Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 47

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Protected edit request on 9 March 2022 (5)

Can someone add the protection topicon? The admin that protected forgot to add it I guess. InterstateFive (talk) - just another roadgeek 23:27, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

The only edit request here that I support. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:29, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Will be done by a bot shortly. BilledMammal (talk) 23:31, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I added it. I don't think it's designed to show up on talk pages though. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:58, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

@Muboshgu: I believe InterstateFive wanted you to add it to the main Wikipedia:Notability (sports) page. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:03, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

 Correct. --InterstateFive (talk) - just another roadgeek 00:08, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

 Self-trout – Muboshgu (talk) 21:18, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

MusikBot II was really fast a removing it from an unprotected page... isaacl (talk) 00:15, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 14 March 2022

Restore this revision, which had been the consensus version before its removal by an edit warrior. Avilich (talk) 23:17, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

• This should not have been removed and had been added uncontroversially. A closure review being ongoing (which does not appear like it's going to overturn the closure, FWIW) does not give carte blanche to people to WP:STONEWALL a consensus which they don't like. WP:DROPTHESTICK applies. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:34, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Not done: This comment does not make me feel better about the idea of unprotecting the article and using p-blocks on anyone who edit wars, because I'd rather not have any at all. If I protected the WP:WRONGVERSION, that's too bad. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:45, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

@Muboshgu: One editor refusing to accept the result of the RfC and edit-warring over it does not mean that the result of the RfC should not be implemented. And the changes that were included so far managed to survive a few days, so clearly they were not that disputed - and most of them aren't being challenged at AN anyways, so not like that should be an issue. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:51, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

@Muboshgu: Given that comment, I think we need some guidance on how to implement formal consensuses when some editors are willing to edit war to prevent the consensus being implemented. Note that the changes here are not the ones being discussed at WP:AN. BilledMammal (talk) 02:16, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Discussion is ongoing at WP:AN#Reprotect NSPORTS. Everyone can chime in there. It's at AN that the next steps will be decided. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:33, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

@Muboshgu: The issue is that these are the changes which most editors didn't object to (it was added at 2319Z, March 12th; and not removed until Nfilz started edit-warring at 2000Z, March 14th - nearly a full 48 hours without anybody objecting to it), and it is also the changes which are mostly not being challenged at AN (the one which has received some criticism is no. 3, but that is not what has been implemented or reverted here). One long-standing principle of Wikipedia is that editors must respect the WP:CONSENSUS and eventually WP:DROPTHESTICK and move on. One editor (despite all others seemingly being fine with it) edit-warring over it is A) not respecting it, clearly and B) not a reason to let the edit-warred version stand. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:39, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

A full 48 hours, User:RandomCanadian? What happened to WP:NORUSH. Surely most editors don't even check in, in under 48 hours, on a weekend. Let's not over-react here - I was simply restoring it to the frozen version - which I also didn't agree with. I have no idea what I even changed - as that's not the point. Nfitz (talk) 06:18, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

You did a rather non-obvious revert, selectively removing some text. Again, if the only objection is procedural, despite the fact that this is the part of the RfC which is not getting challenged by anyone, then really it should be put to rest. WP:NORUSH is not "delay it is as long as possible" either. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 06:21, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

• These changes are not the ones being discussed at AN. This must be the millionth time you're told that. I gave you the simplest possible one-liner with a link to the relevant discussion, just after someone went over to your talk page and explained you everything, and you still don't get it. It's time to make an actual effort to understand what is going on here, because this isn't simple edit warring, this is a single obstructionist editor stonewalling against a consensus that is not being contested at AN. The very reason the obstructionist editor in question began this edit war is because he knew that a "neutral" administrator like you would protect the page in his own revision; he's the one who opened that "Reprotect NSPORT" section you just linked. Avilich (talk) 02:47, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

• Agreed, as one of the editors who made these changes I believe that they were done in a judicious and limited manner with care taken to only implement proposals with clear consensus that did not require further discussion, reassessment or replacement text. Feedback is always welcome but it's disheartening to see an editor who did not participate in the discussions choose to revert indiscriminately. It's even more unfortunate that the non-consensus edit-warred version has been protected. –dlthewave ☎ 02:03, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
• I believe I have now correctly restored the previous stable version that nobody argues about? – Muboshgu (talk) 03:40, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks, Muboshgu, this is what I had in mind. Per the discussion on your talk page it seems like there was a misunderstanding and your intent all along was to protect the version that was stable before today's edit warring. –dlthewave ☎ 03:57, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

  Surely User:Muboshgu the article should be left in it's original state while that dreadful RFC is reviewed - and is now being bludgeoned by the users who were not the ones the closer asked to do the review. Nfitz (talk) 06:18, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose - page should be left alone while review is in progress. WP:QUO Nfitz (talk) 06:18, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

  Nfitz, you seem to be the only editor who wants this. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:24, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

  Or am I the only one still paying attention, and have lost track of the 4th page where discussions about this are ongoing (probably a lot more, I certainly haven't started searching)? Though to be honest, I wasn't even aware that discussions here were taking place - which seems a bit pointless until AN is dealt with. Nfitz (talk) 17:26, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

  Usually, when you're on the "one" side of the WP:ONEAGAINSTMANY, it's not a good sign. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:33, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 15 March 2022

Please add a protection lock icon to the page. It was removed in this edit by an administrator that was made after the page was protected. — Mhawk10 (talk) 22:54, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

 Done – Muboshgu (talk) 23:47, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 19 March 2022

Change "Significant coverage is likely to exist for a boxer is presumed notable if they" to "Significant coverage is likely to exist for a boxer if they". –dlthewave ☎ 12:49, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

 Done – Muboshgu (talk) 16:24, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 19 March 2022 (2)

In the Cycling section, change "A team is presumed notable if it is" to "Significant coverage is likely to exist for a team if it". –dlthewave ☎ 12:51, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Please also remove Has competed at the Olympics, per #Cycling. BilledMammal (talk) 12:55, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

 Done – Muboshgu (talk) 16:27, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 19 March 2022 (3)

In the Rodeo section, change "Named animals participating in rodeo, such as bucking horses and bucking bulls, are presumed notable if they have been named to a rodeo hall of fame such as those noted above" to "Significant coverage is likely to exist for named animals participating in rodeo, such as bucking horses and bucking bulls, if they have been named to a rodeo hall of fame such as those noted above." –dlthewave ☎ 12:53, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

 Done – Muboshgu (talk) 16:28, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 22 March 2022

In WP:NGRIDIRON, write "the 1980s United States Football League" (rather than just "the United States Football League") as there is a new league by that name that does not give presumed notability, and it may confuse some users. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:58, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

I went one step further; for the older defunct leagues I spelled out the years they were active, so as to clarify which leagues they meant. There were also multiple American Football Leagues as well, for example. --Jayron32 15:26, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Proposal to clarify Olympic Medalling as an indicator of notability

This RFC has two questions that can be answered separately, asking whether:

1. Winning a medal in a competition with less than four competitors or teams (ie, when all participants receive a medal) is not an indicator of presumed notability
2. Winning a medal as part of a team is not an indicator of presumed notability

04:16, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Low participation competitions

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

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Should NOLYMPICS be clarified to state that winning a medal in a competition with less than four competitors or teams is not an indicator of presumed notability?

Survey

Please place !votes here

• Support. If everyone receives a medal, then it is a participation award, not an indicator of success or the coverage required for notability that often comes with success. BilledMammal (talk) 04:16, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support The recently discussed Rugby union at the 1908 Summer Olympics is a prime example. There were only two teams and Britain was represented by the Cornish county side who had won the previous season's 1907–08 Rugby Union County Championship. In this instance too there was only 1 silver medal so from a pedantic point of view, only 1 of the 15 Cornish players actually got a medal. The idea that playing in this game represents the pinnacle of sporting achievement is clearly nonsense. Nigej (talk) 06:12, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Olympics games are highly recognized games in the world with the number of participants are participated. Fade258 (talk) 06:16, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support as common sense. GiantSnowman 14:14, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support. This should be obvious. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 15:37, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Such medalists may still be notable under GNG, but a presumption of such seems unwise. Cbl62 (talk) 16:08, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support - no idea what the numbers look like for this situation (so not sure the impact is worth making the guideline longer) but makes sense to not presume notability here. Rikster2 (talk) 17:01, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support If you are going to win a medal by default, winning a medal is not a sign of notability at all. That we even have to say this is crazy. We also need to make it clearer that even if someone won a medal we still need to actually find examples of significant coverage to create an article, not just claim that they exist somewhere but we cannot access them. The burden needs to be put on people to find signficant coverage sources before they are allowed to create articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:54, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
• SNOW support - Obviously, notability should not be based on a participation award. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:42, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support - The whole point of using medals as a mark of notability is to employ their function as awards handed out to remarkable individuals and teams. When medals don't work that way, but more like a certificate of participation, they can't be solely relied upon to establish a subject's notability. PraiseVivec (talk) 10:47, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support As long as it is explicit that participation in events with four or more competitors is not enough for presumption of notability (i.e. that coming fourth of ten =/= necessary notable). If that is not explicit, then we are creating a scenario where the achievement of only representing your nation at the Olympics (which is a fairly notable achievement, at least now) can be assumed to be notable, and winning a medal in a high-participation event is obviously notable, but getting a medal in a low-participation event explicitly is not assumed to be notable, even though the achievement is equal (bronze) or greater (gold) than just competing. Perhaps there could also be some exception on winning gold: you still had to come first, even if only against one competitor. Kingsif (talk) 11:56, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support per above. MER-C 14:59, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support -- too many instances of this in early Olympics, and our policy needs to account for that. Alyo (chat·edits) 18:16, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

Please place general comments here

• I am curious how many instances of this exist - anyone know? Rikster2 (talk) 22:51, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

  @Rikster2: Cricket and Football at the 1900 Summer Olympics are prime examples. Football at the 1904 Summer Olympics shows this wasn't limited to one year only. It is likely that most examples are from early on, but I wouldn't be surprised if this also maybe touched some events of the 1980 Summer Olympics (due to the boycott of the games that year). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:11, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, it was an honest question. Rikster2 (talk) 00:14, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

• I am reading a book on Amateurism in the Olympics, and that book says that the medals were not given out until the 1904 Olympics. A lot of pre-World War I informaiton on Olympics is later re-writers to try and make them look like more noted and international competitions they really were to create a mythos that the Olympics sprung fully forned out of the head of a Frenchman in 1896, sort of like how Athena sprung fully formed out of the head of Zeus. We need to hold every article to passing GNG on its own. At least in the 1920s and 1930s it does not seem that we regularly get GNG level coverage even on medalists, so I am beginning to question if the presumption of medalist notability makes any sense at all.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:58, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

I think it is time to SNOW-close this. BilledMammal (talk) 10:51, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

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

Team competitions

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

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Should NOLYMPICS be clarified to state that winning a medal as part of a team with more than two members is not an indicator of presumed notability? Note that this would not apply to relay events in athletics and swimming, or team gymnastics after 1952.

