Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 4

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Professional Wrestling

You've left Professional Wrestling out of this entire discussion. If this is to be used to replace ATHLETE, and AfD applies that standard against "Sports Entertainment" then this essay should also address it or specifically exclude it re-directing to another essay that properly includes and defines it. Ambiguity sucks.Sarcasto (talk) 01:26, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Excellent point. I think this belongs somewhere else, I think the explicit exclude and a redirect is a good idea. What do others think. --MATThematical (talk) 06:08, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Yup it falls under entertainer I believe since its closer to acting than it is to sports. -DJSasso (talk) 10:36, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I made an edit to do that. Please check if it is OK, and if it is in the right place. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:07, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Reworded it to be more general, just incase there are other scripted athletic entertainment events we are not thinking about. I think its in the right place --MATThematical (talk) 00:21, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Good, thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:31, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Association football/soccer

I would like to think through the "national" level requirement for footballers playing in professional leagues. While this requirement appears to exclude people who have only played in leagues which are limited to a specific region within a nation (e.g., the Greek Gamma Ethniki's North and South divisions), does it also exclude people who have only played in state championships (most notably the major Brazilian state championships such as the Campeonato Carioca or Campeonato Paulista)? I ask because it is my understanding that the clubs playing in the top level of the major Brazilian state championship are all fully-pro and that these leagues receive substantial coverage (I live in the US, and the Campeonato Carioca matches are broadcast live here on cable TV). Jogurney (talk) 15:11, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

The fact football games are broadcast live on TV doesn't really matter, Conference games receive national coverage in England and the semi-pro newly-created Topklasse will receive national coverage in the Netherlands too. The real marking point should be full professionalism of such division, which may apply on Campionato Carioca, but not Topklasse. --Angelo (talk) 15:20, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Why should 'full professionalism' be the standard rather than media coverage. Should any discussions on Football be here or at Football Notability? Eldumpo (talk) 18:58, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

We are presuming that full professionalism will bring with it media coverage. As far as exclusion, this essay doesn't exclude anyone from notability, that's the job of WP:V and WP:GNG. They just would not be automatically assumed to be notable. —Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 06:31, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

How are you defining 'full professionalism'. Is it as how the Football section reads now, as I think that definition is not verifiable or appropriate. Eldumpo (talk) 07:02, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposed change to fully professional wording

I would like to suggest the below wording be adopted as the 2nd bullet point of the Football notability guidelines, in place of the existing text.

• Players, Managers and Referees who have participated in a domestic league that is operating at a professional level or which is otherwise deemed significant, will generally be regarded as being notable.

Any thoughts? Eldumpo (talk) 17:41, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the "otherwise deemed significant" part is too vague to be accepted. In any case, I can't see why referees would be inherently notable since only a tiny minority are professionals themselves, even if they officiate matches between pro teams. I suggest something like:

• Players and managers who have participated in a fully-professional league (as detailed here) will generally be regarded as being notable.

I quite like the fully-professional phrase, I think it's a good benchmark seeing as pro players are pretty much guaranteed coverage in the media. BigDom 17:56, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

My thoughts were that the bullet point would additionally link to WP:FPL (article would probably need some editing, and possibly a name change) to indicate those leagues that had been determined as notable.

Why do you need to be 'fully professional' though, if you're appearing at what is otherwise deemed to be a notable level? Note though that FPL does not at present have a definition of fully pro; the one at Football Notability is extreme and I have seen no evidence that such a statement would be verifiable for virtually anyone. Will see what others say, but seems there is some desire for change. Eldumpo (talk) 20:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Support BigDom: we definitely need a rule of thumb for football player notability, and I don't really wanna get rid of the idea of having full professionalism as a starting point, so his wording looks quite fine to me. Also, don't forget to cite appearances in a senior international team recognized by either FIFA or any other affiliate continental confederations (e.g., UEFA, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL...) as a valid point for presuming notability. --Angelo (talk) 22:53, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Angelo, I didn't include international caps as they are dealt with in the first bullet point. Cheers, BigDom 17:34, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I support BigDom's position. But I think "participating in" is too vague. I suggest Players who have appeared, and managers who have managed, in a fully-professional league (as detailed here) will generally be regarded as being notable. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:47, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I like Mkativerata's wording, it's a bit clearer than mine and there can be absolutely no confusion if that phrasing is used. BigDom 23:36, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I have made changes to the wording, mainly as per Mkati above, although I have also removed one bullet point as I felt it was already covered, and I have removed the link to Football Notability as I think the wording here should be regarded as 'master', and made a few other changes. I'm still not a fan of fully professional though as it is not defined. Eldumpo (talk) 08:07, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Notable Continental Competitions

I would also like to add the following to the football criteria.

Players who have competed in any of the major club competitions in Europe (European Cup/Champions League, Fairs Cup/UEFA Cup/Europa League, and Cup Winners Cup) or South America (Copa Libertadores, Copa Sudamericana, Copa Mercosur, and Copa Merconorte) will generally be considered notable.

Any thoughts on this? Eldumpo (talk) 19:05, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree as long as it's clear that we mean participating in the actual competitions, and not the qualifying rounds. Jogurney (talk) 17:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, maybe we need to be clear about what is a "major competition". I notice you left out the Intertoto Cup (which is something I agree with), but including Copa Merconorte and Mercosur (which were second-rate competitions as well). What should be the dividing line? Jogurney (talk) 17:59, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, the round where the game takes place is important too. From my own point of view, it's very important to evidence that playing in a qualifying round game - who regularly feature teams from tiny countries such as San Marino and Andorra - do not confer notability, regardless of the competition. About what competitions to include, I would suggest to allow only those competitions who may potentially feature domestic league and domestic cup champions, as UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League do, plus competitions involving continental cup champions such as European Supercup and FIFA Club World Cup, for instance. --Angelo (talk) 23:22, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I think all rounds of the competition should be deemed notable, as use of the word 'qualifying' is just terminology. Would you include teams from the 'preliminary' rounds as they were termed in Europe in the early days, or what about the recently created 'play-off round'. It may be appropriate for Mercosur/norte to be excluded, I was just seeing them as the precursors of the Sudamericana. Agree that FIFA Club Cup ought to be included, European Supercup probably not necessary as all would qualify via other means. Are the newly created CONCACAF Champions League and AFC Champions League also strong enough to warrant inclusion in the list? Eldumpo (talk) 18:48, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I think CONCACAF Champions League and AFC Champions League get sufficient media coverage for inclusion and have professional inclusion standards. The CAF Champions League (group stage and after only) may also have sufficient coverage (and likely includes only professional clubs). Maybe I'm wrong about Mercosur/norte, but at one point entry in these competitions had nothing to do with league performance (so in my view they were not champions'/cup winners' competitions during those years). I'm not sure that qualifying rounds should count (much like qualifying rounds for domestic cup competitions are not considered equivalent to fully-pro league competitions). Jogurney (talk) 20:09, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

We need to be careful about applying original research to the issue of whether the qualifying rounds should be regarded as counting for notability purposes. The key determinant should be whether reliable sources are regarding the qualifying rounds as part of the overall competition. Here are some references showing this for the European competitions [1][2][3] I'm not sure the relevance of needing to be a champion or cup winner comes into it - surely it's down to the notability of the competition. Similarly, I don't think that being invited to a continental competition necessarily negates the notability of that event. The Fairs Cup was essentially an invited competition (particularly in the early days), and the Sudamericana started off with some invited teams, although I don't think this is now the case. Eldumpo (talk) 10:53, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Any officially sanctioned senior international competition

