume. There are only so many articles anyone can watch or edit. There are many articles in my area of expertise that exist, they fill the void, so I don't bother to rewrite, add sources or even analyze in great detail. I've seen them but I don't have time to help all of them or to watch all of them. So some jerk follows along and puts a poorly sourced or poorly written article up for AfD. The article can then be rewritten or have additional sources added--IF WE KNOW ABOUT IT. But the echo chamber of ill informed deletionists gang up and the subject is banned forever. Some even try to delete content to make an article ripe for deletion. That is the negative result by keeping the experts out of the discussion. I think I've been successful in defending what I know about, but many have been teetering on a thread at the mercy of whichever administrator chooses to shut down the discussion. Trackinfo (talk) 22:58, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

You cannot give a guideline the strength of any authority because it is only that, a guideline, just like every other page for notability. Guidelines can be overridden by consensus, period. There's a reason that we have to iterate that we're not a democracy, because we don't have hard rules. Now, that's not making any of the critical NSPORT useless or a waste of time, as stating that a topic that meets NSPORT is a valid argument towards an AFD conclusion. My point on the "played one pro game" criteria is that the various sports experts have asserted that that will lead to sourcing in time, but I'm sure most will agree this is not 100% foolproof, and there will likely be a few pro athletes that slip through. If clearly more than enough time has passed to expect sources to have come about (in the media, not necessarily yet identified by editors) but none can be found, then we have our exception. But what needs to be distinguished at AFD is there's the challenge that there are no sources, and the challenge that no-one's done the homework to locate the sources; the latter is something that does take editor time and thus could probably be argued under DEADLINE (the lack of such); that it, a "Keep per NSPORT, give time for sources to be located", should be a fair argument, while "Keep per NSPORT, 50 years isn't enough time for sources to be generated" may be laughed off as an argument.

As for the volume of articles and being unable to watch them, that's why the Deletion Sorting project was made. That link above for sports, if you watch it, you will see it in your watchlist when any AFD related to a sports-related articles is sorted into it. It is absolutely not a secret process (and yes, I would agree that we don't want a secret process where articles could disappear without appropriate notification except for those that happened to watch that specific article). --MASEM (t) 23:24, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Level of international competition

Have participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level such as the Olympics.

Regarding this rule in NSPORTS, it's clear that competitions like the World Baseball Classic and Pan American Games should count. But what about the World University Baseball Championship? The World Port Tournament? Where is the line? – Muboshgu (talk) 20:39, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

The key question is whether or not nearly all participants in a given event have historically received sufficient, non-routine coverage in independent, reliable, notable sources. If so, then using participation in the event may be a reasonable criterion to delay any immediate deletion request for an article on the participant, allowing time for adequate sources to be found. I believe this will have to be taken up on an event-by-event basis. isaacl (talk) 22:27, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

The quoted wording has been changed for a while (at least in the nutshell). --Tryptofish (talk) 21:38, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

New AfD and additional research sources/ wikis

Hi; I've nominated the following player here: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ed_Carfrey; he only played one game, and I can't find any additional sources. Your input to the AfD welcome.

In addition, I wanted to share a resource that some people may not know about - the library of congress Historic American Newspapers archive: Chronicling America - this website allows you to search historic newspapers from 1836-1922; the coverage is not complete (I think some major newspapers are missing), but it's another source that can be checked when looking for information on players.

Finally, I wanted to share this: Sabrpedia which is run by Society for American Baseball Research. They have 179,761 baseball profiles, which is probably a lot more than wikipedia. Could trans-wiki links be created, so that if a stub-profile in WP is merged to a team roster, it could trans-wiki link out to the article on sabrpedia? --KarlB (talk) 18:53, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

This would seem to go agaist WP:ELNO items #1 and #12.—Bagumba (talk) 19:00, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks; it's a good point, but in practice we regularly link out to wookiepedia (see Dagobah for an example.) It seems to be considered a 'sister' project of wikipedia, for purposes of trans-wiki-ing articles. If we could get rough consensus on a destination for non-notable baseball players, then delete and transwikify to Baseball wiki X would be a good solution (for example, oodles of minor league players that are deleted; instead they could be listified somewhere, and transwiki'ed to a proper wiki, and then linked somehow. This might reduce the tension around AfD discussions, since the information is not lost, it's just one click further away.