Survey

Please place !votes here

• Support. Team sports differ from individual sports in that the coverage is often focused on the team, not the individuals, and so winning a team event is not an effective indicator of notability. BilledMammal (talk) 04:16, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support per above. Generally for team events, Olympic coverage is focused around the team. While individual members can get some coverage, this is rarely at an in-depth level. Also the argument that they must have been notable to get into a team that won a medal, is much weaker for team events than for individual/pairs events. Nigej (talk) 07:12, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose unless refined. I generally like this concept, but it needs some refinement. It makes no sense to presume notability for every member of teams (including backup players) in field hockey, volleyball, football, softball, hockey, etc. But there are exceptions. For example, medaling in the team gymnastics competition likely warrants a presumption of notability for all five or six team members. Also, does this proposal cover relay races such as the 4x100 track relay or 4x100 swimming medley relay? Those are glamour events where winning a medal would likely warrant the presumption of notability. If we could refine this a bit, I'd be a supporter. Cbl62 (talk) 14:08, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Discussion of which teams to continue to presume notability

In more recent years I would agree, but for the majority of the Olympics I don't believe that has been the case - I note Gymnastics in particular has had more than six members in the past, with the most being forty (Gymnastics at the 1908 Summer Olympics – Men's team, Gymnastics at the 1948 Summer Olympics – Women's artistic team all-around, Gymnastics at the 1912 Summer Olympics – Men's team, Gymnastics at the 1928 Summer Olympics – Women's artistic team all-around, for example) BilledMammal (talk) 14:16, 20 February 2022 (UTC) Artistic gymnastics is a different animal. I was referring to the team gymnastics events which draws massive attention (use a 1920 start date if that helps). And what about the major relay events in track and swimming??? This needs to be thought through more carefully. I think you will find broad support if it is appropriately tailored but I can't support it if it strips the presumption of notability from athletes who won medals in major events like the 4x100 sprint. Cbl62 (talk) 14:26, 20 February 2022 (UTC) 1920 for the team gymnastics isn't much better; 78 medallists. Given how many medals were award for team gymnastics in the early years a significant percentage of medalling gymnasts won't be notable (In the four Olympics between 1904 and 1920, 248 gymnasts won medals in the standard team event alone - in 1912 and 1920 there were two more team events, free system and Swedish system, that granted approximately 200 medals, though I am not certain how much overlap there was). However, regarding the relay events in Athletics and Swimming, I think you are right; adjusted. BilledMammal (talk) 14:35, 20 February 2022 (UTC) It looks like the team competition in gymnastics has been at six participants for each medaling squad since 1956. That may be the right cutoff date. Does it make sense to restart this with appropriate carve-outs for team gymnastics post-1956, track and swimming relays, etc.? Cbl62 (talk) 15:26, 20 February 2022 (UTC) @Cbl62: I've added the 1956 date for gymnastics; I don't believe this needs a restart, though I've hatted this discussion; if you are convinced restart is required, feel free to expand the hat to the entire survey, and if you disagree with the hat of this discussion please remove it. BilledMammal (talk) 15:32, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose as drafted, needs far more careful consideration and crafting. GiantSnowman 14:15, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per the above. Also without the individuals in the team, the team would not be able to compete, and therefore unable to win. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 14:36, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support. In general, team members should not be granted the presumption of notability. Any concerns with specific sports, such as those identified above, are not relevant to the general Olympic guideline and can be easily addressed by amendments/additions to the relevant sport specific guidelines; there is no need for exceptions to be listed in the general guideline. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 15:37, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support with the clarification regarding relay events (track/swimming) and gymnastics. Cbl62 (talk) 16:10, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - the wording is too clumsy I'm afraid. Too many caveats or exclusions. I can see the general idea, but there's rather too much "except for..." stuff here. Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:20, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
  • As long as the wording that goes into the guideline matches the details of the proposal, there is no reason we need need to use my clumsy wording - and while there are benefits to a simple proposal, it seems that a few exclusions are needed to make a consensus likely. BilledMammal (talk) 16:25, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
    • I think part of the problem is the way in which the exclusions seem to be culturally specific. For example, Norwegians in team biathlon events or Germans in bobsleighs are both likely to generate more than enough coverage to suggest notability. The same is probably true of Canadian curlers, whereas I'm much less certain what we'd find for the Finnish 4x200m freestyle relay team from 1960, for example. It seems like we're just saying athletics and swimming because we think they're important. Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:36, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
      • As part of agreeing to Cbl62's request, I reviewed our articles on those who won medals in relay events in athletics and swimming, and found that even when we consider the earliest Olympics almost all medallists are already demonstrated to meet WP:GNG, regardless of country - based on that, it appears likely that the rest are also notable. I also note that this exception would only applies to medallists; Finland's 4x200m freestyle team in the 1960 Olympics won't receive presumed notability, because they didn't medal. BilledMammal (talk) 16:54, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - but I could maybe be convinced if some actual data were presented. The Olympic guideline has already been scaled back immensely. Rikster2 (talk) 16:32, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

  Since I think one of the original NPORTS subproposals were improperly closed I am going to be even more specific in my objections to this for the benefit of the closer. We had a very well attended RFC for WP:NOLYMPICS in October that cut that guideline from all competitors being presumed notable to just medalists, which probably reduced the guideline by 80%. There have been zero (ZERO) facts or data presented that show team competitors should be treated differently than the new general guidance, or if they should be where that bar should be distinct from other competitors. I would like to ensure that the closer does not take an action based on the "gut feelings" of a few folks being presented as if they were facts. That would not be good or unbiased administration. Rikster2 (talk) 20:50, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

• Neutral, open to more refined criteria While this should probably be done for the larger team sports (those like football or rugby), it is more dubious for the smaller ones. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:47, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Data is needed to show whether most athletes who medal in a team sport do not receive significant coverage, rather than a blanket statement. --Enos733 (talk) 17:56, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

  On the contrary. We should be requiring data to support retention of team/squad members for all Olympic sports. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 20:40, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

  No, the editor is suggesting a further change to a guideline that was reduced by probably 70-80% only recently. It seems a fair request to see some data that shows this is a problem that actually needs to be solved with further caveats in what is a fairly simple and easy to follow guideline as it is. And we are not talking about all team members of all Olympic sports - we are talking about medalists Rikster2 (talk) 22:38, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose Oddly-specific exclusions will add to confusion. NemesisAT (talk) 20:35, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support in principle. Specific exclusions can be hammered out later. JoelleJay (talk) 00:22, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose this is an attempt at scope creep, the RFC on this had consensus that Olympic medallists are presumed notable, abd I see no evidence that in general, they are not (the only example given above is for some widely specific competition 100 years ago). Joseph2302 (talk) 02:07, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per NemesisAT. Too specific. We can look at athletes case-by-case if they meet the letter of the law but do not appear to have sufficient sources. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 02:08, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
• Note that I would support an alternative proposal to include a warning that "Winning a medal while participating in some Olympic team sports (such as football or rugby) is not as likely to be a trustworthy indicator of significant coverage as for others." This would get the message across that more caution is advised when dealing with such events (thus pleasing those who wish for the guidelines to be more true to fact), without formally disqualifying anybody (thus pleasing those who are afraid of a hypothetical mass-deletion). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:12, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
• Support In many cases team members are only a little subbed, and they will often get almost no coverage. Obviously if significant source coverage exists we will have an article, but too many of these people get no coverage. Also, in some team sports, especially before 1990, those in the Olympics got very little coverage and were not really considered to be at the top of the game. There is no general indication that being on a medaling team changes this situation from the general status of such team memebers.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:02, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose if something has that many caveats then it's not a very useful rule of thumb. It might make more sense if the limit on the number of members was raised. I can understand that for a team of 10 members individual members might not get much coverage, but I would expect members of a team of 3 to get much more. Hut 8.5 12:55, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose no evidence given that the newly developed rules are too lax and too many caveats to make a sensible rule from. Spike 'em (talk) 21:10, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose as per Spike 'em. A Simple Cricket Fan (talk) 04:18, 8 March 2022 (UTC) — A Simple Cricket Fan (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Discussion

Please place general comments here

• I think I need some clarification as to what a "team" is, before voting. Tennis doubles, rowing four, rowing eight? Also some team events are just individual events where the team score is the sum of the individual competitors' scores, while others are genuine team events. Nigej (talk) 06:22, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

  Updated; most dual events should not be considered as team for the purpose of this question. I've left events that sum individual competitors' scores in, as they normally share the same issues as the other team sports. BilledMammal (talk) 07:04, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

• Adjusted per Cbl62; pinging all !voters so far: @Nigej, Cbl62, GiantSnowman, and Lugnuts:. BilledMammal (talk) 15:05, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