I think this guideline ought to be clarified. As shown here, FIFA clearly considers some friendlies to be full international "A" matches. However, the current NSPORTS language suggests that only play in an "international competition" like a World Cup or Copa America would satisfy the guideline. Instead, I would suggest the language used at WP:FOOTYN which requires play in a FIFA-recognized international (or perhaps it could be more-clearly defined, e.g., FIFA international "A" match). Jogurney (talk) 20:19, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the wording as it is. Most players who have senior international caps will have played in a fully-pro league anyways, and those that haven't will likely be playing for largely unseccessful national teams (San Marino, Malta, Andorra those sort of countries). Which raises the question should appearing for a country like San Marino confer inherent notability? In my opinion, it should not. Most of these sort of players will fail at general notability by a country mile, and giving them notability simply for taking the field for their country seems countrary to the purpose of notability guidelines, being to keep irrelevant and obscure information off wikipedia. Sir Sputnik (talk) 21:27, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

So you're reading of the current language is that friendlies do not count? Keep in mind that San Marino, Andorra and the like still participate in qualifying for the World Cup and Euro competitions, so they would still have several players passing this guideline (unless you intend to exclude qualifying matches in addition to friendlies). I'm certainly not clamoring for more biographies about these players, but I think the downside is the complication for international players from nations without fully-pro leagues. Jogurney (talk) 21:35, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above: representing San Marino, American Samoa or Montserrat can't just confer notability alone, as such subject usually just can't meet the way more important WP:GNG guideline. The fact they play in the World Cup qualifications is just irrelevant, national teams from micronations can't just be compared with all other national teams, they're a level down and that's a fact. --Angelo (talk) 22:08, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Representing any nation at international level is notable. More so than making a substitute appearance in the 4th level of English football. Every player that represents their country gets coverage - maybe not in England mainstream press, but coverage nevertheless. I agree with Jogurney that any A-international is notable.--ClubOranje^T 01:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Playing a senior A-international match, friendly or otherwise, has to confer notability. When player notability was actively discussed to death to formulate WP:FOOTYN, the idea that full international appearances conferred notability was taken as read. Nothing's changed. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:14, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Could you please provide some examples proving what you're claiming? I am not really convinced that playing for American Samoa, San Marino or Tonga gives you automatic coverage, and it's very hard indeed to find press articles covering such subjects. --Angelo (talk) 13:18, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Aaron Clapham....never played professional, zero caps and still meets criteria. Failed a previous AfD (deservedly), passed a later AfD even before even actually being capped (also deservedly).--ClubOranje^T 08:46, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't call New Zealand a micronation, especially considering they are regular winners in the OFC Nations Cup and they're about to play in the upcoming World Cup (their second time in World Cup history, by the way). --Angelo (talk) 10:04, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Then define micronation NZ have only become regular winners of OFC since Aus left. When NZ leave, then a smaller nation will win it...possibly one of your micronations. --ClubOranje^T 10:51, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I can see both sides of this argument as I opened NSPORTS in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alberto Celli. While it is helpful for young players, who are mostly bench warmers, soccer like hockey is intense non-stop action. Just because you get no caps in a senior international tournament, does not mean you didn't grab the headlines. No, per NSPORTS, which I knew and understood to be an essay, it has been used in other AfD's to save similar sports figures. On the converse side, how notable is playing in just one match? The WP:OTHERSTUFF part of the debate would be then every actor who appeared in one movie is notable. Something about the body of the work, combination of time on the team and/or caps/minutes might be necessary in a re-write. ----moreno oso (talk) 12:02, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

While I am not adding anything to the conversation. I have to say I had to smile when you wrote "soccer like hockey is intense non-stop action". The reason soccer is having troubles over here in Canada is that most people consider soccer to be at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. In other words that it is very excrutiatingly slow with little action, whereas hockey is on the other end and probably the fastest most high action sport there is. Though perhaps you meant field hockey now that I think about it... -DJSasso (talk) 12:07, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

About New Zealand, they have qualified to World Cup twice (and there is no automatic qualification for OFC teams, as you probably know), which makes them definitely not a micronation. The real error is to limit ourselves to the definition of nations: Brazil and San Marino are both nations, but I do not really think they could be compared to each other. We do not allow playing in a qualifying round of a club tournament as something notable, so why should it be different for national teams? We should really address this issue, and most importantly, we should understand that what meeting WP:NSPORT is just irrelevant in case the subject fails WP:GNG. --Angelo (talk) 12:46, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Hockey gets the same treatment in most parts of the US and just about every point south of the border. I know about both sports which is why I stated that. As to size of nation, I definitely agree. Size shouldn't be a consideration. That was suggested in Celli's AfD which is ongoing. ----moreno oso (talk) 13:06, 4 June 2010 (UTC)O

The reason that you would consider playing on a national team as always notable would be that they may not be notable outside their nation, but playing for their nation certainly makes them notable inside their own country which is all that is required. -DJSasso (talk) 13:37, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

"playing for their nation certainly makes them notable inside their own country". That's quite a bold assumption. Also, stating that it's just required for a player to be notable in his/her own nation is incorrect too: please note there's no mention of words like "country", "nation" or "region" in the general notability guideline. --Angelo (talk) 14:14, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

That is exactly my point. The GNG doesn't differentiate between what country or how much notability you have. You are either notable or not, whether you come from a big country or small one. A player playing for their national team is going to be written up in their countries media. That isn't a bold assumption, if anything its all but guaranteed. -DJSasso (talk) 14:55, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

You're still making the mistake of citing countries, under the belief that all countries, regardless their size, have a significant amount of media, which is absolutely false. San Marino's media is mostly the same as in Italy, for instance. Also, you can try yourself by searching for football players for that particular team on Google News; I tried with all of the San Marino players and I found little to no coverage about them, thus confirming my point that the concept of playing for a country doesn't necessarily imply "significant third-party coverage that is indipendent of the subject" (citing WP:GNG again). This point is especially valid for micronations such as Andorra, San Marino, Liechtenstein and so on. --Angelo (talk) 16:52, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

You do realize this doesn't override GNG right? You can still fail GNG if you pass this and then not have an article. This page just states when someone is likely to have sources to pass GNG, not that they are guaranteed to have them. There will always be exceptions to the rule, no matter how hard you try to get rid of them. That being said some of these micronations would still likely have some media. I think it more likely that a small country will have write ups on people who actually go to a major international competition than say the united states where they are always sending people to various international competitions. -DJSasso (talk) 17:23, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, actually that's not true, since people still keep on mentioning either WP:ATHLETE or WP:NSPORT in AfDs, but never WP:GNG: an example is here. I think we really need to explicitly state that the subject must receive significant coverage: no coverage, no notability, even if he played games with a national team. --Angelo (talk) 22:45, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Isn't that partly the point of ATH or NSPORT though. The community decides on what level/criteria is to be regarded as notable for that sport, thus reducing the need for AfD discussions on the notability issue? Eldumpo (talk) 20:21, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

That is because the point of athlete or nsport is to indicate at what point we can assume they have coverage, that you might have to go offline to find it. In local papers, perhaps in another language etc. However, if you can show you still went to those places and could not find the information then you can delete via not meeting GNG. But as it says on the deletions page, you need to be able to show you made a good faith attempt to look for those sorts of sources. -DJSasso (talk) 11:49, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

AfDs are meant to prove notability, not non-notability. A biography that does not mention any reliable third-party sources is non-notable in any case, regardless of whether it meets WP:NSPORT or not. If we fail to understand this basic point, then we are just going nowhere. --Angelo (talk) 23:35, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

If the sources in the article prove a point that establishes notability, that SHOULD settle the matter. If even one source proves the point, there should be no need for a further challenge to the article on other grounds like insufficient {{WP:GNG]] sources. Having an additional quantifying of the number of sources would work against athletes who might have predated on-line sources for their sport or might be in a sport that still is not covered well. I recently dealt with the British Steeplechasing Hall of Fame, obviously for an obscure but highly notable sport with a long storied tradition. It appears they haven't moved their literature into on-line form. I managed to find one source that actually talked about the existence of the place and a couple of articles that talked about one member. We are going to run into poorly sourced subjects that should be notable.Trackinfo (talk) 08:17, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Ice hockey standards

