Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)

Local sources must be independent

This SNG currently says:

Some sources must be used with particular care when establishing notability, and should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Local sources must be independent of the subject...

I've got no objection to this, but it's kind of silly. By specifying that local sources have to be independent (to count towards notability), we're implying here that means national and international ones don't. This is nonsense; only independent sources count towards notability, full stop.

I'd try to WP:PGBOLDly fix this, but I'm not sure what problem is trying to be solved. Which of these sounds most like the problem?

• A bona fide newspaper in a small town runs an article about a local athlete, possibly because there isn't much other news to report this week.
• A newspaper writes a puffy human interest story gushing about an athlete's positive qualities, because civic boosterism sells papers.
• A newspaper writes a positive article about a local athlete, who also happens to be the newspaper owner's nephew (or next-door neighbor).

WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:07, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

• One problem that I am seeing more and more of in the US (and, I don't see it going away anytime soon, considering the sad state of local journalism in the US today), is that many local US papers post-COVID no longer employ actual reporters anymore to cover local sports teams. But they still want to provide some coverage, to check a box, I guess, and be able to say that they're still covering them. So, they resort to re-printing press releases directly from the team, written by team employees, and using that as their "local coverage" of the team. That, I do have a problem with, as the material is originating from the team themselves and is generated by people who are paid directly by the team to provide PR for the team. But, like I said, in some geographical areas of the US, in terms of print media, that's literally all that there is available anymore. I'm not sure exactly how we want to deal with the issue moving forward, but, like I said, I don't see it going away anytime soon. Ejgreen77 (talk) 00:32, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

  Is that really a "local" problem? I assume that regional and national newspapers also don't send reporters to the games. In fact, I'd assume that regional and national newspapers are less likely to do direct reporting than the local media. The cost is lower: they can both get free tickets/entrance, but the local reporter just has to go down the street, or perhaps across town, and the further away places would have to pay for flights, hotels, meals, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:52, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Time for an incremental start on a "big fix" here?

Well, the removal of the "did it for a living for one day" criteria stemmed the torrent but we still have quite a mess. (I'm an active NPP'er) In essence, for GNG dependent articles, GNG is not being implemented at AFD. And folks that lament the narrowing of the SNG criteria are probably falsely imagining that the GNG standard is what now applies.

Here are two very common situations:

• "Stats only" articles. E.G for a team's season. With zero sources other than for the stats, much less GNG sources or anything even near one GNG source.
• Basic article on a less-notable professional with no sources anywhere near GNG sources. With a few of the basics put into sentences like "played for the xyz team starting in 2012"

There are LOTS of these new articles.

When I AFD one of these, it inevitably goes like this:

• "Of course they are notable" "They are obviously notable" "The NPP'er is stupid not to know they are notable" (with no support for that statement, or just saying that many people know them)
• The NPP'er didn't look hard enough for coverage (the coverage that nobody else found and is not in the article or AFD discussion) And note the use of the term "coverage" instead of "GNG coverage"
• "Coverage exists" but doesn't find any and again note excluding "GNG" from the term when discussing coverage.

I get so tired of this (including getting beat up at AFD) that I just pass the slightly better than normal sports articles and just leave the other non-notable ones in the 13,000 article NPP backlog disaster for someone else to deal with.

One idea would be to create another section in the SNG, another "way in" that roughly says:

• Professional athletes with a larger than typical amount of included sources which provide published independent in-depth coverage of the athlete
• For "seasons" and other articles which are heavy with stats, inclusion of sources which provide published independent in-depth coverage where the coverage is about the season (or topic) as a whole, and substantial prose text developed from those sources.

This wording is structurally a different approach (especially with the emphasis on included sources.) And also while it prima facie / structurally makes it more lenient by offering a different "way in" I think that it will be influential is seeing that GNG (or something close to it) is being followed for GNG dependent articles. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:03, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Comment - I think this is as good a place as any for me to raise again the point that the relevant standard for Sports bios, post-2017 NSPORTS RfC, ought to be WP:NBASIC rather than WP:GNG. As far as I can tell, the reason the 2017 discussion didn't reach this conclusion was (1) very many participants in that discussion, both inclusionists and exclusionists concerning sports biographies, had at best only a very approximate underanding of WP:NBIO, and (2) some number of editors participating seemed to be under the misapprehension that NBASIC is more lax than GNG, when (as far as I can determine) it is slightly more restrictive. Without the perception that NBASIC would somehow be a loophole, perhaps there would no longer be a motivation to circumvent the logic of NBIO by asserting that there is one category of humans to which the otherwise universal standard of NBASIC does not apply but instead a marginally more permissive standard (GNG) does? If we are going to change anything, could we please fix this? I don't think there was a clear consensus to override NBASIC for sports biographies, but the (difficult) close has a number of "approximate" conclusions (or apparent conclusions) of which this is the one I personally find most irritating. Newimpartial (talk) 02:53, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