• I think it may be worth increasing the 3 to 10, say. There may be more consensus at that level and it would cover the gymnast teams noted above, for instance, and the team sports (I assume were talking about a squad size rather than players on the pitch). I know that this covers a lot less athletes than the current proposal but given how much NOLY has been tightened already I think a combination of the two proposals would provide useful clarity. An alternative would be to restrict this proposal it to silver+bronze only. Nigej (talk) 15:19, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

• I think there isn't much point at that level; it wouldn't even cover the tug of war teams. I think this level should be able to find a consensus, with the two exclusions provided for the relay events. BilledMammal (talk) 15:24, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

• In the 2020 Olympics it would cover Baseball, Basketball, Field hockey, Football, Handball, team Judo, Rugby sevens, Softball, Volleyball and Water polo (assuming were talking squad sizes) which I think is a fair chunk of medal winners. Nigej (talk) 15:41, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

• I feel like this really needs to be considered further before it’s implemented. I focus mainly on a team sport that competes in the Olympics (basketball). I come from a country that has medaled in the sport every competition except 1980. I’ve done pretty extensive work on US Olympic articles and what I have found is that every one of those athletes very clearly meets the GNG bar, including the 1936 team that came before a national professional league existed (helps that at least two books have been written about that team in addition to significant chapters in at least one other). The teams that medal in the sport are generally the ones where it is popular so those players either get coverage for the Olympics itself or their amateur and/or professional careers. I’d be particularly surprised if medalists from the 1970s or later don’t meet the GNG threshold. These players typically come from the top club teams in their regions (or in the case of North American athletes, college). Not saying (for example) water polo players necessarily get that same coverage, just giving my perspective and why I am skeptical of this proposal unless it is specifically tested. In fact, if this were inserted into WP:NOLYMPIC, I feel like I’d have to push to add an Olympic medalist criteria into WP:NBASKETBALL - even though I generally think the sports should be subservient to the Olympic guideline. Rikster2 (talk) 17:11, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• I would also point out that if the Olympic guideline is changed to remove medalists from teams that the proposal about removing the Olympics from the sport-specific guidelines must be revisited. I know my input was made assuming the current Olympics guideline and assume most others’ input is the same. This sub proposal would change the assumptions Rikster2 (talk) 18:13, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

  Wouldn't the vast majority of Olympic medalling basketball players meet NBASKETBALL individually without needing to meet NOLY anyway? And in the countries where club basketball is not as popular it's reasonable not to presume GNG exists for each Olympic player. So this wouldn't really change anything for athletes from either group, other than I guess the pre-pro league US players who would now need to show GNG is met if they don't meet any other NSPORT criterion -- which seems pretty easy to work with. JoelleJay (talk) 00:37, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

• They would. But I would like to see a compelling argument why team sportspeople who win medals should have a different standard than individual medalists. So far, none has been put forth. Why the carve-out - is there data that shows this is an issue that would lead us to going a different direction than the overall WP:NOLYMPICS guideline? If not, keep it simple and don’t add a bunch of caveats. But I would say, countries where club basketball is not as popular generally don’t medal. That’s the point. The countries that medal in team sports tend to support those sports. That’s why their top athletes play them. Rikster2 (talk) 01:15, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

• Why 2 or 4 team members? What about sports like rowing where there are singles, pairs and doubles, quads and fours, and eights? Would you include all medalists but the last, which is generally seen as the blue riband event? Spike 'em (talk) 21:04, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
  • If there is a consensus against this, it might be appropriate to go sport-by-sport. In particular, gymnastics needs to be removed due to the situation in the early years. BilledMammal (talk) 00:50, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

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

General Discussion

• I feel that any changes to NSPORT should wait until the conclusion of the larger discussion of the guideline. I still do not understand the overall push that will lead to the deletion of many biographies of athletes WP:NOTPAPER. As a volunteer project, the editors lead the way in its development, and while there are reasons to make sure that what is written is verifiable, we should start with the presumption that an Olympic medal is a "well-known and significant award or honor" (see WP:ANYBIO). --Enos733 (talk) 18:05, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

• It would probably be wise for User:BilledMammal to stop making new recommendations and let some things get resolved. It is contributing to a WP:TRAINWRECK Rikster2 (talk) 18:19, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• There won't be a mass deletion, that's missing the point. What we're trying to get to is a definition of notability in the sports area that will discourage (or at least, not encourage) the creation of new articles for non-notable people. Nigej (talk) 20:42, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

• Clearly there will not be mass deletions. In October we decided non-medalists were at the Olympics were not notable, no one even tried to create an Olympic participant AfD until late December, and even though there are probably in excess of 150,000 articles in Wikipedia on Olympians who did not medal, some of whom do pass other notability guidelines but a very large number of them do not, I suspect we currently have less than 20 deletion discussions on Olympic competitors, maybe even less than 10. I can pretty much at random find hundreds if not thousands of those articles sourced only to the sportsreference.com database. For the 1936 Egyptian men's basketball team I figured out that 6 of the 7 articles were all created by the same user, and creating those 6 articles took a total of 10 minutes combined. Nor is there much evidence those articles have been improved since. Nor is that an isolated incident.John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:18, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Mass destruction of SNGs

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

---

Why is BilledMammal destroying NSPORT?? Govvy (talk) 08:38, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Not destroying, implementing consensus per Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability #3. BilledMammal (talk) 08:40, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

So, I read that top bit, but it says consensus, but the writing has no precision, it has three spelling mistakes. My reading into that is that it is suggestive, however what you're doing is not helpful what so ever. To abolish those SNGs fails to cover what is an acceptable in allowing stub articles of each subject. This is no improvement, this is going backwards. With no SNGs variants, it's going to just end up as a shit show of what notability is. Clearly no thought has gone into this. Govvy (talk) 08:51, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I take it you don't care for SNGs, I might have to retire from editing wikipedia all-together, I needed those SNGs, I am not sure I can be of help now. Govvy (talk) 09:05, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

As noted in the close of the RFC, (pending interested contributors formulating acceptable replacements for the removed participation-based criteria) the replacement guideline for determining suitability for an article is GNG – which ultimately needed to be met previously anyway. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 10:35, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Oh for pity's sake. Are you incapable of using the GNG? (For which I'd call bullshit in any event, seeing as you created a couple dozen articles before NSPORTS was implemented.) Or are you expecting us to swallow that you're incapable of editing Wikipedia if this means of new article creation is lost to you? (For which I'd also call bullshit, seeing as you've created fewer than fifty new articles in four and a half years, a timeframe in which you've made over -- wait for it -- sixteen thousand edits.)

The simple fact is that Wikipedia's policies and guidelines have shifted quite a few times over the years, sometimes dramatically. People incapable of accepting that sometimes they're going to be on the losing side of consensus, and that in consequence they need to lose gracefully and soldier on, are poor fits for this encyclopedia. Now you're the best judge of what your time's worth. If you are unable to accept these changes, then good fortune in your next endeavors. Ravenswing 23:21, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Well done, @Ravenswing: that's one of the nastiest premature grave dances Ive seen. Atlantic306 (talk) 23:59, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

No idea whether it's a grave dance, premature or not; I'm no more a soothsayer than the next editor. But if you're suggesting that I have no use for hyperbole-choked wailing about How! Wikipedia! Will! Be! Destroyed!, combined with threats of ragequitting, because not every editor finds value in two-sentence sub-stubs? You'd be dead on there. Ravenswing 01:56, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

• Whether fortunately or unfortunately, subproposal 3 passed -- eliminating participation-based parts of NSPORTS. This means the complete repeal of NGRIDIRON and NFOOTY, among others. It is now incumbent on sports editors to come up with tighter standards and seek consensus for those tighter standards. Cbl62 (talk) 10:16, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

This is a complete clusterfuck. Removing the appearance-based ones without considering what will replace them has left so many anomalies and random fragments of explanations of now missing guidelines. I can't see how this is determined to be consensus either, it seems a no-consensus and hence should not have led to removal of the SNGs.Spike 'em (talk) 18:32, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Over time it became clear what a problem huge numbers of single-sentence database scrape microstub "biographies" had become. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of them. As the scale of the problem became more evident these articles started routinely being taken to AfD and getting deleted or merged/redirected to lists. It was necessary and inevitable that our guidelines change to reflect these changes in our procedures. As pointed out by Cbl62 it is now up to the various sports wikiprojects to come up with SNGs more balanced than the previous "everything is notable" bilge. Reyk _YO! 23:41, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

While I agree that the participation-based guidelines were too lax and have resulted in too many one-line articles with no hope of expansion, the changes made by BilledMammal to this page are mindless and destructive. Some sports have had their guidelines deleted entirely, others have been left in a nonsensical and unusable state. For example, it appears that the only rugby union players deemed notable are ones who have played at the women's World Cup. I have appealed to the rugby union Wikiproject to come up with some guidance for editors on how to apply GNG specifically to rugby players and coaches, what kind of sources can and can't be used to establish notability etc, but it can't be left as it currently stands. --Nicknack009 (talk) 13:20, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I would like to point out here that, in spite of all the RfC noise to the contrary, WP:NBASIC (not the GNG) is the relevant guideline to apply here. These sports figures are, after all, people. There isn't any policy-compliant way to apply the GNG to people: NBASIC takes its place. Newimpartial (talk) 13:29, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I'll note that if the replacement is suitable, I will support it. My goal is to make NSPORT a reliable predictor of notability, and while the current situation is a significant improvement over the previous situation, it needs further improvements, both in terms of tightening criteria that was untouched by #3, and by adding criteria to replace the criteria removed by #3. BilledMammal (talk) 13:36, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Some of them should be reasonably uncontroversial e.g. men at the Rugby World Cup who meet the same criteria as the women listed (and were simply dropped because they used "participate" rather than "finished in top 4"- when replacing with "finished in top 4" would have been a much more sensible change over removing it outright). Joseph2302 (talk) 13:39, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I just did something very similar - See discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rugby union#Player notability guidelines deleted. BilledMammal (talk) 13:52, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

And the upshot isn't, as some editors are obviously doing, to tear at their hair and bay at the moon in anguish. The answer is for editors in the affected projects to get off their backsides and get to work making new criteria, if they just cannot stand the concept of creating new articles for sportspeople solely on the GNG. Because seriously, Nicknack009 -- why would you possibly need "guidance" on how to apply the GNG to rugby figures, as opposed to doing so for any other biographical article on Wikipedia? Can you demonstrate that the player has received significant coverage in multiple reliable, independent, third-party sources? Then there you go.