As the original author on WP:HOCKEY of the notability standards included here, I see a startling change: "Is an honoured member of a national or regional Hall of Fame." The original wording was "Is an Honoured Member of the Hockey Hall of Fame." The Hockey Hall of Fame inducts truly notable players. National Halls of Fame would presumably be inducting their national team players, whom are already notable, but regional halls? "Halls of Fame" from provinces or states haul in all manner of people, who might have been important (say) in Minnesota high school hockey, but have never been heard beyond that.  RGTraynor  02:29, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

You missed the discussion at WP:HOCKEY. This was all discussed and changed on the project page. It's worded that way so that the IIHF hall of fame etc is included. Its meant to counteract the systemic bias of the Hockey Hall of Fame only (with a few exceptions) inducting NHL players. Regional is meant to be things like the European Hockey Hall of Fame or stuff like that. High level regional hall of fames. -DJSasso (talk) 11:21, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Yet it doesn't say so. There's nothing stopping someone from claiming that some coach elected to the Kazakhstan Hall of Fame counts, or the Manitoban Hall of Fame that one editor pushes hard.  RGTraynor  14:57, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Remember these are just to guide you whether sources are likely to exist or not. If they don't meet GNG they still don't get an article. Also we were trying to include things like the Kazakhstan Hall of Fame. -DJSasso (talk) 14:59, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

While this is true, once a guideline give a group a presumption of notability, it's fairly difficult to argue against it with GNG, since you would be essentially trying to prove a negative. I've made a change to the wording to say "multi-national" rather than "regional" since I believe that is what is meant.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 16:41, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I missed the discussion, but I was curious why the arbitrary figure of 100 games for minor leaguers was chosen. This would mean players in leagues with fewer games per season would be less likely to be notable for that reason alone. I suggest that a better standard would be something related to seasons instead. For example, one season or two seasons (meaning a majority of games over either one or two seasons). ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 15:52, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I replied at the hockey project where you also asked with a link to the discussion. We had the season criteria in originally but stripped it out because majority becomes subjective whereas an absolute number of games can't be debated. Even when you get down to the real low minor leagues most of them have 60 games or so. (Europe maybe not as much). So 100 games is for most people 2 seasons. Players can still be below the 100 game mark and still have an article if they meet GNG. -DJSasso (talk) 16:58, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Road Racing too Vague

OK based on Niteshift36's comments I would like to bring road racing up again. I think the biggest problem is defining "many", and "highly competitive" in condition 6. Also under the roadraces section I think we need to define several in condition 3. For condition 3 I would think 5 would be appropriate. For condition 6 I was thinking perhaps 10 top 3s or 20 top 5s, and we could write this as a for example in parentheses if we want to leave it vague, but there should at least be a suggestion of approximately what we mean by many competitive non-winning performances.

OK so I added 10 top threes to condition 6. We don't want to make it sound like you can just have a handful of any old top 10 finishes. The athlete should have been challenging for the victory in several of their races and should have amassed a large number of close calls. For the condition about a direct meeting of notable runners I added at least five, but would be willing to change this to something else if someone presents a convincing argument. --MATThematical (talk) 15:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Skating, added clause

OK so I finally thought of a clause to add to the national champion section of skating "with the exception of those countries that do not regularly send multiple skaters to the Olympic Games." This will make it so that winning a figure skating championship for a country that almost never has world caliber skaters does not automatically create notability. For example if I win the Madagascar national championships, that does not count, but if I win the Japanese national championships that does count. What do people think? I had a tough time of trying to figure out a way of restricting this section that was not super subjective, but I think this does it. --MATThematical (talk) 16:12, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

College athletes/history

Just wanting to urge everyone to be careful when considering college athletes, coaches, and programs in the US from a historical perspective. In college football, there have been several major re-alignments of programs. The first college football game was played in 1869, the NCAA was founded in 1908, and the NAIA was founded in 1937 but didn't even start playing football until 1952. In 1956, the NCAA saw its way to create two divisions. And in pro ball, the National Football Leauge didn't begin until 1920 and was commonly considered sub-standard to college programs until the 1960s or 1970s.

I don't believe that the generalized standards discussed here take into perspective the notability of athletes and coaches from a historical perspective.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:43, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps there needs to be some sort of clarification about sourcing from the pre-internet era. What would you suggest? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:43, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I can't speak for other sports because I don't know their history. There's a collaboratvie essay at WP:CFBN on college football notability that we've found helpful. My suggestion is that if a "project" wants to collaborate and create a notabiity essay, to go ahead and do that--not to necessarily promote it to policy status, but to just have the discussions and work to have a collaborative effort. We've been working on it for several years and still don't have it right--often times we still have to "slug it out" in AfDs (and that's the way it's supposed to work). I can't imagine having to create such wide-reaching notability standards for all sports in a way that is being attempted here.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:40, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Not to be argumentative, but the only real author on that page apart from some minor changes is you. I don't see how that is a collaborative essay. I have also only really seen you use it in AFDs, not really anyone else. -DJSasso (talk) 15:44, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

True, I did the bulk of the writring. Others did make changes and additions, and many comments were made on multiple user's talk pages and the project talk page. Collaboration does not necessarily mean "active editing" but can involve passive review--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:16, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

That page is the perfect example of why project-side notability guidelines are not a good idea in general. The idea that articles on every single game are acceptable because "the project consensus is that when two notable organizations meet (opposing teams) for a notable activity (college football) in a notable location (the stadium) for the expressed purpose that the organizations exist (to win football games) the result is a unique notable event." will never get consensus on Wikipedia, and this is just one example from that page. Fram (talk) 08:43, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Fram, on that essay you have been invited on countless occasions to participate and comment and edit and you have continually refused to do so. You obviously don't like it but at the same time refuse to do anything about it except say that you don't like it. Further, they are not "notability guidelines" but it is a "notability essay" which by its nature has less weight. Members of the project have found it to be extraordinarily helpful and useful in AFD discussions, article creation, etc.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:43, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

My contribution to this essay would be limited to sending it to WP:MfD, which is probably not exactly what you have in mind. That people are using this as a help for article creation is worrying though. The use in AfD seems to be almost exclusively restricted to you (looking at 2010 AfD's). "Improving" this essay would be turning it into a redirect to WP:GNG. (Oh, and "countless" and "continually" seem a bit over the top for a discussion from November 2008 where you invited me once or twice to edit the essay, which seemed then and still seems now a pointless exercise to me). Fram (talk) 14:16, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

They asked my opinion, I gave it. You disagree with me, which is not unusual. You, many other editors in AfDs, and membes of at least 12 other projects were invited to review the essay as well as comments on other policy and guideline pages. Essays are encouraged on Wikipedia. If you want to send it to MFD, then do as you will.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:27, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

While essays in general may be encouraged (tolerated seems to more exact), essays encouraging the creation of articles that fail our accepted notability guidelines are not really encouraged, certainly not in project space (in userspace, such things are more generally tolerated). See WP:ESSAYS: "Essays that the author does not want others to edit, or that are found to contradict widespread consensus, belong in the user namespace." While you do want others to edit it, it does contradict widespread consensus, and thus belongs in your userspace. Fram (talk) 14:44, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe it contradicts widespread consensus as only a handful of people have opposed it. But that doesn't matter here, as I said: I was asked my opinion, I gave it, you disagree--welcome to Wikipedia!--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:02, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

College football notability is getting better and matching consensus more than it use to. However, it is long and lacks focus, providing so many arguments, a lot of redundancy etc. It has its purpose, however, this page is streamlined for easy reading, and is much more strict because it is claiming when a subject is likely notable. For example College football says any football team can be notable no matter the size and level of play. Of course this is true, if the team meets GNG, but we are talking about when teams will definitely meet GNG. This page is not about what schools can have articles --MATThematical (talk) 21:18, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Added link to WP:ROUTINE

Added a link especially to the local section. Since articles that merely summarize a local sporting event (where nothing notable happened) is not considered a non-routine source. Sources should be about the athlete or a notable accomplishment by the athlete, not a play by play of a routine sporting event. --MATThematical (talk) 21:21, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Mixed martial arts notability

I'm not an expert on MMA, but I patrol new pages and see MMA articles posted all the time. What's the level of experience and/or what leagues make someone notable in MMA? I see lots of new articles with (seriously) 1-1 lifetime records. Is that notable?? Should boxing rules apply to those? (And there are no boxing rules; should Sumo apply to MMA and boxers?)