As I've stated previously, Wikipedia:Notability (people) § Basic criteria is a summary of Wikipedia:Notability § General notability guideline, placed in the context of biographies. Each of the bolded words in the first sentence of the "Basic criteria" section has a corresponding bullet point in the "General notability guideline" section. The basic criteria section derives from the general notability guideline section and is not a replacement for it. isaacl (talk) 04:27, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I 99% agree with Isaacl's, response, the other 1% being to note that it includes a provision allowing combining non-GNG sources when GNG sources do not exist. (IMO a bad idea) I'll also note that in the common cases noted above, the respondents aren't even taking the trouble to quote guidelines (including using this provision). With just vague unsupported claims that they/it us "notable" or "sources probably exist". Hence my emphasis on included sources. I realize that this does not fit the classic prima facie reasoning (that notability is about whether the sources exist, not whether anybody has actually provided them) but IMO something is needed to solve a pretty common problem. North8000 (talk) 13:24, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

In my view, that's just an additional description of the significant coverage portion of the general notability guideline and so doesn't amount to a replacement of its guidance. isaacl (talk) 16:09, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

North8K, I understand that some editors understand NBASIC as allowing combining non-GNG sources when GNG sources do not exist, but I think this is a misconception. There is, in fact, nothing in the GNG - at least not that I've seen - that would require editors to insist that the significant coverage element of GNG ought to be assessed per source rather than of the set of available sources as a whole.

Also, while some editors might assume that it does, GNG does not itself contain any "depth" requirement. Therefore, it is equally true under GNG as in NBASIC that If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability - that isn't a difference between the two.

What is different is that under NBASIC multiple published secondary sources are required, and are required to be intellectually independent of each other. While the GNG encourages multiple, intellectually independent sources, it does necessarily require them for a topic to achieve GNG notability, which is why I regard NBASIC as (slightly) more strict. Newimpartial (talk) 17:54, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

The problem is twofold, and any "fix" done on this end won't be worth a tinker's damn. There is no rule, regulation, tweak or guideline that will prevent lazy, indifferent AfD voters from being lazy, indifferent, and/or downright stupid. Nor is there any rule, regulation, tweak or guideline that will compel closers to hold by valid policy rather than by headcount. Ravenswing 14:31, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

If I'm understanding North8000's original post correctly, they're proposing that guidance should be modified to follow what is being done in practice by the evaluators of consensus for deletion discussions, which would bring the two into alignment. Of course, I agree that nothing compels deletion discussion participants to follow previously-established guidance, though doing so may be more persuasive for some, and the guidance on determining rough consensus does not compel evaluators to discount viewpoints that are contrary to guidelines (only views contrary to policy are mentioned). This essentially reduces guidelines to prepackaged sets of arguments that can be used in deletion discussions. (I understand why the editors who like to discuss these matters prefer a grassroots approach to the creation of guidance, but it works best when everyone is willing to go along with a general approach. When there is dissension, it leads to wasted time trying to get people to show up at every discussion so that consensus can be re-established over and over again, and inconsistent results when turnout varies.) isaacl (talk) 17:35, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I feared that one of the benefits of SNGs was for non-domain experts at NPP to be able to quickly assess popular topics . WP:BEFORE sometimes requires expertise to know where to look, that a basic Google search from those not in the know will miss. With everyone's experience now, I wonder if we can reasonably recreate some SNGs on perennial topics for NPPers, while avoiding non-objective criteria this time.—Bagumba (talk) 17:56, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

  The main issue with wp:before is that, at any given time, the 15 people who do 90% of NPP's, and a 13,000 article backlog there's only so much wp:before a NPP'er can do. And folks amongst the zillion editors who didn't bother to / instead of looking for sources, just beat up the NPP'er for not finding the sources that the complainer never bother to look for or find. I've had sports fans beat me up for not also searching through non-english sources and analyzing them with respect to GNG, at the same time they didn't and don't look for sources. North8000 (talk) 18:08, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

  It's hard enough trying to sift through unreliable sources in English search results. Most en.WP editors are ill equipped to use non-English sources and judge reliability or weed out trivial mentions and routine coverage. The problem that was the demise of NSPORTS is that some people assumed without basis that the "top" league(s) of any country of any sport must be notable and have coverage, and the fact that Google came back with any results proved it for them. —Bagumba (talk) 23:47, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The two main goals of my proposal are:

• Emphasize included sources, i.e. demonstrated wp:notability.
• Additional emphasis which would weigh in a bit against "stat's only" articles...most as a reminder that they typically don't demonstrate compliance with GNG. There are a lot of people generating lots of stats-only articles.