Basically, people need to get a grip. BilledMammal is not a malign destructive natural disaster that just sprang up out of nowhere. Many hundreds of editors have been pissed off for a long time now about the excesses of sports bios, and the response of the rejectionists chasing Game High Score through two-sentence sub-stubs off of databases has been to collectively flip them the bird, instead of addressing their entirely legitimate concerns. We should have all seen this was coming, we should have all made shift to tighten the criteria well before now, and we frankly should have all been in agreement with the premise that a full one-seventh of important humans throughout the span of recorded history have been soccer players is an absurd travesty. Ravenswing 15:55, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

User:Ravenswing: "why would you possibly need "guidance" on how to apply the GNG to rugby figures"? Seriously? The whole reason this discussion is happening is editors don't know how to apply the guidelines and keep making articles for people who aren't notable. The more guidance we can give people, the better, surely? --Nicknack009 (talk) 16:21, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes. Seriously. Because someone who can't figure out how to apply the GNG to rugby figures should not be involved in article creation at all. They should be over at the Teahouse or on any of the other efforts on Wikipedia which teach basic editing skills. Or, heck, if the rugby project editors want to take teaching Basic Wikipedia 101 on as well, blessings be upon them. Ravenswing 16:31, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I have no interest in the NSPORTS SNGs in particular, but Wikipedia 101 would start with the fact that it is WP:NBASIC, not the WP:GNG, that applies to biographical subjects. Newimpartial (talk) 16:54, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

NBASIC and GNG are the same thing. Levivich 17:01, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

No, they're not. As one example, the the requirements that the sources be intellectually independent of each other and independent of the subject are specified differently (more precisely, for biographical subjects) in NBASIC than in the GNG. Newimpartial (talk) 17:16, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

My thanks to the editors who are implementing the RFC result. Levivich 17:01, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately it appears to be dominated by editors who (a) think the purpose of rules is to enforce obedience to rules, rather than achieve an objective (which in the case of an encyclopedia, is to be informative), and (b) don't understand sport. --Nicknack009 (talk) 17:08, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

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

Rewriting the lead

Per the close of Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability #8, there is a consensus to rewrite the lead to make it clearer; we need to work out how to do this. The specific instructions are as follows:

With that said, editors are generally in favor of rewriting to make the lead clearer. The second part of the proposal complements that and has a clearer consensus. The purpose of a SNG is to give editors guidance on when significant coverage is likely to exist, and clarifying that requirement in the prose will help avoid misuse at AFD (a major concern brought up in the main discussion).

BilledMammal (talk) 08:52, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

That isn't the purpose of an SNG at all, the purpose of SNGs is to provide an alternative to WP:GNG as laid out at WP:N: A topic is presumed to merit an article if: It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG) listed in the box on the right; (emphasis mine). NemesisAT (talk) 10:45, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

And per this very article, The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below. The closer is clearly mistaken. NemesisAT (talk) 11:36, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Per WP:N: The subject-specific notability guidelines generally include verifiable criteria about a topic which show that appropriate sourcing likely exists for that topic. Therefore, topics which pass an SNG are presumed to merit an article, though articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted or merged into another article, especially if adequate sourcing or significant coverage cannot be found, or if the topic is not suitable for an encyclopedia. BilledMammal (talk) 11:43, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, per that quote, my statement still stands and they're equal to WP:GNG. "Keep, meets GNG" is a frequently used and respected argument in an AfD and thus "Keep per SNG" ought to be too. NemesisAT (talk) 13:59, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

But it isn't in the case of NSPORT. Community consensus has reaffirmed that many times over, and again at this RFC. Rehashing that argument is not going to help in moving this discussion forward, so please don't persist. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 15:28, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

The close also says:

To the extent that the first part of this proposal would create a requirement that a sports biography meet the GNG (i.e., must), there is no consensus.

—Bagumba (talk) 06:44, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

• Any rewrite should focus on the following important clarification from the closer (found here):

At the top of WP:NSPORTS as of March 6, in bold letters, the guideline said "The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below" (emphasis original). The word "or" means that either the first, second, or both criteria may be met. Editors may wish that it said "and", some even argued the equivalent of that, but the guideline is clear that meeting an NSPORTS criterion and not the GNG is sufficient. Later, under the heading "Applicable policies and guidelines", NSPORTS says "the subjects of standalone articles should meet the General Notability Guideline". This line was brought up by a supporter which is why I referenced it. Like "or", the word "should" has a meaning. The proposal used "must" which is not the same word and has a different meaning. The supporters arguments claimed to be the correct interpretation, but the interpretation is not consistent with the wording of the guideline. The next question is whether there is sufficient support for it to change the guideline to reflect the obligation ("must") as outlined in the proposal. Obviously not. Supporters generally failed to convince other editors that their interpretation is correct or desirable, with roughly half disagreeing based on the actual guideline. In general, your objections here suffer from the same problem that support arguments had. You may believe this is how NSPORT operates already, and you may have explanations for why "or" and "should" don't have their usual meanings here, but after two months nearly half of participants disagreed with you (your numbers only work if I but your interpretation of the guideline). That's not a consensus, and even if there were a rough consensus it wouldn't be strong enough to make a binding, policy-like requirement. I believe my close for that proposal was an adequate summary of that conflict and the ultimate outcome was no consensus.

Cbl62 (talk) 12:25, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I think that rather than fighting a dogged rearguard on changes to NSPORT (wasn't a supermajority-style consensus, don't like it, let's cling to the parts of the wording we each like best, etc), it'd ultimately be better to reconstruct a version of the 'presumption of notability' that works operationally differently from either "you have until the end of this AfD, get cracking" on the one hand, or "should doesn't mean must, therefore it means languish forever". Maybe that looks like a grace period; maybe it looks like notability-tagging; maybe it looks like draftification. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 19:38, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Personally I'd like to see clarity it two areas. Firstly: What is the purpose of NSPORT? I used to think that's its purpose was to enable people without a detailed knowledge of the subject to assess whether an article that had been created was likely to be notable or not. However, it has more recently taken on another role, of defining a list of articles that can (or perhaps "should") be created. Personally I'm not averse to this second use, but perhaps it needs spelling out. The second item is the sentence "If the article does meet the criteria set forth below, then it is likely that sufficient sources exist to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." I think there's been a consensus in recent discussions that this has actually not been the case. It should have been true if the criteria were well defined but they haven't been. So I'd like to see a more theoretical sentence like "The intension of the criteria set forth below, is that if an article passes these criteria, then it is likely that sufficient sources exist for an article. However creators of articles should still make substantial efforts to find such sources before creating articles." Nigej (talk) 20:06, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Frankly, something good can come from the close. The removal of the parts of NSPORTS that were the most bloated with low-level leagues will likely force participants in those projects to come up with more realistic guidelines that are truer predictors of GNG compliance. If we accomplish that, it's a good thing, but we should at the same time restore the presumption of notability. The language in the closure regarding sub-proposal 8 that has led to the striking of the presumption of notability is IMO completely unwarranted and unsupported by consensus. Cbl62 (talk) 20:37, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Personally I don't find the term "presumed" that useful. Presumed - "suppose that something is the case on the basis of probability" seems to me to be pretty much the same as "very likely". However, the fundamental point is that if the criteria are reasonably well defined then no one's going to worry about a few cases at the margins. The problem has been that some criteria were so loose that tens of thousands of articles were created for non-notable people on the basis of criteria here. Nigej (talk) 20:53, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I would rather focus on the value and purpose of the SNG rather than get quickly lost in the details. I believe the question should be "which sets" (if any) does our community think ought to be complete (recognizing that this is a global project)? And secondly, if a set is worthy to be complete, are there significant sources to justify all people within the set (recognizing there will be people at the margins)? It is my believe that the SNGs help editors decide when an article could be created and (to a lesser extent) when an article could be brought to AFD. I think it is better to have clear(er) lines than spend energy at AFD trying to determine whether the coverage of a subject is sufficient. Enos733 (talk) 21:23, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I think there's consensus for that approach. Clearly the lead is not going to go into the detail of which "sets" "ought" to be complete and if the criteria are well-defined then no one's going to have an issue with them. However, one issue for me is that the lead currently says that the criteria ARE well-defined ("If the article does meet the criteria set forth below, then it is likely that sufficient sources exist to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article.") when consensus is that that's not been the case. Nigej (talk) 21:33, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Nigej that it had not been the case, but with the problematic guidelines having been removed, we can hopefully now rebuild those guidelines in a way that more closely predicts GNG compliance. Cbl62 (talk) 21:55, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

The statement describes the original intent for the criteria to be predictors of suitable coverage satisfying the general notability guideline. The key question is whether or not there continues to be consensus support for using criteria based on their predictive value (and thus any inadequate criteria should be dropped), or if there is consensus for a different approach, such as an achievement-based standard. An achievement-based standard is typically easier to check, but as it is unmoored from the existence of suitable sources upon which a biography can be based, I suspect there will be many who push for a relatively high standard. This could be an issue if editors also prefer that the achievement-based standard set a minimum standard for a sports figure having an article. (My instinctive feeling is that consensus would still consider the general notability guideline applicable for sports figures, but I'm not certain.) isaacl (talk) 22:08, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

The challenge with an achievement-based standard (which I am thinking is like winning the US Open or becoming an All-Star or Hall of Famer), is that those individuals are far from the margin of who the community considers notable (and would pass GNG without a second look). What the SNG can do is help provide advice on the marginal subjects (in both directions). The real question is how should we advise editors about someone like John Christensen (baseball) or someone like La Schelle Tarver? Enos733 (talk) 22:29, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