Again, I know nothing of this subject, but it certainly seems like a gap in the criteria. I hope something can come of this discussion. — Timneu22 · talk 18:38, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

For the complainers and opposers above;

folks look at how normal wikipedia editors are looking to this project for guidance. This is how it should be used. There is a need for it and obviously with further expansion by experts who understand the nuances of this subject.Trackinfo (talk) 21:32, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind; this appears to be on WP:MMANOT. — Timneu22 · talk 23:51, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

High School Athletes

Made this section match WP:GNG better. The national clause would get trumped by GNG at AfD without any explanation. So instead I think the better strategy in this section is to write the exclusion of most local sources as being in alignment with WP:GNG. I think the best way of doing this is by using WP:ROUTINE this would automatically eliminate coverage like a summary of the play by play action of the game with an interview with the game MVP, or an article solely about the results of a regular high school competition. --MATThematical (talk) 01:00, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Looks good, thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:10, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Clarification proposal

It would be helpful to spell out clearly that the Basic criteria needs to be met in every case. A good number of articles on athletes tend to bypass the GNG by people at AfD pointing to WP:ATHLETE, which is esentially repeated here: "An athlete is presumed notable if the person has actively participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level such as the Olympics." What happens is that a person's name is found on a list of participants of a qualifying event, and an article is created which says little more than the person turned up and competed - as in Frederick Ashford, R. Irving Parkes, L. J. Manogue. This information is contained in context in Athletics at the 1908 Summer Olympics – Men's 800 metres, and the standalone articles add little except to frustrate anyone who clicks on the link to discover more.

I propose that the Nutshell reads: "An athlete is presumed notable if the person has actively participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level such as the Olympics, and meets the GNG requirements of substantial coverage in reliable sources." SilkTork *^YES! 10:47, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

1. Strongly support this common sense proposal. J04n(talk page) 10:50, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
2. Support this change, though my remaining concerns above still stand. cmadler (talk) 12:16, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
3. Conditional support As long as WP:N says "A topic can also be considered notable if it meets the criteria outlined in any of the subject-specific guidelines listed on the right." then we have a problem. Gigs (talk) 12:51, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

   I think that's exactly the point of this change, to specify that this is an additional requirement, not a substitute. That is, the subject-specific requirement would not be "participation in X level of competition", it would be "participation in X level of competion AND meeting the GNG". I think the proposed guideline should explicitly state that it is intentionally more restrictive than WP:N, because, as pointed out above, "any small town high school quarterback...would pass WP:GNG". cmadler (talk) 14:51, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

   Yes and no. Anything that meets GNG whether or not it meets this one will still be ok to have an article. The point of this page, like the point of the other sub pages is to let you know when its likely a subject has the sources but they might not be readily at hand in a simple google search. ie you might have to go digging through newspaper archives in another language. -DJSasso (talk) 15:59, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

   Right, because if one day we might have an article that satisfies WP:V we should keep totally unverifiable articles because surely sources exist out there somewhere for Mr. OneSeason Benchwarmer. That seems like solid logic! Gigs (talk) 00:45, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

   And the above points out the inherent problem with GNG. A local high school quarterback may have multiple stories in the local paper and never make it beyond being a second stringer at a Div. III school. But strict interpretation of GNG, without common sense being applied, would allow the article. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:32, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

   Certainly agree with you here, unfortunately this is something we need to fight at WP:GNG, I think, since that is the overarching standard. That being said it is not so clear that under GNG that that sort of article would count towards notability. A local paper in a small town isn't quite an independent of the subject source in my book, because the subject is the local high school of which a lot of people on the staff probably attended, its marginally a step up from the high school or college paper. This is the argument I make at AfDs and it works as long as it is not the local section of a big paper. --MATThematical (talk) 16:16, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

4. No objection from me. But please note the last bullet point in the Basic Criteria section, where it already speaks to significant coverage, not just statistical listings. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:09, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

   As I watch this discussion go along, I increasingly think that we ought to leave the nutshell as it is now, and not make this change. It covers the concern here well enough as it is now, and I think the explicit mention of GNG just creates needless concerns. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:52, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

5. Support - this is what I've wanted all along.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 20:32, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
6. A Bit Confused - So now we are requiring both GNG be met and the sports specific requirements be met. If that is the case then local papers should certainly count. The proposed requirements is much stronger than not allowing local papers, high school quarter backs will not make the requirements on this page, so it won't matter if they make the highschool paper. So the non-local sources is unnecessary. Also I am not sure I agree with this proposal. If this is the case, there should be exceptions where it says something for like "for historical figures, when online coverage did not exist at the time, lack of finding articles in Google searches is not deemed as evidence of lack of notability." Also if a person meets GNG in national or multinational sources they are notable, period. It should not matter what this page says. Before I oppose though, I will let people explain this to me. --MATThematical (talk) 03:20, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
7. Oppose - Essentially this is saying: use the standard of WP:SPORT AND WP:GNG together. Without both, delete the article. Sorry I can't go for that. You are thus eliminating historical figures simply because the sources for such articles will obviously be less than those for more recent individuals. Look further down the page WP:NTEMP means that notability is not temporary. Somebody who achieves the standard of notability is notable--it doesn't disappear because little is known about somebody who's notable achievements came over a hundred years ago. SlikTork chose three athletes from the 1908 Olympics as examples. They were all Olympians, that should be sufficient, but apparently its not. Yes, those articles were stub articles with little information about the athlete, just that they had failed to advance to the final in the 800 metres. I guess he feels that failing to make it to the final is sufficient cause to delete the article. Bad idea, against the standards we have already established. Or maybe they were just too short and incomplete. Well they've had their run, nobody has lifted a finger to improve the articles so that must be all there is to them - - delete them. Why do people complain or nominate for deletion first? Google. Its the number one search engine. Or use #2 or #3, I don't care, but try. I googled all three of these guys, found vital statistics for them, further information and the layout for the 800 metres at the 1908 Olympics. It was particularly tough, well beyond the standards we use today. Only one person from each semi-final (or really trial) goes to the final, Most importantly, I was able to improve all three of the articles. One guy even had a lengthy, successful music career which can be elaborated further. These are examples of articles that need to be chucked? Do not substitute your laziness for a blanket statement that WP:GNG needs to be applied against the article (and thus it being non-notable and deletable). Just because nobody has fixed the article, does not mean that is all that can be known about that person. It just means nobody else has done it yet. Even if other sources didn't exist, these people achieved our standard, they participated in the Olympics. It was proven by reliable sources. Establish notability and be done with it.Trackinfo (talk) 03:58, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
8. Support Good change. ThemFromSpace 05:22, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
9. Oppose I agree with Trackinfo above about the value of having articles on these athletes from the pre-internet days who info may not be readily available. Spanneraol (talk) 14:55, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
10. Oppose Wiki standards are quite clear that GNG supersedes anything, so i don't see how we can make it so that you have to satisfy both. This is an either or sort of thing, and thats how it should be. That being said, I think some of the categories could be made a little more strict, but the whole point is to have this page so that people who do meet GNG get notability even if they obtained their notability before the Internet existed or currently they are only covered in print. The key as trackinfo pointed out is that notability is not temporary, if you were notable in 1908 you are notable now. There was likely a ton of articles about those 800 meter runners back in their day. Basically the requirements on this page is that the person has to be notable enough that sources exist out there (whether that be a paper back in 1908 or a current major internet source). If you look at the page and don't think its strict enough we need to talk about that, but I really don't like this proposal. --MATThematical (talk) 16:52, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
11. Comment. If I understand correctly, this would not be saying that a page must simultaneously pass GNG and also pass NSPORT. It's just a wording clarification for the nutshell, and it summarizes the page as saying that (1) there are standards described below, about the level of athletic notability, and (2) the standards for sourcing that are described at GNG—which must be met whether or not NSPORT exists, and are not changed by NSPORT—must also be met. I don't think it does anything more than clarify the nutshell. It doesn't establish any sort of new guideline that wasn't already in the main text of this page, and it doesn't do anything to alter the status of GNG. All NSPORT does is provide guidance as to what will or will not satisfy GNG, more guidance than ATH does. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:20, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