I guess you could call my proposal to be to add something on the order of an nsports version of WP:NBASIC to nsports, albeit with details a little different, along the lines of my idea above. North8000 (talk) 17:58, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

So this remains my idea. Add a version of WP:NBASIC to nsports, which includes requirement of inclusion of GNG or near-GNG sourcing. So this discourages mere unsupported "it exists" claims. Structurally, since it is just another "way in", it doesn't tighten up the requirements. But it would probably be influential towards emphasizing included sources. Technically, by including "near-GNG sourcing, it loosens the requirement, but the current defacto requirement is even looser than that. North8000 (talk) 14:50, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

As I previously mentioned, including a reference to a source suitable for demonstrating that the general notability guideline is already part of this guideline. It's the second sentence in the lead paragraph, set in bold. The need for such a reference is also described in the "Basic criteria" section. isaacl (talk) 18:45, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

The existence of guidelines do not preclude !voters ignoring the guideline. Is this post looking to avoid false-positive AfD nomintations (i.e. pages that don't demonstrate notability but are ultimately notable topics) or to improve quality of Afd !votes by participants? —Bagumba (talk) 18:09, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

The main goals are what I described above, but expanding on the first one, it is to shift things a bit, that the creators/keepers should include and identify GNG sources and the onus is a bit more on them to do so. North8000 (talk) 18:16, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Although personally I think the best way to keep Wikipedia viable with its large number of articles is to spread the workload by giving more responsibility to an article creator for including appropriate citations at the start, for better or worse, the consensus of English Wikipedia editors who have discussed this matter in the past still supports stub creation. (I appreciate why those editors feel that way; I just weigh the tradeoffs differently than they.) isaacl (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

IMO the issue isn't stub creation. It's lack of GNG sources in GNG-dependent articles. North8000 (talk) 17:24, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, as I said, I agree with you, but so far, that viewpoint has not gained consensus support amongst those who have discussed the matter. isaacl (talk) 22:51, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

The first point is already covered in this guideline page. The second is a content issue, which the current consensus of English Wikipedia editors who like to discuss these matters considers to be separate from the standards of having an article. Tweaks about these is just going to give those who like to repeat these points different text to link to. If the evaluators of consensus aren't discounting views contrary to the existing guidelines, I don't think shifts in emphasis is going to alter their deliberations. isaacl (talk) 18:17, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I do not think that an incremental path forward will work (and nor will deleting the SNG). The community is clear that at least one GNG source is required for all sportspeople. Any sport-specific wording will inevitably be a guideline, rather than a presumption of notability. That said, we can (and I think we should) suggest that a professional in a top league is more likely to meet GNG than someone who plays for a second- or third- division team. All of that said, I did start a draft of a replacement guideline. I appreciate feedback. Also isaacl did put together a comparison with Wikipedia:Notability (sports). --Enos733 (talk) 22:45, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

  I have incorporated feedback encouraging more prose in my draft. I don't think it will necessarily help editors who want to ignore the SNG, but it could help at NPP or at AFD. - Enos733 (talk) 23:34, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

  At least for the top US sports (Am football, basketball, baseball), at this advanced stage of Wikipedia, the players' articles would have been created (and already be notable) long before hitting those criteria. So not much help for NPP. —Bagumba (talk) 15:19, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  Since the community rejected a "played in a top-tier professional league" standard, the recourse to needing at least one GNG source is sensible even as it doesn't help much at NPP. - Enos733 (talk) 21:11, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  @Enos733 @Cbl62 The community is clear that at least one GNG source is required for all sportspeople. Yeah, please tell that to the AfD !voters who are insisting that "SPORTCRIT #5 is just a different part of NSPORT and doesn't apply to the athletes who meet a sport-specific criterion" and "SPORTCRIT #5 means that multiple non-SIGCOV sources can be added together" and "SPORTCRIT #5 can be met/overridden with the assumption that someone's achievements "must have" garnered SIGCOV offline". Not to mention the insistence that three-sentence event results announcements are "not routine" and that in-person video interviews count for anything at all... JoelleJay (talk) 22:39, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  SPORTCRIT #5 is just a different part of NSPORT and doesn't apply to the athletes who meet a sport-specific criterion: I can't really tell what is the expected outcome if a bullet point under "Professional sports people" is met but no signifcant coverage is cited? Have any AfD closes cited this as ambiguous? —Bagumba (talk) 04:22, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