More broadly speaking, an achievement-based standard is a criterion of "has done X", where X could be something like "has made at least Y plate appearances with a minimum on-base percentage of Z or a minimum slugging percentage of W". To my mind, it's in essence the same idea as saying everyone in a given set meets the standard of having an article. I agree with you, though, that it's likely that a general consensus on achievement-based standards would set them quite high and thus be of limited value. At present, I still think a predictor approach is a better match for what the English Wikipedia community can agree upon. (It's different than, say, the guidelines for academics, as there is generally a lot of available suitable coverage for sports figures.) I think there is a possible way forward with the idea that some have proposed of having lists of sports figures that meet a certain lower standard (though I'm not sure about how to manage the logistics). isaacl (talk) 23:45, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

A question I have with moving toward a statistical-based achievement criteria is that there is no logical connection between the statistical achievement and the subject receiving reliable, independent, published coverage (WP:Source). What I appreciated about the participation criteria was that it was a nice clear line. The problem with the criteria was that athletes in some leagues may not actually have coverage. I think the adoption of proposal 5, by itself, would solve many of the problems (as would have been a closer look at which leagues a presumption of coverage does exist). Enos733 (talk) 01:13, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, regarding a lack of connection, that's exactly what I said. I appreciate that some editors aren't bothered by this, as they think covering everyone who has done X should be the goal. My instinct, though, is that the overall community still holds a consensus view that the general notability guideline must be met for sports figures. isaacl (talk) 05:15, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Exactly, Nigej. The 'presumption' was (and is, in the lead-section wording that remains) so vague as to cause or allow wildly divergent interpretations. Until we bell the cat of "OK, we presumed them notable (but they 'should' have non-trivial sources), so now what?" we're in danger of endlessly re-fighting over effectively the same small area between the entrenched positions of "so good enough indefinitely", "so where are these 'likely' sources, then?". I know people die a little inside when they hear "it's going to need some sort of additional process", but... 109.255.211.6 (talk) 03:51, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Personally I don't find the term 'presumed' that useful: FWIW, presumed reflects the same wording at Wikipedia:Notability itself:

A topic is presumed to merit an article if: It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG) listed in the box on the right...

Also WP:GNG:

A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.

—Bagumba (talk) 06:09, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Those usages of "presumed" are also not helpful to me. I suppose they mean "highly likely" but still could be challenged via AfD. Personally I'm no fan of GNG - too vague for my liking. For NSPORT I'd prefer a different style of definition, otherwise we're no further forward. Probably I'd be happy going along the lines of saying someone who passes NSPORT can have an article (without having to strictly pass GNG) as long as we had a much better system by which the actual criteria could be challenged. Currently once a criteria is in place it has proved to be exceptionally difficult to get it changed. Perhaps we need a system whereby those wanting to keep a criteria need to justify it, rather than the other way round (which seems to be the current system), although I'm not sure how practical that would be. Nigej (talk) 06:48, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure if presumed at WP:N and WP:GNG refers to:

This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article.

Or is presumed because of other occasional WP:IAR exceptions.—Bagumba (talk) 07:13, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps it's related to the "stand-alone" aspect, which wouldn't be relevant at NSPORT. It would be better if the wording was clearer. I don't think the IAR is relevant because even if we say something is black-and-white, the IAR could overrule it. It seems to me that NSPORT could simply say "A sports competitor passes NSPORT if they satisfy the criteria below." The "buck" then passes from arguing about whether someone passes NSPORT to arguing about whether the criteria are fit-for-purpose. Nigej (talk) 07:52, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I think new criteria will undergo a great deal of scrutiny now, so they will have to have strong justification. The key question is how should proposed criteria be evaluated, and what can gain consensus approval? Criteria that are linked to sources have had a lot of support, since sports figures have a lot of suitable coverage, and because there is a general consensus that Wikipedia biographies should be more that stats tables (though a sporting career biography could be written for some players in some sports based on routine coverage). There are some who would like a much higher standard (on a "had a historical impact" level), but I don't think that has consensus support. Some standard that aimed at capping the number of biographies to a certain percentage of high-level competitive athletes in a given sport would directly address the concern of some editors that sports figures have too large a percentage of all English Wikipedia biographies. This would probably work better for individual sports, or for some team sports where teams are not solely competing within fixed league schedules. For league sports, although it does have historical inequities, perhaps the simplest compromise is to do the groundwork on a stricter participation criterion, and demonstrate that (insert some high percentage here) of players who have competed in league W with X appearances during years Y to Z, for example, are sufficiently significant to have an individual article. isaacl (talk) 16:34, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

In my understanding, "presumed" is not related to whether or not the subject in question is better covered within another article—that's an editorial judgement issue, as per the sentences immediately following the one you quoted. (It's more common to come into play for non-biographies, but it could be a factor for relatives of other (real-world) notable people.) It's accommodating for the fact that each individual case can still be discussed and evaluated on the basis of consensus. isaacl (talk) 16:44, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

@Wugapodes: needs to propose some wording. Those who have been heavily involved in the discussion should not be editing. GiantSnowman 19:57, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman: As you surely must know, it usually is not a duty of the RfC closer (nor would it make sense for it to be, as then closers would be very much discouraged from attempting to bring an end to any hotly contested discussion) to have to implement the results, at least not in cases where the outcome is more complex than adding or removing a simple sentence. If there was not a specific proposed new lead, but there was a consensus to rewrite a portion of it, then one should try to figure out a new version which is consistent with that consensus - this might be solvable through the usual method of collaborative, incremental editing, or it might need a more thorough discussion here, but I don't think that we should be forcing the closer (who, presumably, was someone who did not participate in the discussion until now and certainly didn't nor was expected to read through all of the finer nuances and the little print of what has transpired) to implement this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:30, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Participation

@Cbl62: I think Have served as a commissioner, president, general manager, owner, coach, or manager in Major League Baseball and Served as a full-time (as opposed to interim) head coach for NCAA Division I/University Division football (since the establishment of divisions in 1957), men’s basketball (since 1957) or women’s basketball (since 1982). Other college coaches in other divisions and/or other sports may also meet notability guidelines via WP:GNG are participation; how they participate is different from a goalkeeper or a quarterback, but it is still participation rather than a more specific criteria. Compare to A coach or choreographer who has worked with many notable skaters, including at least one Olympic medalist or senior World Champion (for example, Pam Gregory and David Wilson) which is not participation. BilledMammal (talk) 00:50, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Proposal #3 was directed specifically about athletes (and specifically described in the close). I would suggest a new discussion is warranted if the proposal was to expand to include other subjects. Enos733 (talk) 01:01, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

The proposal appears to be more general, but you are correct that the close appears to be focused on athletes. I will ask the closer for clarification. BilledMammal (talk) 01:09, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

And aside from what Enos said, commissioners in baseball serve for multiple years. This is not like athletes where there a player who played for a game or two. The same is likewise true with managers who are not generally given that role for short "cups of coffee". Interim managers would be different, of course. Cbl62 (talk) 02:36, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

There are a total of 10 people who have held the title of Commissioner of Baseball. Generally very long terms. All clearly notable. Cbl62 (talk) 02:39, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree, although given how few there are I believe GNG is sufficient; when a new one is appointed they will easily receive enough coverage that no one will need to refer to NSPORT to decide whether an article is warranted. However, commissioners aren't the only participants covered by that line. BilledMammal (talk) 02:43, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Coaches/managers/presidents similarly are not appointed for a game or two. These categories are fundamentally different from the the one, two or handful of games of short-term participation that was the subject of the subproposal. Cbl62 (talk) 02:47, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree, there was no discussion on coaches and managers, so they shouldn't have been removed. Added them back for football managers, you'd need a separate consensus/RFC to remove them. Joseph2302 (talk) 09:08, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

On another note, I still see participation based criteria listed in Badminton, Figure Skating, and Mixed Martial Arts. Enos733 (talk) 06:43, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Fixed MMA. I believe figure skating and badminton need separate consensuses; there is currently a discussion underway for figure skating, and one needs to be opened for badminton. BilledMammal (talk) 06:46, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

We have an anomalous sentence at WP:NHOCKEY. "For coaches or managers of ice hockey teams, substitute "coached" or "managed" for "played" in the player guidelines." which makes no sense now. It either needs deleting or modifying to eg "Coached or managed a senior national team for the World Championship, in the highest pool the IIHF maintained in any given year (Note: coaching or managing in lower pools that do not actually contest for the World Champion title is not enough to satisfy inclusion requirements)." based on the now-deleted wording. Nigej (talk)

• Being a coach or a manager is not “participation,” it is a job that garners ongoing coverage, similar to a political officeholder and was NOT addressed in the RfC. The “participation” discussion was all about the whole one game thing Rikster2 (talk) 09:23, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Isn't being a goalkeeper or a quarterback also a job that (might) garner ongoing coverage? I don't see the difference between participation as a quarterback and participation as a coach. BilledMammal (talk) 09:32, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
    • No, it is not the same thing and you are letting your biases get in the way of clear judgment. Isn’t being a state legislator a “participation” that may not yield any meaningful results, yet it falls under the Politics SNG. Managers and coaches are hired for years and are typically focal points of the news, which is why for certain levels and sports they pretty much ALWAYS meet GNG, for which SNGs are meant to approximate. The entire RfC was keying in on one-game thresholds for various sports. You are overstepping the bounds of the RfC and probably should take a break. Rikster2 (talk) 09:50, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
      • The RFC was about NSPORT, not NPOL - although it looks like there will soon be an NPOL RFC. And while the SNG should approximate GNG, I'm not convinced it does for all the coaches supported by NSPORT. I'm not going to remove coaches again unless the closer clarifies their close to support such removal. BilledMammal (talk) 09:53, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
        • As someone who was involved with crafting the college coach SNG guideline, it came after many frivolous AfDs. We were careful to cap what was covered - only top division NCAA coaches in modern times (since 1957 at the earliest), only for sports that pretty much have their own media ecosystem they are so popular (football and basketball), and purposefully omitting interim coaches who may only coach a handful of games. Thousands of coaches even in those sports don’t meet that criteria. There is a huge difference between that and somebody who appears in one professional game. Rikster2 (talk) 09:58, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