    That's how I'm reading it as well.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 19:03, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

    Tryptofish your recent edit moots the standards we have established over time and puts all the weight on WP:GNG a far more ambiguous standard and one that will be increasingly, I hazard to say exponentially, more difficult standard to achieve for minor historical figures. You have caused numerous articles far more potential for controversy at AfD, while NSPORT is trying to articulate specifics to avoid such controversy. WP:BRD You obviously wanted discussion. Please explain how this edit could in any way be helpful to the goals NSPORT is trying to achieve.Trackinfo (talk) 21:08, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

    Yes, I am very open to discussion. This drew my attention following Niteshift's oppose #8 comment (to the main proposal) which you can see above. It comes as a surprise to me that anyone really wants high school athletes who are not notable for some specific reason to be considered notable on the basis of having been high school athletes. Every recollection that I have of discussing ATH has been that high schoolers are normally not notable. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:45, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

    My suggestion is that we revert back to the original language. If an article can be justified under WP:GNG I think that should be a separate policy. NSPORT is defining the circumstances that define notability from the sporting point of view. It should be as articulate as we can make it, to avoid argument at AfD. If WP:GNG is applied, that should be supplemental. That could apply to High School, Div. III or even Joe Beer in the community softball league. If the supporters of such an article can justify it under WP:GNG, let them have their day. That's consistent with my contention that historical figures might not qualify under WP:GNG because history is not documented as well. But they should qualify for an article under NSPORT because of their accomplishment. For the folks who want WP:GNG to say and do all, then I challenge them to show me an on-line archive of major newspapers dating back 100, 200, 1,000 years or more.Trackinfo (talk) 01:59, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

    If there's a parchment scroll about an ancient high school athlete, I'd be very impressed! Actually, I understand the purpose of NSPORT to be to provide specific guidance as to which pages will or will not pass GNG, not to provide an end-run around GNG. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:59, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

    An end-run sounds like I'm suggesting some sort of evasion of "policy" which is not the case. First and foremost, WP material must be sourced. That's a given. An article about a subject that claims notability on a particular ground needs to prove that point, some way, somehow. Under WP:GNG the ambiguity comes from the word "Significant." That is in the eye of the beholder. We must be understanding about historical figures. The amount of on-line sources we will be able to use are severely limited. The inverse happens with more recent high school "celebrities." In an area of competitive press, and on line hype, volume could be interpreted as a minor character having significant coverage. The slippery slope is if too many articles pass that weak standard and claim NSPORT as supporting that idea, then a new project will start rewriting new guidelines with much harsher standards to correct for the "problems" with NSPORT. I write a lot of articles about HS players. I try to write about ones who have accomplished something of significance. I wouldn't want them washed out on a blanket statement of no High School players, nor for them to be lost amongst some guy who won a local league title that happened to get covered in the L.A. Times. We have some psychotic people here on WP who like to find wholesale ways to delete large amounts of content. I'd like things to make sense.Trackinfo (talk) 20:25, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

    Well, looking at the specifics, there were 3 things listed before: (1) Won a major national award (e.g. Gatorade U.S. High School Athlete of the Year Award), (2) Set a major national high school record as established by reliable secondary sources, and (3) Gained substantial national media attention as an individual. I do not really see what those three things add. The first and third seem to be entirely contained within GNG, while the second is vague as to what does or does not constitute a sufficiently "major" record. As I've said from the start, I'm friendly to discussing this. Is there a specific way to make that list of three clearer, less ambiguous? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:54, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

    I went back and re-read archived talk on the subject, and modified the high school section based on my understanding of that and the discussion here. Is it any better now? --Tryptofish (talk) 17:06, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

    Um, I think that is fine, but basically the way it reads now we might as well say a shorter version "High school athletes are not presumed notable unless they meet WP:GNG." --MATThematical (talk) 21:29, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

    That's what I had, that Trackinfo objected to. Also, looking back at past talk, there is a good argument for being more specific than GNG, in that there has been a history of arguing that brief coverage in local sources passes GNG; this avoids having that mess come up. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:44, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

    I see. Well yes, if we are trying to be specific I think it is important to put the major award clause back in, its not clear to me that sources will be obvious (apparent in a quick google search) for people who won the award along time ago. I agree though that major national record is too vague, for track it works because the only major record is how fast you ran, but for team sports there are countless statistics that could be used in this regard, and its not clear which ones are notable. --MATThematical (talk) 16:08, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

    About the major awards, the one listed was the Gatorade one. Newspapers have been around a lot longer than Gatorade has, so I would imagine the sourcing can be found if it exists, even if (gasp!) one has to go to a library instead of running Google. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:38, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

12. Weak oppose WP:TLDR... there has to be a better way than to list 10 different things that make each type of athlete important and multiply that number by the total number of sports... at first glance it looks like there are more than 50 rules here.. Wikipedia:Notability (music) has more like 20... that number is a little much for my tastes but at least it is organized into a few quick categores... not 20 categories... really unnecessary amount of rules here especially since your just trying to defer to the GNG Arskwad (talk) 23:21, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
13. Support: I tend to agree with the principle that the criteria here should be subordinate to the GNG - that if an athlete doesn't meet GNG, meeting NSPORTS won't (necessarily) save them. Gonzonoir (talk) 14:41, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
14. Oppose We cover anything that meets the GNG. In some cases folks are notable without independent sources: an Olympic athlete would generally be such a person. Hobit (talk) 03:49, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
15. Oppose. I'm opposed to any guideline that would require athlete articles to satisfy both GNG and another, higher standard. Some editors view athletics as inherently less worthy than other fields of endeavor, but that's a value judgment that should not modify our general notability standards. Disparate notability standards based on those types of value judgments are, in my view, inappropriate. If someone meets GNG, that should suffice. Cbl62 (talk) 17:33, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
16. Oppose if they meet WP:GNG then that should be enough. If they don't meet GNG, then nothing else would be enough.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:27, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

    But that's not what this says. It doesn't say the pages have to pass both NSPORT and GNG. It just says that they have to pass GNG, while NSPORT, which is a guideline to understand more easily what will or will not pass GNG, includes what GNG says about sourcing. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:41, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