  The requirement for an article to have a citation to a source, suitable for demonstrating that the general notability guideline is met, is a documentation requirement for all sports biographies within the scope of this guideline. The second sentence in the lead paragraph, set in boldface, covers this requirement. It's not a criterion to presume that suitable sources exist to demonstrate that the general notability guideline is met, so it doesn't really fit in the list under the "Basic criteria" section. I was not able, though, to gain a consensus to move the description of the requirement to another section. isaacl (talk) 05:14, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

  The second sentence in the lead reads, The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline Citing that one of the criteria under "Professional sports people" is met could be reasonably argued to satisfy that. —Bagumba (talk) 05:37, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

  The sentence used to be The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below. It was modified by removing "or the sport specific criteria set forth below" after the 2022 RfC, specifically to no longer include the criteria listed under the "Professional sports people" section, to comply with the consensus to require a citation to a source suitable for demonstrating that the general notability guideline is met. isaacl (talk) 06:11, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

  Well the same people are also arguing that the fact that NSPORT2022 found a consensus not to deprecate NSPORT means that there was a consensus to retain NSPORT as it stood pre-RfC...so... JoelleJay (talk) 06:30, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

  Well, proposals to change this guideline did attain consensus support and changes were made accordingly. To revise it again would need a demonstration that the consensus view has changed. But as previously stated, English Wikipedia's decision-making traditions means people have fairly free rein in the arguments they can put forth. It's left to the discretion of discussion evaluators to decide how to weigh those arguments, in context of the relevant guidance in effect. isaacl (talk) 06:47, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

  The RfC close is clear. But merely removing "or the sport specific criteria set forth below" still leaves open the interpretation that "showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline" is satisified by meeting a sport-specific SNG. The loophole needs closing. —Bagumba (talk) 07:07, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

  Personally, I don't think saying "The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets X" leaves a loophole "or, instead of X, one of the Y listed below". It's not feasible to guard against all interpretations that go directly against the literal wording in the guidance. isaacl (talk) 03:07, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

• Requiring that all sports articles contain substantial content in order to exist – something that not a single other subject is held to – is something that I could not support and contradicts the notability page itself: Notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:46, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  I didn't review that proposal, but there is a problem that is unique to sports.....massive amounts of "stats only" articles. And the above-described problems with these at AFD. WP:Not is also relevant to these. North8000 (talk) 17:01, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  Is it unique to sports though? I've seen the same issue with aviation articles and there is currently a discussion on Wikipedia talk:Notability about several thousand articles about train stations with questionable sourcing. Alvaldi (talk) 17:10, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  I agree - I don't think it is unique to sports, but I think that it is easier for editors to make changes in a table than to take the next step to find (for sports) season previews or recaps (for stations) information about their construction and include that in the lede sections. - Enos733 (talk) 17:18, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  In this case my comment that you are responding to was about large amounts of 'stats-only articles and I think that that issue is unique to sports. North8000 (talk) 19:25, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  Anywhere there is an intersection of "enthusiasts" and "topics are neatly available in detailed off-wiki databases" will produce rapid stub proliferation, especially if the initial articles go unnoticed long enough to generate a walled garden. JoelleJay (talk) 22:47, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  NOTSTATS is a content issue. The content can be boldly deleted. The topic's notability and existing policy is the bigger dilemma. Per WP:NEXIST:

  The absence of sources or citations in a Wikipedia article (as distinct from the non-existence of independent, published reliable sources in libraries, bookstores, and the internet) does not indicate that a subject is not notable. Notability requires only that suitable independent, reliable sources exist in the real world; it does not require their immediate presence or citation in an article.

  Without SNGs, that task required more due-diligence and domain expertise. —Bagumba (talk) 00:50, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

• In order to define the problem more clearly, it would be helpful if someone could provide some examples of what they consider to be "stats only" articles. Sports coverage naturally and properly includes statistical information. Stats are how we measure performance and importance of athletes and sport teams. What WP:NOTSTATS says is that we shouldn't have articles that simply recite a load of statistics and offer no context or explanation. Here is the precise language of NOTSTATS: "Excessive listings of unexplained statistics. Statistics that lack context or explanation can reduce readability and may be confusing; accordingly, statistics should be placed in tables to enhance readability, and articles with statistics should include explanatory text providing context." Cbl62 (talk) 01:19, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

It's pretty widespread for sports. I'd hate to put any individual editor on the spot by making their article an example here. Typicall the only prose is a few sentences derived from the stats, and there are not GNG sources. Maybe if I find several it wouldn't be so bad. I've even asked for guidance on these at project sports (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports#"Stats only" sports articles on non-SNG topics) and feedback sees to be that they should not exist. But large amounts of them are routinely being produced. North8000 (talk) 13:31, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