      I suppose it depends on whether you think "competing" (which seems to me to be restricted to the players) is synonymous with "participating" (which might be construed to have a somewhat wider aspect). In discussions above the two have often been taken to have identical meanings, which does support your argument. Probably does need a further discussion. Nigej (talk) 10:00, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

• I've changed the NHOCKEY wording based on the now-deleted criteria. Nigej (talk) 10:22, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I get that there was a problem with a few sports having one-game player permastub factories. I don't think there's such an issue for coaches or executives, where there's no hiring carousel. Channel the energy.—Bagumba (talk) 09:39, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Removing all the participations means that some sports have no guidelines, whereas others have kept most of theirs. How do you expect team sports such as football, cricket, rugby which don't award loads of trophies to have an outcome-based notability guideline? Whereas e.g. triathlon can still keep most of it's assumed notability, because it has a named tournament that it can just have an easy "top 10" of. Makes no sense, as it's biased WP:NSPORTS towards individual-participation sports, rather than team-based sports which get way more coverage. Joseph2302 (talk) 11:54, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

• In particular, I have concerns about the restoration of notability of the participation of managers in WP:NFOOTY - while some of the other coach/manager criteria are more selective and I would support their restoration in a formal or informal discussion, that criteria is extremely broad and considers anyone who has managed a competitive game between two fully professional team to be notable. This covers hundreds of leagues and thousands of teams, and is not a reliable predictor of notability. BilledMammal (talk) 12:17, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
  • If you have an issue with WP:NFOOTY then focus on trying to address that specifically rather than trying to sneak blanket changes in that were never explicitly under the scope of the RfC. Frankly, focusing on the problem areas instead of generalizing would have been a better solution to the whole RfC. Editors were getting frustrated largely with about 3-4 sports with lax guidelines but the entire SNG was nuked because no one seemed to have the stomach to take on the real issues Rikster2 (talk) 12:35, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

    I disagree. For one thing its not just 3-4, its been many more than that: soccer, american football, baseball, basketball, cricket, rugby, volleyball, aussie rules, and "individual sports" too. The other point is that there have been many attempts to tighten individual sports and pretty much all have failed. The recent changes have only been achieved by discussing NSPORT as a whole. Nigej (talk) 12:50, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

    • • As a basketball editor mainly (though that far from my only interest in real life) I can say there would have been openness to paring down the 7-8 leagues that were in that guideline. But every person who has played in the NBA, for example, WOULD meet GNG (probably 90% of them before they play an NBA game if you want to be real - because of their college, other pro or in some cases high school careers). The question is where that bar is set, there are a finite number of leagues for which that is true. Footy had hundreds of leagues and many of us knew and had been saying that was WAY too many. And the majority of examples people brought up were footy, cricket, Olympics or some turn of the century baseball players Rikster2 (talk) 12:55, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
        • And of those, cricket already changed/tightened its notable matches list last year, and football was already working on the assumption that playing a couple of games but having no coverage wasn't enough to keep an articles (hundreds of footballers who met WP:NFOOTY but not WP:GNG have been deleted in the last year). Things needed slightly tightening, not smashed to oblivion in a way that can never be fixed (as team sports have lots of participations and not many events with trophies, so how the hell can we base a guideline on anything else)? Joseph2302 (talk) 12:59, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
          • Cricket changed its guidelines in a manner which did not really address or truly resolve the issue [the sentence has appeared as a player in at least one cricket match that is judged to have been played at the highest international or domestic level. was present before, and is the source of the issue, in that no, there are plenty of instances of players at the highest level - usually domestic, since international cricket was for a long time and still is mostly limited to only a handful of countries - not having significant coverage] (although they seem to be less dogmatic than other people and there are plenty of examples of articles which were deleted or redirected to a list due to failing GNG - something which some other sports projects seem entirely unable to contemplate). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:38, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

      @Nigej:Please point me to any discussions that you have seen where folks tried to narrow the WP:NBASKETBALL guideline and were stymied. It would have been unusual for me to have missed a discussion of that importance. I do know we have cut leagues from the standard and have said no to adding more leagues. Rikster2 (talk) 15:47, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

      My point was really related to the sports which have an excessively high number of biographies, and that includes Basketball, although it's certainly not the worst in this regards. My own issue is that sports competitors make up half of all biographies of living people, a ridiculous proportion. A large number of sports contribute to that, which is why I'm reluctant to accept that just a small number of sports as being responsible. Nigej (talk) 18:30, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

      But what you said was "there have been many attempts to tighten individual sports and pretty much all have failed." As someone active in a project that has legitimately tried to hold to a guideline that realistically approximates GNG, I want to know what those attempts were for that sport, because I know I would be open to these and I think the project could have been brought along on that. We had like 7 active leagues in our guideline. Meanwhile 80-90% of the problem was being driven from a few sports that had hundreds of leagues or basically said "anyone who made a living playing the sport for a day." It is irritating that the entire SSG was nuked instead of trying to address more systematically. Rikster2 (talk) 19:04, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

• This is a good illustration of why it was a bad idea to delete all these standards without replacement. This conversation should be about whether these people are likely to be notable, not about whether they have "participated". Frankly given that Major League Baseball is possibly the most prominent sports league in the world (it has the highest attendance and second highest revenue) it's hard to argue that people who've participated in it aren't likely to be notable. Hut 8.5 18:15, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  Since you clearly do not think there will be any problems in demonstrating notability per BASIC/GNG (which ultimately had to be done previously anyway), I'm not seeing what the issue is. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 18:32, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  Because the guideline isn't fulfilling its stated purpose of telling editors when subjects are likely to be notable. And the idea of getting rid of this guideline entirely and replacing it with the GNG has just failed to reach consensus. Hut 8.5 18:36, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  However the consensus is that the guideline didn't do that before. Nigej (talk) 18:42, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  And because the guideline hasn't been removed completely, interested parties can formulate new criteria to replace the basic participation criteria that were removed by consensus. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 18:47, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  The state of the guideline before doesn't mean this situation is OK, or even any better. I wonder what it would be like if this "logic" were applied outside Wikipedia. You take a car to a mechanic and tell them there's a problem with the tyres. The mechanic returns the car with all the wheels removed. "Well it wasn't working before, right? At least you can put some better wheels on it this time." Hut 8.5 18:53, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  It's more like someone going to the garage before the mechanic has finished and complaining that all the wheels have removed. No one in their right minds thinks we are at a satisfactory position but sometimes you have to a step backwards to make progress in the longer term. Nigej (talk) 18:58, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  We don't know if there is going to be any future progress on this. There might not be. "Yeah, we might put some more wheels on your car, if someone can find any which I think are good enough." "When's that going to happen?" "Dunno. Whenever we get around to it, I guess." "How do I get to work in the meantime?" "Take the bus." Hut 8.5 19:05, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  Or in our case "take the GNG" (see below) Nigej (talk) 19:09, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

As noted in the close, if you have a case where participation was the only SNG, then the available replacement/alternate is GNG, as it it for the zillion topics that don't even have a SNG. North8000 (talk) 18:22, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Rugby union guidelines

The current guidelines for rugby union are that a person is likely notable if they have played for, coached or administered "1.A national team that placed in the top three after 1980 at the Women's Rugby World Cup, the Rugby World Cup, the Olympic Games, or the Commonwealth Games." This is absurd, and clearly written by someone who doesn't know rugby. Are you seriously suggesting that someone who won bronze for Sevens at the Commonwealth games is more likely to be notable than someone who's played for the British and Irish Lions because they've got a medal? It's a joke. Better to have no guidelines at all, like you've done for other sports, than to leave this nonsense standing. --Nicknack009 (talk) 17:26, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

This isn't a forum to vent your frustration. If you think that a new guideline which is better indicative of meeting WP:SIGCOV could be written, then you should suggest such a guideline instead. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:33, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Wow, way to misunderstand my position. The point is, international Sevens, at the Olympics and elsewhere, is a junior competition, not the pinnacle of the sport, and anyone who understands rugby would know that. What has happened is the equivalent of me writing notability guidelines for, say, lacrosse, about which I know nothing, building in an arbitrary rule that says my guideline can't be challenged, and then condescending to people who actually follow the sport because they don't think the guideline I've written is suitable for it.

I actually started out sympathetic to the goal of reducing the prevalence of one-line articles about non-notable subjects. I hate fancruft, and Wikipedia is unfortunately full of it. But the determined, invincible ignorance and unwillingness to learn I've encountered from the editors making these changes has brought me round to thinking that rampant fancruft is the lesser of two evils. If articles about players who've made one substitute appearance in an actually significant competition is the price we have to pay for informative content in an encyclopedia, so be it. --Nicknack009 (talk) 18:46, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Your most recent edit to this article had the edit summary "remove what is now nonsensical", and left the section on cricket reading:

Significant coverage is likely to exist for a cricket figure if they

1. Umpires are presumed notable if they've been a member of the Elite Panel of ICC Umpires

You removed something you thought was "nonsensical", and left something that isn't even English. If you're not reading your own edits, what chance do we have? --Nicknack009 (talk) 18:58, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I suggest either restoring this version or deleting it altogether, for now it makes no sense at all and is pretty much worthless ("Significant coverage is likely to exist for a cricket figure if they: Umpires are presumed notable if they've been a member of the Elite Panel of ICC Umpires." What? And playing in the NBA is non-notable but being drafted is, and leading a stat in the G League is more important than doing it in the top league? And no American football? And the only way a baseball player can pass is being a HOF inductee?). This is completely nonsensical. Considering the crap shape it is in currently, I actually would support completely abolishing it like you proposed in January. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:47, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that's actually the point of the exercise. --Nicknack009 (talk) 19:01, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