17. Oppose for my same rationale given above and Cbl62's. Strikehold (talk) 06:07, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
18. Support we definitely need to clarify and formally state that meeting WP:NSPORT without meeting WP:GNG is not enough. About old time players, they usually meet WP:GNG as well, the only difference is that they did receive a different, more traditional form of coverage (newspapers, etc.). --Angelo (talk) 11:21, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
19. Strong Support: As far as the demurrals about how the GNG trumps NSPORT - stipulating that this is explicitly the case (a premise many would deny), that's not how editors have been doing things. It's long been the case that passing ANY criterion of NSPORT, however shaky or tenuous, is generally granted a free pass through any other notability or verification policies, and almost every such article survives any attempt at deletion. Whether NSPORT's criteria should be subordinate to the GNG or not is all but a moot point; it isn't treated as such.  RGTraynor  08:44, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

But thats because someone who meets NSPORT almost always does meet GNG. NSPORT is tougher than GNG most of the time. When people say GNG trumps anything that is true about allowing articles, but generally not the case about deleting them. NSPORT is here to protect articles from lazy editors who decide notability soley based on the front pages of a google search. Lack of articles from a google search is not necessarily evidence against notability especially for historical figures and figures from countries whos pages are not going to have high google ranks. More athletes will make GNG than NSPORT.--MATThematical (talk) 15:29, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

1. Oppose If it passes GNG, it should not be deleted. If we're going to have the additional criteria, then being verified as meeting the additional should be sufficient for notability. Horrorshowj (talk) 02:37, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
2. Oppose Anyone who passes GNG should have an article. For those wanting to ensure that WP:BIO never trumps WP:GNG at AfD, the only way to achieve that is to delete WP:BIO. Epbr123 (talk) 08:17, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

   Note: Look above. Do you see the confusion this clarification proposal is causing. Now we have people voting against the entire NSPORT project thinking it is trying to add to the GNG standard. There has been so much confusion not about the text of the project, but about its purpose. This is trying to provide a definition of what constitutes a notable sports figure. Its not about what sources might be available. Sourcing has the same responsibility of any other article, either reliable sources are established to verify the claim of the article or the subject fails at AfD--just like any other article. But once verified, we shouldn't pile on and say the subject needs to also be widespread. Conversely, how can any report like this say that any subject that has met GNG is somehow not notable? Lets take this confusion out of the discussion and talk about the contents.Trackinfo (talk) 01:33, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

3. Oppose the "clarification". Passing GNG should always be sufficient. --Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:25, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
4. Oppose - If they pass WP:GNG they are notable without regard for any additional qualifications. Rlendog (talk) 04:03, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
5. partial Oppose There is no automatic trumping by the GNG--it can be decided in each case. To make the GNG required as well as the subject specific criteria I think it would be a singularly poor idea in this subject. The key reason is cultural bias : there are many players of unquestionably professional status on top level teams or in the olympics for whom the necessary sources for the GNG are not available, but just the basic statistics. some are earlier players, some are from the less informationally developed parts of the world, some are in languages almost nobody here can deal with. It would be much better to add the article with the supporting evidence for WP:V and for meeting the sports-specific guideline. On the other hand, if the intent is to make the GNG sufficient, even for players in no way notable by sports-related criteria, that's the present situation and I think it a poor one. It leads to altogether too many minor people being found notable in the information-superabundant parts of the world, and will become even more problematic here as Google news and books expand their coverage further. I'm only an inclusionist about people and other subjects that are intrinsically worth including. If they've done nothing important, they are not notable. We'd probably need an exception for really extensive publicity. A particular situation will be youth level players, who often receive great publicity in their locality. DGG ( talk ) 21:11, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Notability of Teams/Clubs

This guideline should guide on what teams are notable? There have been several AfD cases recently where a sports team came up, and I was troubled that there was not a standard. If a league is notable, then are the teams in the league automatically notable? Or do they need to establish it through GNG? Conversely, if the league is not notable, then can a team from the league be notable? This would probably vary depending on level. If one team is notable, are others in the league notable? This may need to be a separate guideline. ~Gosox⁽⁵⁵⁾₍₅₅₎ 01:26, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

As I understand it, this guideline is an extension of WP:BIO, hence the lack of guidance as to which teams are notable. IMO it would be wrong to have a guideline that said clubs in a notable league are also notable, since notability is not inherited. Rather than creating another guideline, I would say that GNG (and a good dose of common sense) would be the best way to determine whether a team/club is notable in its own right. After all, that is the standard that other topics have to comply with to merit their own article. BigDom 07:54, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

If they fall anywhere other than GNG its probably WP:ORG. -DJSasso (talk) 11:30, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Other than that, this is something it would be swell to devolve to the projects. Obviously, the standards of notability vary widely between sports. Sports such as hockey, baseball and soccer have strong tiered systems; sports such as American football have minor leagues of little to no significance.  RGTraynor  11:39, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I suppose I would agree that the projects know best, and that it's best left to them. I hope that the projects are given due weight at AfD and other venues. I certainly agree that GNG is probably the most applicable.~Gosox⁽⁵⁵⁾₍₅₅₎ 14:56, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I hope you realize that this guideline is the best, most concise way for the various projects to speak to the notability issues. To my knowledge, each of the known projects has been invited to participate here and this work is the summation of that input. That kind of invitation is how I got involved. I am fairly satisfied with the standards that cover the sports I am involved with and I would hope by now most of the other sports projects have similarly tweaked their notability standards. So the details mentioned above should have been addressed. If not, get busy and help so we can ratify this. The alternative will be to remain with the very limited WP:ATH guideline that constantly causes confusion and contentiousness in the AfD discussions, along with the almighty WP:GNG. What frustrates me about the AfD discussions I have been involved in, most decisions are made as a consensus of a few people who are mostly uninformed about the subject of the article they are discussing (usually battling against the expert author who is acting as his own defense attorney but is completely uninformed about the ways of WP defense). By having this kind of guideline, we give voice to the people who do know the subject. We also give advance guidance as to the type of article that is acceptable to be written for WP, which hopefully will inspire future editors (as it has done for me) to say "hey, there needs to be an article about . . ." Trackinfo (talk) 18:01, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

I do, but teams are outside the scope of this guideline. Perhaps ORG should be updated with team/club notability. ^~Gosox⁽⁵⁵⁾₍₅₅₎ 18:13, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

RfC: Promote Notability (sports) to a guideline

Numerically, the discussion is slightly in favor of this proposal, with 23 in support and 18 in opposition. But of course consensus is not about the numbers. Having evaluated the discussion, I think consensus generally is in favor of making this a guideline; it is also in favor of removing WP:ATH in favor of the new guideline.

Most supporters were in favor of the proposal in order to have a more detailed and easy way to quickly determine the notability of subjects covered by it. Also, many cited problems with the previous WP:ATH guideline. The opposers had a number of concerns but despite their quite high number, not all were valid.

Opposes based on the fact that we should not have subject-related notability guidelines are of a philosophical nature and do not address the problem with the specific problem; as such they cannot be weighted as much as specific concerns. Concerns that the proposal is too inclusive and thus still mirrors what they thought to be problems with WP:ATH are more likely to be valid but fail to convince since many users supported with similar concerns. Concerns that some phrases used are too vague are valid (like opposes #6 and #13) and, while not enough to sway consensus against the guideline, should be addressed and fixed.

Echoing many of the participants' concerns though, consensus can not be considered in favor unless the new guideline clarifies that it does not replace WP:GNG but supplements it and that articles that do not meet this guideline may still be included if they satisfy WP:GNG. Since this is consensus, I have made this change with my edit to change this page's status. Regards SoWhy 20:40, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

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.

---

Proposal

It is proposed that this essay be promoted to a notability guideline. It is further proposed that Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Athletes be deprecated in favor of this guideline. A temporary moratorium on deleting articles that passed WP:ATH, but do not meet the new guideline or the general notability guideline is suggested, please propose solutions and discuss this in the Moratorium section.