OK I'll start adding some random ones currently in the NPP que: North8000 (talk) 13:45, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

• 2014 Bhayangkara F.C. season
• 2024–25 in Indian football
• ÍBV (men's handball)
• 1969–70 Northampton Town F.C. season
• 1981–82 Northampton Town F.C. season
• 1982–83 Northampton Town F.C. season
• 1983–84 Northampton Town F.C. season
• 2022–23 Dhaka Second Division Cricket League
• 2024 Liga Dominicana de Fútbol This one has more prose but it's just a statement derived from the stats plus a restatement of the general rules

Thanks. The examples help. I see this as more of a GNG problem that a STATS problem. I'm more familiar with the American football area, and, there too, we have many season articles stubs sourced only to comprehensive databases like Sports Reference, the now-defunct College Football Data Warehouse, or a team's self-published media guide. A decade or so ago, there was a tendency to create season articles sourced only to such databases. I was guilty of that myself, and I've been going back to add better sourcing to those articles over the last couple years. I've also seen a growing tendency to create season articles for very minor, lower tier teams where SIGCOV is unlikely to exist. One possible solution would be to extend prong 5 of WP:SPORTBASIC to season articles. Prong 5 states: "Sports biographies must include at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject, excluding database sources. Meeting this requirement alone does not indicate notability, but it does indicate that there are likely sufficient sources to merit a stand-alone article." If consensus supports it, we could change "sports biographies" to "sports biographies and season articles". I would have no problem with such an amendment. Cbl62 (talk) 14:06, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Re: "I see this as more of a GNG problem that a STATS problem." Those are sort of saying the same thing; the stats just kind of obscure and enable the problem..no GNG sources and thus no real article content.North8000 (talk) 14:15, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Some examples from the college football context include 1880 CCNY Lavender football team, 1884 Amherst football team, 1915 Cal Poly Mustangs football team, 1916 Tusculum Pioneers football team, and 2013 Rhodes Lynx football team. Extending SPORTBASIC, prong 5, would help the problem however it is characterized. Cbl62 (talk) 14:25, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

I think that that would be a good albeit small move. It doesn't make a major shift because that clause/requirement is not implemented even for the articles (bios) that are currently included.North8000 (talk) 15:04, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Some of those above seasons, e.g. 1969–70 Northampton Town F.C. season, list offline books that discuss everything included. 2024–25 in Indian football is a broad article on a concept absolutely notable: Indian football receives extensive coverage each year. Remember that Notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article – just because the shape of the article may be poor, absolutely does not mean the topic does not warrant an article. A good number of them have GA / FA potential if there's an interested editor; see e.g. this FA on a fifth-tier English football team's season. Giving the greenlight to remove any season article not with a SIGCOV source (which, for season articles, can have very different interpretations – I once remember a season article with decent prose and over 70 long newspaper sources as well as a half-dozen books, etc., being advocated for deletion because 'none of them are sigcov as we don't have academic journals from 50 years afterwards examining this particular season in-depth') would result in the removal of many thousands of notable topics. It feels like we'd be moving backwards. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:52, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

The difficulty is how can NPP reasonably determine a notable season page from a crufty one? —Bagumba (talk) 16:02, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Is it such an issue that requiring the mass removal of thousands of notable articles is the only solution? BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:05, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

I do not think any mass removal would be appropriate either, but extending prong 5 to season articles puts the onus on article creators to come up with at least one piece of SIGCOV in the article -- which is not difficult for a notable team season. I, too, recall the AfD where someone argued that academic journals were needed to pass GNG - the argument was ridiculous and did not prevail. Cbl62 (talk) 16:39, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I had to take it to deletion review myself to prevent that argument from prevailing, and without my intervention, it would have. You know that many of the editors who created these season articles are no longer active, and know that any requirement of significant coverage in the article for a particularly disliked type of article is going to result in attempts to mass remove them. Yes, it is not difficult for me to add a source for e.g. 1937 Philadelphia Eagles season, but times that number by 2,000, and suddenly it is not so easy any more. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:19, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, maybe take that article as an example, could you find a GNG (or even near-GNG) source for the season? North8000 (talk) 17:39, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

The articles in question are 1987–88 Kilmarnock F.C. season and 1991–92 Kilmarnock F.C. season (130+ refs total with well-sourced prose), if you'd like to take a look. BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:03, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