All those players can still be included if they meet GNG. The alternative is to do actually what has been attempted (and often obstructed) for years and come up with guidelines which actually make sense (unlike the older ones) and which are accurate indicators of GNG (if anything, it's better if the guidelines here are a little bit too strict, the extra can still be included if they meet GNG, while if the guidelines are too broad, then you have the perpetual dispute which hopefully this will have brought an end to). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:51, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

But the whole point is people have just gone through and gutted the sections without any thought as to adjusting what is left, but apparently we aren't allowed to discuss this because we are sore losers. Spike 'em (talk) 17:53, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Nobody is preventing you from making bold and uncontroversial changes so that the rest doesn't read like utter nonsense. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:54, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

So we have to clear up after other editors making a mess of things? Isn't that what the people in favour of removing the SNGs object to? Spike 'em (talk) 17:59, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Cleaning up one page is much simpler than having hundreds of AfDs, no? And its not like there were previous attempt to clean this up, which often did not succeed... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:06, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. --Nicknack009 (talk) 19:02, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

@Nicknack009: The only thing disruptive is people stone-walling and not wanting to accept that consensus is against them. The reaction to the edits attempting to implement the consensus of the RfC (which was well advertised, well attended, and certainly lasted long enough) is the exact same kind of obstructionism that I was pointing out in my previous edit. Cleaning up this page would be so much simpler if people were not still trying to desperately dispute the issue. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:38, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Are you still ignoring the nonsensical state you left the cricket section in? --Nicknack009 (talk) 23:47, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Was the cricket section incomprehensible after I left it? No. It might have needed a more thorough rewrite, but it is certainly not entirely nonsensical. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:57, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Where we go from here

It's obvious the decision in the recent RfC, and the resulting edits, has caused a lot of consternation. In particular, the edits by User:BilledMammal, User:RandomCanadian and others have been premature and not constructive, leaving a version of the page that is in many places nonsensical and unusable, and I'd like to thank User:GiantSnowman for reverting to the last stable version of the page - for now, at least.

If the decision to absoutely forbid participation-based guidlines is to stand, then discussion is needed as to what to replace them with, and that discussion needs to be held with the Wikiprojects for each sport. These projects have developed their own guidelines and gained consensus for them, some of them quite recently, and what's described as "rough consensus" between a relatively small number of editors should not be allowed to simply steamroller them. There are conflicting consensuses here, and negotiation is necessary.

I also think it may be necessary to propose a new RfC, not on the whole spread of proposals and subproposals, but specifically on participation-based guidelines and where they may or may not be appropriate. I'm not sure how to go about doing that, but I will look into it. --Nicknack009 (talk) 20:22, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

It is incorrect to this that there is a need to have something replace the participation based criteria, given that there is always the default GNG for all sports. That was the whole point of proposal #3 (which I suggested), was that participation does not assure significant coverage. If you can find cases where partication is absolutely tied to significant coverage, that would be a fresh addition, not a replacement. --Masem (t) 20:34, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Are you, having failed to get consensus to abolish NSPORT, attempting to achieve that by back door by disrupting it so badly you get your way anyway? Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. --Nicknack009 (talk) 20:37, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

uh, proposal #3 is one of the ones that had consensus. It was specifically tuned to tackle the one problematic part of NSPORT, stubby articles due to participation in one game which didn't encourage editors to look for better sourcing.--Masem (t) 21:47, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

The replacement is WP:SIGCOV. @GiantSnowman: Who should implement the result of an RfC, besides those who were involved in it? I figure, if somebody is interested in a topic, it is only logical for them to implement the consensus affecting that topic... Your edit also very clearly undermines that consensus. Personally, my only edit was removing some stray unrelated text which did not make sense given what was remaining, and I didn't !vote on that proposal, and I wouldn't be entirely opposed to some participation criteria (it does make sense in some cases that, yes, nearly all members of a group are likely notable - to take the same example as the one I edited, likely that a cricket criterion which was something "All international cricketers from Test-playing nations" could probably work), but I'm definitively of the opinion that most of these probably should be rewritten from scratch if that is the case. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:40, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Either those involved (following further discussion and agreement), or those entirely uninvolved in the RFC. Those with a view on the matter making changes and falsely claiming they reflect the consensus is entirely inappropriate. I think we need a sport-by-sport discussion. GiantSnowman 20:50, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

How about we just add 2-3 sources with significant coverage to every sports related articles we create? Alvaldi (talk) 20:43, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Actually, since WP:SIGCOV is a rather vague element of WP:N and doesn't really help resolve disputes in this area, what would help on a guideline level would be a specification of SIGCOV for these biographies that could be used to assess the Notability of sports figures. I didn't participate in the RfC and don't have a horse (sic.) in this race, but it seems to me that the main decision to be made is what counts as a non-trivial mention in sports coverage. Newimpartial (talk) 20:47, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

This is how I thought the close was going to be - that the requirement to add sources (in addition to or beyond a database source[s]) to all articles would pass and there would be no change to the participation measure (except with perhaps an acknowledgment that the community should revisit all leagues to be more certain that nearly all athletes in those leagues have significant coverage). Enos733 (talk) 20:49, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, well, the more intransigent editors dug in their heels and opposed measures like that with all their might and main, that sensible option was off the table. So perhaps the individual sports projects can turn some energy to coming up with revised standards, and in the meantime either rely on the GNG (and on ensuring that new article creations come with the multiple reliable sources that they should have been doing as a matter of course already) or just not create new sports bios until they do. Ravenswing 20:56, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Again, as a non-participant in the RfC and in this subject area, I find it disconcerting how often editors have posted to this Talk page as though their personal beliefs had received consensus support in the RfC when, according to the close, they did not. Newimpartial (talk) 21:08, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

The consensus declared by the close was not clear, by their own admission, and may be unworkable. More importantly in my opinion, the changes that have followed the close were disruptive, I believe intentionally. If changes are to be made as a result of the closure, they have to be done properly, and not simply, as User:RandomCanadian admitted, leaving "utter nonsense" for other editors to clear up. --Nicknack009 (talk) 21:15, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

This is what I mean - individual editors are going to interpret the close how they want. GiantSnowman 21:16, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Even a clear, undisputed consensus does not give anyone the right to edit disruptively. --Nicknack009 (talk) 21:22, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Where a removal is clearly simply implementing the RFC that is not disruptive. If remaining text needs editing to simply make sense is also doable. GNG is the alternative where needed. But I would urge all to just get this done and don't look for ways to mire it down or roadblock it. Let's just implement and move on and enjoy the evolution. North8000 (talk) 21:54, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Alas, there has not been, and will not be, anything 'clear' or 'simple' about this... GiantSnowman 21:56, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Removing almost all of the text is not fixing, it's breaking. Lots of the removed content could have been tightened by a discussion of people who know what the competitions in question actually are, rather than being rsndomly culled so the resulting page made no sense at all. Joseph2302 (talk) 21:58, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict)That is not the term or statement of my sentence. If some material only establishes a criteria that the RFC said should be removed, removal would be clearly simply implementing the RFC. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:03, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I've reimplemented it. You can't reject the consensus on procedural grounds - WP:NOTBURO - particularly since the procedural grounds are not based in policy. Note we are already making progress towards fixing the inconsistencies this introduces, such as at WP:NRU, and further work is ongoing there to make an effective guideline. BilledMammal (talk) 22:02, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Let's recall what Proposal 3 was:

Remove all simple or mere "participation" criteria in NSPORT, outside of ones related to Olympics and equivalent events ...

Implementation of this proposal, which has consensus, means removing all simple or mere "participation" criteria in NSPORT except Olympics. It does not mean replacing it with a new participation criteria. It does not mean talking about how to removing the participation criteria. The implementation is removing the criteria. (By the way, not only for players, there is no qualification or limitation on "participation criteria".) There is no rule that this implementation has to be done by someone uninvolved. Those who are reverting this implementation are being disruptive. Levivich 22:17, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

• By the way, not only for players, there is no qualification or limitation on "participation criteria". Strongly agree on this point; there can only be a restriction to players if you misinterpret "participation" as "played". Note that there are some criteria that I don't have an objection to, such as the participation criteria for managers of Baseball, but all of the criteria needs to be discussed to determine whether it is suitable to keep in the guideline, now that the status quo is removal. BilledMammal (talk) 22:23, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  If the criteria is working, why should we remove it? I think the editors who participated in the discussion were more nuanced than rigid in their evaluation of any of the proposals. One of the nice things about this project is that we can take the time to implement the proposal correctly in a way that makes sense. Enos733 (talk) 22:45, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Admin lock

Can we lock the page down so only admins have the right to edit it? As from what I see at the moment, "too many cooks in the kitchen" seems to be happening to this project page. Govvy (talk) 21:51, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

That would mire down or stop the implementation.North8000 (talk) 21:56, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Really? Because my point of view from my watchlist, is this the page is clearly a WP:BATTLEGROUND. Govvy (talk) 22:00, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Messy is inevitable for a big complex change. If there are behavioral issues beyond that, they should be addressed as behavioral issues. North8000 (talk) 22:06, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

The cycle of reverts and edits within a few hours on the main page is approaching edit warring. It further confuses the issue and potentially affects discussion on any AfDs that have been open since the change. Best to keep it in the talk page imo. Bonoahx (talk) 22:22, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

NSPORT needs to be Superprotected! BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:27, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

What I see is people trying to impose their own additional conditions on the implementation of the RFC that would mire down or stop it's implementation. North8000 (talk) 22:30, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Let's see here: AssociateAffiliate restored the cricket criteria. Wjemather reverted it. GiantSnowman restored the March 6 version. BilledMammal reverted it. I reverted BilledMammal. Levivich reverted me. Felixsv7 reverted Levivich. Cbl62 reverted Felixsv7. Felixsv7 reverted Cbl62. BilledMammal reverted Felix. And then Spike 'em reverted BilledMammal. This is one heck of an edit war! I say we all need a timeout. BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:31, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