This essay was advertised to all the sports-related wikiprojects, and input was received, refining the text of the proposed guideline. Community feedback received at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people) has seemed to say that the current version of WP:ATH is not supported by consensus, and replacing it with a more comprehensive and flexible guideline was the most popular option during that RfC.

Support

1. Support As nominator - The sports covered on Wikipedia range from hugely popular to niche. The current "all professional athletes" guideline does not correctly cover all those sports, so we need a more detailed guideline - this one.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 02:09, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
2. Support I've only dealt with the Baseball section of WP:NSPORT and found it very helpful. Giving specific leagues as opposed to the vague "fully professional level of a sport" is invaluable in gauging notability. I've looked over the other sports and they also seem sound. J04n(talk page) 03:03, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
3. Support, looks overall pretty good actually. Was worried it'd be too inclusive originally. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 04:31, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
4. Support - Carefully considered guidelines are needed for notability. Otherwise discussions will become WP:OTHERSTUFF. By having community accepted "what makes a person notable", the guidelines can be used for inclusion/non-inclusion as appropriate. ----moreno oso (talk) 04:58, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
5. Support - Seem to be fairly reasonable guidelines that should make notability clearer. Spanneraol (talk) 15:01, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
6. Support. And I am someone who came to this page out of concern that we have way too many low-quality athletics pages, so I'm no pushover. But editors who have worked on this page have really worked together on something that has long been one of the "third rails" around here, and have been impressively cooperative in building consensus. I've read the opposes so far, and they very much miss the point. The result of rejecting this proposal will not be to set GNG as the sole criterion. It will be a return to the status quo, in which editors try to balance ATH against GNG. Saying "oppose" here will not get rid of ATH. If you think you can get consensus to eliminate ATH and have GNG only, you are not being realistic about the community here. And if you think NSPORT is too inclusive, ATH is a gazillion times worse. Tweaks aside, this proposal is the best improvement on ATH that can actually get consensus. So you have a choice. You can say "no" to this, and get something even worse, or you can get an improvement on what we currently have. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:30, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
7. Strong Support. This needs to be codified to reduce arguments on what constitutes "full" professionalism. — KV5 • Talk • 18:14, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
8. Support - A big improvement on the previous Athlete guidelines. It's not a substitute for notability and good sources. I predict we will revisit this and tighten it up, but this will more than suffice for now. I think the concerns about this vs. GNG is more related to what editors think is encyclopedic, whereas Wikipedia also is somewhat of an almanac. ʘ alaney2k ʘ (talk) 21:42, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
9. Support - While I usually resist "instruction creep," in this case I think these standards are a step forward from the pretty awful guidance, or more often confusion, that has resulted from trying to apply ATHLETE in AfD discussions. By setting a higher standard than "fully professional" for sports where that standard is unclear (for example, minor league baseball) and by emphasizing the importance reliable sources, these guidelines should lead to more consistency in coverage and better articles. BRMo (talk) 04:07, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
10. Support after recent changes. It's a big step forward in the right direction. ThemFromSpace 04:56, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
11. Support I'm disappointed that the guideline is a bit too inclusionary for my taste. But in that respect it's little worse than WP:ATH. On the plus side, the guideline improves on WP:ATH by being more prescriptive - WP:ATH didn't work for many sports. Therefore, on balance, I think this is an improvement. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:50, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
12. Support Huge improvement over WP:ATH, as that guideline was down right non-sensical for many sports. I do think that some of the sports that only have one contributor may need some aditional verification, but this is leaps and bounds better than WP:ATH. --MATThematical (talk) 03:00, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
13. Support So I'm lucky 13. This may not be perfect, but it does achieve what I have requested from AfD, it lets the voice of somebody reasoned and knowledgeable about the subject inject the standards we are using for all these various sports. Compared to the deletion oriented chaos I see at AfD every day, this give much more in terms of specifics and reduces the gray area that can be easily manipulated to the detriment of WP.Trackinfo (talk) 04:09, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
14. Support - My primary concerns have been addressed, and I've withdrawn my opposition. It still seems unclear whether this is intended to be descriptive (topics that meet X, Y, or Z are likely to have sufficient coverage to merit an article under the GNG) or proscriptive (topics that meet X or Y usually do merit articles regardless of GNG, topics meeting Z usually do not merit articles regardless of the GNG), but as long as that is settled one way or the other (just so there's a resolution; I don't care that much which) I think this is a workable guideline, and an improvement over current standards in several regards. cmadler (talk) 13:31, 14 June 2010 (UTC)
15. Support A definite improvement over the current guideline. I worry that it may still be too inclusive, but meh. Ray^Talk 02:01, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
16. Support This project seems to have stabilized and essentially is a good guideline for notability standards for athletes. It does a much better job of dealing with specifics than WP:ATH and takes out the potential ambiguity of WP:GNG. It deals directly with the issue rather than kicking the can down the road and leaving each article to have to fight for life individually.Sarcasto (talk) 00:26, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
17. Strong support: a big improvement on WP:ATH, which was a good bright-line guide for most sports but failed to cover all disciplines. It would be fairly safe to assume that all players and competitors who meet the new guideline would have enough coverage to pass the GNG anyway, which is the entire point of an Athlete guideline. BigDom 16:11, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
18. Support I would definitely prefer to have a far more restrictive guideline who states clearly, formally and permanently that WP:GNG is the top guideline, and meeting requirements on WP:NSPORT is not enough when it is impossible to provide enough third-party reliable sources covering the subject in significant detail (i.e., no short match reports or squad lists, but real news articles). However, WP:NSPORT is a step in the right direction, and definitely a step forward with respect to WP:ATH, so I am for it. --Angelo (talk) 23:43, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
19. Strong support. My main area has been the baseball section, and this is a huge improvement over the all-too-vague "fully professional" wording we currently have.--Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:22, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
20. Support Certainly much better than WP:ATHLETE which is ridiculously broad. Vyvyan Basterd (talk) 20:31, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
21. Support WP:ATHLETE is way too broad, and this policy will hopefully help to cut down on sports cruft on Wikipedia. elektrikSHOOS 06:31, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
22. Support Excellent guidelines. wp:ath is very unclear for many sports now. --Omarcheeseboro (talk) 21:51, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
23. Support a pure improvement over WP:ATH. Hobit (talk) 17:23, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose oppose all subject-specific notability guidelines that allow biographical articles to exist with no reliable sources of biographical information. People that fail the GNG should not have articles, no matter what level of sport they played at. Gigs (talk) 02:25, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

   This is intended to be a guideline that identifies what articles will meet GNG, not to supercede it.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 02:36, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

   WP:N currently defers to these subject-specific guidelines: "A topic can also be considered notable if it meets the criteria outlined in any of the subject-specific guidelines". I will oppose all subject specific guidelines as long as they are considered to bypass the requirements of WP:N and GNG. Gigs (talk) 14:07, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

   Pretty much all subject-specific guidelines (eg BIO, BK, etc.) are ones that give criteria for inclusion (mind you, very exclusive criteria) that are a metric for notability as an alternative to the GNG, though defer to the GNG for anything else. --MASEM (t) 14:14, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

   Right, that's exactly the problem with all of them and why all of them need to go away. We definitely don't need to be creating new ones. Gigs (talk) 15:09, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

   Wouldn't it make more sense to replace a loose one (ATHLETE) with a tighter one (NSPORTS) in the meantime until you can get people to agree on that? Rather than just opposing this one and leaving the door wide open with ATHLETE still? -DJSasso (talk) 15:11, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

   But for soccer, ATHLETE is stricter than this one, as an amateur player who has competed in an international game (e.g. players from the Faeroer, San Marino or Andorra) were not automatically included through WP:ATHLETE, but are automatically included by this proposal. Fram (talk) 15:25, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