For example, this template builds an automatic link to wookipedia: {{Sww}}. {{Wikia}} is also relevant. is there any interest in creating similar transwiki templates for baseball (we could then also modify baseball guidelines to suggest transwiki to sabrpedia as an option, if eds here agree that is a decent destination for baseball articles that won't survive here.) --KarlB (talk) 21:53, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

You should take this up with the baseball WikiProject, and quite probably, the Baseball statistics people who I know have their own wiki. Even if you successfully create a new wiki with a substantial number of contributors from Wikipedia migrating over there, we're unlikely to change baseball notability guidelines and how well they pass WP:GNG, so I'm not certain the point... (Also, why you want to push Wikipedians to a commercial project that has been increasingly commercial and done some other things against great community opposition I do not understand. It would be better to go to meta and propose an alternative project like they did with Wikitravel fork stuff instead of pushing a commercial project.) --LauraHale (talk) 22:56, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

thanks; just to be clear I'm not pushing any particular wiki; just the *idea* of embedding the idea of trans-wiki-ing into the sports discussions - the point made somewhere by another ed was that this reduced the drama in certain fiction AfD discussions, if there was a safe place a deleted article would end up. I will ask at baseball to see if they have a preferred wiki for this approach. Baseball would be a good start b/c many seemingly reasonable minor-leaguers with decent articles get iced today. Then if it works, we could try the approach with other sports. Ideally an all-sports wiki would be best, but may not work (in the same way a 'science fiction' wiki would be great, but hasn't worked - different franchises end up with their own wikis, so it's likely different sports will have their own enthusiast wikis.) I don't know the history of sabrpedia, so if there's too much drama or community isn't happy with it then I wouldn't suggest that as the default. In any case, I'm not sure why you say not certain the point - the point is, there are completionists, deletionists, and inclusionists, and eventualists, and every sort in between. No matter what, however, wikipedia is not a good place for completionists; the standards here are higher and more stringent than almost any other community website. Having a place for the completionists to go, where articles won't be deleted b/c the players never achieved X or Y, and having that place be a somewhat official destination (in that AfDs regularly recommend it, templates are provided, the community is there to help, etc) is a way of getting to a win-win instead of the divisive debates we have now. So in short, "the point" is "win-win".--KarlB (talk) 23:20, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

If you're talking about transwiki linking, then this is not the right place. You need to head on over to Help:Transwiki. As for the rest, you need to head over to the Baseball Wikipedia project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball and talk to them about their notability. Once you get consensus for a change over there on a project level, you'll probably get success over here. Until such a time that you get Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball consensus for changing baseball notability, you're not going to get support here because your attempts at changing baseball notability here look like forumshopping as this isn't the place to do it. But anyway, Help:Transwiki and Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball. Best of luck. --LauraHale (talk) 23:31, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Done: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Baseball#Transwiki_destination. Per your other points, I have not here, or anywhere else, proposed changes to the presumed notability guidelines. And transwiki has very little to do with notability anyway; it's much more about saving articles rather than deleting them. Please assume good faith and read what I wrote! I'm not trying to change notability, I'm only trying to implement NSPORTS as I read it.--KarlB (talk) 00:01, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

• Comment on Carfrey. The Ed Carfrey case is further evidence that nothing is broken. In a couple hours of on-line research (which is the tip of the iceberg for a 19th century player), I found quite a lot about Carfrey. Turns out he was a pioneer in "indoor baseball" in 1891 and had a minor league career than ran for nearly 20 years from 1882 to 1899. Plenty to meet WP:GNG and further evidence that the standard presuming notability for MLB players is appropriate. Cbl62 (talk) 05:33, 26 June 2012 (UTC)