No. Editors should not be stonewalling these changes; there is a consensus for them, and if they dislike the result then they should be proposing modifications to correct those issues. I am already attempting this with WP:NRU. BilledMammal (talk) 22:33, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I've left a request at WP:RFPP (where this request should be made) so that an uninvolved admin can deal with this. Iffy★Chat -- 22:29, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I urge everyone to please stop reverting each other. It literally doesn't matter regarding deletion discussions: I'm certain someone will point closers to the village pump discussion and they will choose to give it whatever weight they deem appropriate, in the context of Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators § Rough consensus. Agreed the interim condition of the page isn't great for newcomers, but that's true for either of the states that the page is switching between. isaacl (talk) 22:36, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I have fully protected this page. BilledMammal, BeanieFan11, Levivich, Felixsv7, Spike 'em, you should all know better than to edit war like that. Work this out on talk. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:37, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

@Muboshgu: This was worked out, in an RFC. Please explain to me what is wrong with removing the participation based criteria, and what there is for me to discuss with the editor I reverted? Levivich 22:39, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Apparently this isn't as "worked out" as you think. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:59, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

It's certainly not going to work out if you take the side of obstructionists and prevent the consensus of the RfC from being made reality. Avilich (talk) 00:15, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• @Muboshgu: Echoing Levivich. There is a consensus for these changes, and while some editors may dislike that change there should be no issue with implementing it - though there is an issue with editors WP:STONEWALLING that implementation. BilledMammal (talk) 22:40, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

There was no consensus for what these changes should be - just an appreciation that the bar might be currently set too low. Deleting the current guidelines without any replacement strategy is not a constructive way forward. Felixsv7 (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

What is unclear about Remove all simple or mere "participation" criteria in NSPORT, outside of ones related to Olympics and equivalent events? It says "remove", not "replace". Levivich 22:44, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

The close stated: "participation-based criteria are a problem and that the best way forward is to remove them". This is not ambiguous, and nor does it require more filibustering prior to implementation. The close was also clear that the replacement strategy is GNG. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 22:52, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Everyone, instead of complaining about how the WP:WRONGVERSION is in place, can you go back to discussing the changes? This particular thread is a distraction now that the page is fully protected. Iffy★Chat -- 22:46, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

• What is there to discuss about the change? The consensus is to remove all participation criteria; there is little to discuss beyond "is this participation criteria", and I believe the only area that is disputed in is managers/coaches. BilledMammal (talk) 22:52, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

From what I see, this is really just a shit-show, you should go back to the person that closed and ask for a joint reassessment. The close that happened, was poorly crafted. The amount of content and context involved for your abolishment of NSPORT will not only daunt a lot of user it will alienate others from taking part. Biting off more than you can chew. You should build and develop in smaller issues, take each SNG at a time and work on that. This page should stay closed until you have sorted out these issues. Govvy (talk) 23:06, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

As keeps being pointed out and you (User:BilledMammal and your allies) keep ignoring, the edits you're making leave the page making no sense. Repeating "consensus" does not change that. You got a "rough consensus" of the people who contributed to the discussion at the village pump, which clearly does not have a wider consensus of editors, but leaving that aside, you did not get consensus to make disruptive edits and leave the cleanup to others. So stop it until we have a chance to figure out what the page should say! --Nicknack009 (talk) 23:09, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

The page made sense after the edits. There were inconsistencies, such as considering semi-finalists of the Women's RWC to be notable but not the men, but those inconsistencies can be fixed - and in that specific example they had been fixed, and we were working on improving the guideline further. BilledMammal (talk) 23:15, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

If you're going to claim that leaving a section as reading:

Significant coverage is likely to exist for a cricket figure if they

1. Umpires are presumed notable if they've been a member of the Elite Panel of ICC Umpires

makes sense, I would have to question your good faith. --Nicknack009 (talk) 23:45, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

In which case one should probably point you to WP:ABF and smack a big WP:TROUT for good measure. In this case, while one could say that it is clumsily written, even that it does not follow the usual rules of the English language, the meaning of it is quite clear, so it does "make sense", although it might be "in need of a rewrite". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:52, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 9 March 2022

Within the sports-specific criteria, replace all instances of "presumed to be notable" with "significant coverage is likely to exist" per Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability Subproposal #8. The proposed change has been discussed, consensus has been reached and it is ready to be implemented without further discussion. –dlthewave ☎ 23:08, 9 March 2022 (UTC) –dlthewave ☎ 23:08, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Enthusiastic support. --Nicknack009 (talk) 23:11, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Support, straightforward implementation of the RfC's #8.2 per closer. Pilaz (talk) 00:20, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Support Clear straightforward implementation --SuperJew (talk) 06:50, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

 Done –dlthewave ☎ 23:21, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Oppose, another place for discussion? Can we centralize the discussion at AN, instead of expecting everyone to scour Wikipedia for yet another discussion. There's a thread at AN about freezing the page while a very contentious discussion is ongoing. Nfitz (talk) 21:49, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Editors reaching an agreement in the talk page after a page protection is exactly how the whole process is supposed to work. You don't get to overturn that if all you have is some useless procedural argument that doesn't address any of the actual issues. Avilich (talk) 21:54, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Nfitz, I would have thought checking the talk page for relevant discussion would be a basic first step before a mass revert. If you had done so you would have noticed this edit request which was opened before the self-requested AN review. In any case the open review is not grounds to revert, and the outcome of subproposal #8 does not appear to be in contention. –dlthewave ☎ 01:37, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I'd have thought that discussion would have been centralized. I'd have thought that the RFC instructions would have had the RFC here. I'd have thought that's it pretty clear that changes shouldn't be implemented while discussion is ongoing. I'm not particularly opposed to the changes - but surely we should apply NOWAIT and let the process carry on, without needless changes. Nfitz (talk) 05:50, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

It's very clear that, at best, parts (and not the whole) of the RfC may be altered, but subprop no. 8 clearly isn't disputed by many. If the only objection is procedural in nature, WP:NOTBURO applies. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 06:04, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree that this limited change should be implemented as per sub-proposal 8. GiantSnowman 22:04, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 9 March 2022 (2)

Per Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability #3, please remove the section "American football/Canadian football", as all criteria within the section are participation criteria and there is a consensus to remove them. BilledMammal (talk) 23:13, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Oppose, the page has been protected to prevent edit-warring regarding the removal of participation based SNGs. This is an attempt to usurp that page protection, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 23:20, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

This has already been discussed and consensus has been reached. It is ready to be implemented. –dlthewave ☎ 23:23, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

The consensus has been contested by senior editors including admin, so there is obviously not a practical consensus. The closure was dubious and there should be a review,Atlantic306 (talk) 23:27, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I oppose as well, per Atlantic306. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:23, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

I support, and dispute the opposes as being nothing but stubborn stonewalling (by people who also opposed the new improvements at the RfC). I do not see any challenge to the close (beyond a few polite questions regarding its clarity or its exact outcome on the closer's talk page), and unless the close is reversed, it stands, and people objecting to it should not try to put up even more bureaucratic obstacles in an attempt to filibuster it a final time before it passes... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:41, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support, per the closing statement, "There is a rough consensus to eliminate participation-based criteria". Avilich (talk) 00:06, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Support, the current objections to this are status quo stonewalling and are not the appropriate venue to contest an extremely well-attended RfC close. Per Proposal 3 of the RfC mentioned above, there is a rough consensus to eliminate participation-based criteria (except those based on olympic or similar participation), and the "American football/Canadian football" section consists of one participation-based criterion and two notes, so the whole section should be deleted. Pilaz (talk) 00:36, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Obviously there are problems with the RfC and implementation. This has already led to edit-wars and numerous continuation of discussion. This is just another attempt to backdoor the changes which have been flagged as problematic after protection of the page. --SuperJew (talk) 06:57, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

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

Moving forward

I think we ought to do a couple things to move us forward in a positive direction.

First, I think in either the lede and/or under the Basic Criteria section we specify that 1) articles about sportspeople require sourcing beyond a database and 2) that a RFC concluded that participating in one game or event does not mean that the subject meets NBASIC. Second, the specific sections mentioning participation would not be deleted while editors work to revise and refine the criteria.

I think this change should only exist for a specified time period while additional work is done (like two weeks or a month). This method would provide guidance to editors and recognizes that more changes to NSPORT are needed. It also may have the benefit of limited disruption while work is done to revise each category. --Enos733 (talk) 23:16, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

• Disagree. The consensus is to remove the participation criteria, and removing it is an improvement to the guidelines. We can work on improving the guidelines further once that criteria is removed. BilledMammal (talk) 23:18, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  I still don't see how that was a "consensus," unless that just means whatever the deletionists want... I also disagree that removing them are "improving" guidelines. BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:21, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  BeanieFan11, if you believe that the close was incorrect then I would suggest taking it up with the closing editor. –dlthewave ☎ 23:25, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  Until such point that a new RFC changes the close, the expectation is that participation should be removed. The question is how to best implement that close. I think it is better to acknowledge in the lede that the close concluded there was consensus that participation-based criteria would not be sufficient, but I do think there should be a transition period in the text to another community-developed criteria. Enos733 (talk) 23:26, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  I think we should temporarily demote this guideline to an essay with some sort of note about it being under revision... and then work on drafting new rules before rewriting the page because just removing the participation stuff without a replacement makes the entire page useless. Spanneraol (talk) 23:36, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

• The "Basic criteria" section already states that database sources with wide-sweeping generic standards of inclusion are not sufficient to show a subject meets the standard of having an article. (A database of hall-of-famers, for example, would not be one with a wide-sweeping, generic standard.) isaacl (talk) 23:53, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  If that were clear, there would be no need for Proposal 5 (...Mere database entries would be insufficient for creation of a new biography article). Enos733 (talk) 23:58, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

  I disagree that adding another statement regarding databases is necessary to document the requirement to have one citation to a suitable source providing significant coverage (though the existing one could be reworded). The reason for proposal 5 is that there was no requirement for any citations to establish that the general notability guideline has been met. isaacl (talk) 00:11, 10 March 2022 (UTC)