My post was under your 1937 Philadelphia Eagles season post. Those other two would not even be in question. North8000 (talk) 18:38, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, my copy of Ray Didinger's Eagles Encyclopedia devotes a page to it, not to mention there's a good chance one of the 3,000 newspaper stories on the Eagles from a three-month span in 1937 is significant. BeanieFan11 (talk) 19:09, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, this is sort of a microcosm of the discussions that occur. Instead of settling it by providing one GNG or near-GNG source, you are in essence saying "go look at thousands of search engine hits, there must be one in there somewhere." North8000 (talk) 19:17, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I did provide a GNG source: the Eagles Encyclopedia. I also thought it worth mentioning that for some of these, there is so much coverage. E.g. I could easily develop something of GA-length or better if I tried for it. That may not be possible for all of them (all the 'stats' articles), but will be for a large percentage if someone puts in the effort (see e.g. the fifth-tier season that became an FA I mentioned above). BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:54, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I respectfully disagree with you on several levels:

• First you are talking about undeveloped articles whereas what is being discussed is articles where wp:notability has not been established.
• Second, I was responding to a request for some "stats-only" articles, you are implying that I said that all of these should be deleted. You also cherrypicked the 1 of the 9 that I provided that has the most likelyhood of expansion.
• Third, structurally, the small change discussed is just a tweak in the SNG. While it might (hopefully) have a bit of a psychological effect that people should actually provide at least one such source, it doesn't structurally affect the GNG route which is the route claimed on these. And even withing that limited scope, it merely says "find one source of the type that it is already required to have instead of just claiming that they exist without finding one.
• Even if there were an impactful structural change of requirements, equating it to a deletionfest of existing articles vs. something that the community would want applied on new articles and the two are not automatically linked and community consensus is usually to not automatically consider them to be one and the same.
• Anything in notability guidelines does not simply greenlight removal. The folks weighing it at AFD do that.
• This subthread is about "stats only" being mere a flag of no suitable sources and thus no content (other than stats). So we're talking about those rather than the type of article which you are describing.
• Removal of thousands of notable articles based on wp:notability is sort of an oxymoron.  :-)
• You are in essence saying that a "lots of suitable coverage probably exists" argument should be sufficient. This tiny proposed change just leans a bit towards saying "OK, find just one"

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:02, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

While the article is very undersourced, the ÍBV (men's handball) team was the runner-up for the national handball championship last season, one of the most popular sport in the country. Every aspect of that team and other teams under the ÍBV umbrella get pretty well covered in the national media.[1]. Alvaldi (talk) 16:54, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

I just wish the articles people made weren't so incredibly trashy. I see the Northampton ones up above are all using Weebly extensively as a source, which is just some person's blog. I honestly have no idea why Weebly and Blogspot aren't on the banned sources to even use list. Silverseren^C 17:05, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Again, I was responding to a request for "stats-only" articles and just quickly came up with 9. It was NOT me saying that I think that every one of them should be deleted/merged. North8000 (talk) 17:08, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

In case anybody is wondering, my own opinions come from two completely different places:

• As a Wikipedian, I think that Wikipedia is about creating useful-to-the-public enclyclopedia articles and a nothing-but-stats "article" is not that or even a contribution towards that. An article on a somewhat prominent team or player which has substantial article-type content from published sources, I'd like to be in/kept, even if it falls a bit short on not 100% meeting GNG. Which is sort of the norm anyway.
• As a NPP'er I'd like the dilemma resolved one way or the other. By even a slightly relaxed version of GNG we should be AFD'ing about 75% of new sports articles. But when taking even the weakest of them to AFD all of the above stuff and grief happens.....hand waving and complaints, but no sources found that are even near-GNG.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:07, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

• A couple points:

1. There was worry that prong 5 of SPORTBASIC would lead to mass deletion of notable articles, and it has not. I think it has had a beneficial effect of telling article creators to do some due diligence before creating sports biographies. The "substub" problem has greatly reduced with biographies, as we no longer see mass creation of such substubs sourced only to a database. I think extending that standard to seasons would have a similar positive impact on new article creation.

2. I reject the notion that feature stories about each of a team's games do not consitute SIGCOV of the team. The nature of sports coverage is that teams are covered in pre-season articles, in pre-game stories, in post-game stories, and occasionally in post-season awards and wrap-up coverage. As between these, SIGCOV is SIGCOV IMO. They all represent coverage of the team. Otherwise, we would have folks trying to argue that articles on major seasons like 1961 Texas Longhorns football team aren't notable because the coverage arises in the context of each of the games played by the team. The real inquiry and debate IMO should focus on whether the coverage (be it pre-season, during season, or post-season) is truly "significant".

Cbl62 (talk) 21:21, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

There was worry that prong 5 of SPORTBASIC would lead to mass deletion of notable articles, and it has not. – you may not agree with the characterization, but WP:LUGSTUBS and WP:LUGSTUBS2 have absolutely resulted in the removal of many notable articles. Not to mention that many other likely notable articles have been removed gradually by that criterion, due to it meaning absolutely no WP:BEFORE is necessary – one can simply claim 'fails GNG' without any effort whatsoever and that's the end of it (e.g. does anyone seriously think arguably Niger's greatest athlete and coach from the offline era has zero coverage?). Why should sports season be held to a standard literally no other class of article – with the exception of sports biographies – is held to? You may personally reject the notion that feature stories about each of a team's games do not consitute SIGCOV of the team but that doesn't mean the anti-sport editors are going to agree with it. BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:10, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Adding to a few subthreads, while many topics have promise for development into an article, IMO a "nothing but stats" article is not a real start on such. IMO it's sort of like saying I provided a can of car wax called it "partially finished Ferrari, which could become a really good car". North8000 (talk) 13:09, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:NTEAM and WP:NORG

Discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)#This_guideline_and_WP:NTEAM, if you have an opinion, please join. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:23, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Defining "routine coverage"

The prevailing position in sportsperson AfDs seems to be that brief blurbs announcing transactions, event results, injuries, upcoming events, etc. are considered routine coverage for the purposes of NSPORT and do not contribute to GNG for athletes (regardless of how many there are or the relative importance of the corresponding events). There is a bit of fuss over what the length/depth/analysis threshold is for something to be "routine", but I think there is general agreement that the type of news coverage that is put out by a source for basically every athlete update or event in its purview should be disregarded as falling under our NOTNEWS policy routine news coverage of announcements, events, sports, or celebrities, while sometimes useful, is not by itself a sufficient basis for inclusion of the subject of that coverage. Certainly content that is derived mostly or entirely from press releases is both routine and non-independent, and multiple news outlets simultaneously running very similar reports is a good indicator that this has occurred. Similarity in the types of details and reporting style of one publisher for multiple different athletes or events is another hallmark of MILL coverage.

I propose we try to articulate this position into NSPORT guidance in a way that neither implies all coverage of transactions/injuries/events is routine nor implies such topics are the only things that can be routine. We should also reiterate that routine coverage never counts toward notability, no matter how many sources report it or how many separate events trigger such coverage of an athlete (getting injured three times a season or bouncing between a bunch of mid-tier teams shouldn't be a path to notability!). JoelleJay (talk) 02:02, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Something along the lines of WP:CORPTRIV:

standard notices, brief announcements, and routine coverage, such as ... of the hiring, promotion, or departure of personnel

Coverage that analyzes the impact of the move to the player or team could help to establish notability. —Bagumba (talk) 02:21, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

How about

Reports on transactions, injuries, event results, interviews, awards, and other standard topics of sports news are often routine and must contain significant secondary independent[note] analysis beyond run-of-the-mill coverage to contribute to notability.
[Note] Take care to ensure coverage is not just lightly refactored from press releases.

Yes, I know this is mostly redundant with existing P&Gs and should not be necessary to state here, but I think it's important to have some guidance explicitly noting that transactional news etc. often falls under what we consider routine coverage. It is very common for editors unfamiliar with sports[2]Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Amanda Dennis (soccer)[3][4][5][6] to present a few 4-sentence transfer announcements as "SIGCOV" and claim that it's not routine because "ROUTINE is for events", or that since it's not "sports scores" (language from WP:ROUTINE) then it doesn't qualify as routine under NOTNEWS. Pointing to specific guidance would help terminate these headaches earlier on. JoelleJay (talk) 17:33, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

I suggest an amended "Basic reports on transactions, injuries, event results, interviews, awards, and other standard topics of sports news are often routine and must contain significant secondary independent[note] analysis beyond run-of-the-mill coverage to contribute to notability. Detailed examples of the above are unlikely to be considered routine

[Note] Take care to ensure coverage is not just lightly refactored from press releases." GiantSnowman 17:44, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, the "basic" wording is good, but I'm concerned that "detailed examples" could be interpreted as meaning "lots of details = SIGCOV" even when the details aren't actually secondary independent commentary. JoelleJay (talk) 18:06, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

"In depth"? A lengthy interview with a national paper, for example, could be SIGCOV GiantSnowman 18:08, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

If it contains secondary independent commentary, yes, but the length or source prominence doesn't matter if everything that's in-depth is from quotes. JoelleJay (talk) 22:01, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Agreed - hence why we need to make it clear what could be non-routine. GiantSnowman 18:25, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Shouldn't must contain significant secondary independent[note] analysis beyond run-of-the-mill coverage to contribute to notability describe what can be non-routine? JoelleJay (talk) 22:56, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:NRIVALRY

Proposal to clarify and expand WP:NRIVALRY based on common interpretations of notability guidelines such as WP:GNG and WP:NEVENT:

To show notability, a rivalry must receive significant coverage from independent reliable secondary sources that analyze the rivalry in an overview-level historical manner.

Any objections? Left guide (talk) 07:58, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Support: None from me. That's a sensible change. Ravenswing 10:07, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Support It sounds perfect! Conyo14 (talk) 14:15, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Support Looks good. Clarifies/reinforces what GNG means (coverage OF the topic of the article, not just coverage that is somehow related to the topic) in an area where that is needed. North8000 (talk) 20:19, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose Changing my support vote. On second thought/ as pointed out, "analysis" does add an additional requirement beyond GNG and I don't see that as a good thing. But to reinforce, GNG means coverage of the rivalry, not just synthesizing a topic / article validated by mentions of a rivalry. North8000 (talk) 14:49, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. If the "topic" of the rivalry receives SIGCOV in multiple, reliable, independent sources, then it passes GNG and nothing more is needed. This proposal goes far beyond GNG including additional requirements that the coverage must (i) consist of "analysis" (whatever that means), (ii) be of an "overview" nature (as opposed to in-depth coverage on a case-by-case basis or coverage of the rivalry in recent years), and (iii) be "historical" (whatever that means, i.e., does coverage have to include discussion of the rivalry's origins or games occurring years ago?). These extra requirements go far beyond GNG. If GNG is strictly enforced, we don't need to add these extra elements. Cbl62 (talk) 23:27, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose per Cbl62's line of reasoning. Deferring to WP:GNG is more than enough, no further clarification is needed here. Ejgreen77 (talk) 01:54, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose per Cbl62. GNG is sufficient; we don't need to add further stipulations. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 02:08, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose as "analyze the rivalry in an overview-level historical manner" is ambiguous. Dmoore5556 (talk) 02:58, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Comment: Left guide, it would be helpful if you could substantiate what you mean by "analyze the rivalry in an overview-level historical manner". I suspect what you mean is that if an independent, reliable, secondary source has a piece about, say, a 2019 matchup between two teams, and simply calls the clash a "rivalry" without discussing any history or context of that rivalry, that wouldn't count toward demonstrating the notabliblty of the rivalry? Jweiss11 (talk) 04:20, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

@Jweiss11: Appreciate the inquiry. Yes, your suspicion of my meaning is accurate. It's just a bold idea I thought might help shore up the notability for rivalries as an extension or mirror of other broader notability guidelines, but it's hard to explain more granularly in my own words. Best I can offer is Bagumba's comment in a related essay talk page. If there's no consensus for the change, that's cool too, I don't really care either way. I don't typically hang out on major guideline talk pages and make proposals like this, and don't have the energy to engage in a long debate about this. Y'all can also feel free to tweak it if there's a way to find something more agreeable for everyone. Left guide (talk) 06:47, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

• Spitballing comment: if we want to add guidance, I think it would be helpful to add what is or isn't considered sigcov, perhaps as an additional sentence to the current section. I follow @Bagumba's talk, so I had seen this discussion and largely agree that it's easy to create these rivalry articles based on a couple superficial references to "series history" and a lot of individual game results. Something to the effect of "Significant coverage of a rivalry should include, but isn't limited to, coverage of the history of matchups between the teams" or maybe language borrowed from WP:NLIST: "results as a group or set", instead of individual matchups. Left guide, it might also be helpful in the alternative to start an essay that some of us can contribute to, with examples of what a non-notable rivalry looks like. Alyo (chat·edits) 13:24, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per Cbl62. Not every rivalry has to equate to Bears-Packers. If I can find 5-7 (reliable) sources that definitively use the term "rivalry" to define the relationship between two teams, than I'm ok with it. The additional clarification seems to achieve a higher standard and appears to be more a solution looking for a problem. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 14:23, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't oppose some guidance for which rivalries should have their own article, but I too find the phrase "analyze the rivalry in an overview-level historical manner" too ambiguous to be workable. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 14:52, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose any requirement that goes above and beyond WP:GNG, per Cbl62 and others. I would support linking to or discussing WP:ROUTINE in a second sentence of the guideline though. Discuss some uses of "rivalry" not being significant coverage. This guideline or another one at WP:NSPORT should also mention the standalone notability of trophies. We should also mention that a trophy (Governor's Victory Bell), named matchup (Confusion Bowl), or other non-routine significant coverage like that can be notable and spawn a "series" article without the matchup being an explicit "rivalry" that matches the intensity of one like Yankees–Red Sox rivalry. PK-WIKI (talk) 17:22, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose, per PK-WIKI. Esb5415 (talk) (C) 15:23, 24 October 2024 (UTC)