   They certainly were, they fell under amateurs playing at the highest level. Competing internationally is the highest level. -DJSasso (talk) 15:28, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

   That's why the (usually meaning...) is added, plus the "highest amateur level" is intended to be used for non-professional sports. To be notablewhen you play at the highest amatuer lebel of a sport with thousands of professionals is somewhat ridiculous... Fram (talk) 15:42, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

   I agree, playing at the highest amateur level of a sport generally matters only if there is not a professional level. But I don't think that's an issue here. The proposed general standard says "have participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level such as the Olympics." Some Olympians are amateurs and some are professionals, but I think it's likely that they all have (at least a degree of) notability. That general standard also appears to defer to sport-specific guidelines ("except as noted within a specific section"). The "Football" section seems clear to me: a person must either have appeared in a game in a fully-professional league, or have "represented their country in any officially sanctioned senior international competition" (e.g., Olympics, World Cup). I don't see how that causes a problem with letting bunches of amateurs in. cmadler (talk) 16:30, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

   The SNGs (sub-notability guidelines) are meant to be common-sense exceptions to the GNG where we know there are bound to be sources, but they just can't be produced instantaneously (within the timeframe of an AFD for practical purpose). A person wins a truly notable award (eg Nobel, Oscar, etc.), there's bound to be significant coverage for them, but they're clearly notable. Now, that's the problem here with NSPORT is that we're still not talking about how these athelets approach the GNG, but just "oh yea, there's info out there about them" even if it just box scores and the like. I've said it before but realistically, given how we do notability on WP, it is impossible to presume every athlete, even pro, is notable. I am sure that there are criteria for athletes that match other SNGs that assure significant coverage, but in general, BIO and GNG are sufficient for these given the larger amount of coverage sports gets over most other topics. --MASEM (t) 15:48, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

2. Oppose I seriously think the approach done here is counter to every other SNG which are more exclusive; these guidelines as a whole, while less inclusive than the old ATHLETE, are still far too inclusive and fail to address the problems that were identified previously with ATHLETE. I've said this before: nearly every case here is basically redundant with the GNG save in the case of athletes prior to mass media and for countries/sports with limited coverage. I don't believe either this or the ATHLETE is needed to retain the deep coverage we already have on athletes by the GNG alone. --MASEM (t) 04:51, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
3. Oppose I agree with Gigs: how can a topic be "notable" if it has not been "noted"? Nothing has been learned, nothing has been remembered: another case of the Emperor's new clothes. Evidence of notability is always required, not platitudes or hearsay about "being professional". --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:54, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

   Oppose - I have two very specific concerns about this proposal. First, it needs to clarify that this does not replace or supercede the GNG, but that this is intended as guidance to clarify when the GNG is likely to be satisfied or to fail to be satisfied. (At least, that's my understanding of the intent.) Along with that, the "Basic criteria" section should be more in-line with the GNG, for example, while the GNG says "Multiple sources are generally expected", the "Basic criteria" section here says suggests that a single substantial source can be sufficient: "If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be needed to prove notability" (my emphasis). Also, the "Basic criteria" section says that "trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability" (my emphasis), while the GNG requires "significant coverage", defined as "more than a trivial mention" -- in other words, trivial coverage is not sufficient. My second concern with this proposed guideline is the "Individual seasons" section, which rather than considering the school, should consider the season itself. For example, this guideline suggests that Eastern Michigan, because they currently compete in D-1 FBS, might reasonably have an article on their <sarcasm>truly remarkable 1905 season</sarcasm> (4-4, including a 20-point pounding by the Michigan freshmen and a one-point win over Michigan School for the Deaf), while Yale, who won one of the first contemporaneous national championships that year, probably shouldn't have an article (in fact, there doesn't even seem to be an article for Yale football -- only four sentences in Yale Bulldogs -- but that's another issue), which is plainly wrong. So I'd suggest that the "Individual seasons" section needs to be substantially reworked, to consider first and foremost the season itself. For example, a national championship season at the top collegiate level is (almost?) always notable; a national chapionship at a lower collegiate level might be notable; a season including a post-season appearance in the top collegiate level is often notable; for programs considered elite in a sport (e.g., Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, in men's basketball; Tennessee and UConn in women's basketball; Michigan, Notre Dame, Alabama, USC in football, etc.) many or all seasons might be notable regardless of the outcome (the amount written on a weekly basis for some of these programs is enough that almost anything/anyone having any relation to them is likely to meet the GNG), etc. If the "Basic criteria" and "Individual seasons" sections are changed in these regards, I will reconsider my position and probably support this proposal. cmadler (talk) 12:38, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

   Struck out part of my concern, which has been addressed. cmadler (talk) 18:00, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

   I've changed the part about trivial coverage. As for the individual seasons, part of the RfC is input from other editors that have not been involved thus far. Please make changes as needed to bring this in line with current practice. I agree with your comments about the individual seasons, but I'm not heavily involved in editing sports articles, so I'm not acutely aware of what the norms are with regards to individual seasons.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 20:48, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

   I made a minor change to the description of trivial coverage, and a more meaningful change to the section on seasons for college teams, per the above comments. My opposition is withdrawn. cmadler (talk) 13:26, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

4. Oppose, I oppose any guidelines that are including articles on people not meeting the GNG. We shouldn't have articles on cricket players like Hawkins (Hampshire cricketer), and articles like Alberto Celli shouldn' tbe kept because of WP:ATHLETE despite not meeting WP:N. Fram (talk) 14:56, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

   WP:ATHLETE is the problem here, as you say. This is an attempt the create a guideline that is much closer to the GNG, since there is practically no support for dropping WP:ATHLETE without a replacement. If you see issues with the current article, please suggest changes, but this guideline explicitly states that articles must meet GNG level coverage to be included.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 20:48, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

5. Oppose - I oppose an guideline that is stricter than ATHLETE. There's so much coverage of sports, it would just be used to delete stuff when there isn't time to fix it, but it could be fixed. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:58, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

   Speaking as a supporter, I'm going to point out that this is actually a valid reason to oppose, unlike many of the other opposes. (Although I would hope that pages that can be fixed, will be fixed, instead of just deleted.) Yes, this proposal is stricter than ATH, although I believe that's a good thing, and the proposal does so in a thoughtful way. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:59, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

6. Oppose violates GNG and WP:BIO. Very misleading lead. No definition of "sports" (is backgammon a sport? Or beer marathons?) If anyone thinks that narrow subject guidelines have some worth in it, that's fine. But these must at least been written coherently; the current text is a mess of riddles and contradictions, as if it was designed to be gamed. Assuming good faith, I'd rather blame it on incompetence rather than intent: the narrow pool of volunteers involved (yes, I checked the page history) could not possibly produce a comprehensive and well-rounded guideline (hence curious US-centrism in referring to domestic US leagues and agencies) and it won't. You guys just don't have the critical mass to grasp the subject -you need dozens, if not hundreds, of new experienced volunteers, and no prospects of recruiting them (given the opposition to SNGs). East of Borschov (talk) 08:28, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

   It doesn't violate GNG, it actually depends on it (read the Basic Criteria section). As for "violating" WP:BIO - yes, this guideline is intended to replace a specific section of BIO - WP:ATH. If you'd like to volunteer to write a definition of sports, please do so, we can use all the help we can get.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 20:48, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

7. Oppose - this is all instruction creep. People should be considered notable if there is non-trivial coverage on them in reliable secondary sources. Otherwise, you get into wikilawyering. Someone like Tim Tebow is clearly and unquestionably notable even though he has never played a pro game. Really, the American football and basketball guidelines have little to do with reality or current practice - top players from major college teams are likely notable, but it's a smell test based on media attention, not something you can come up with an ironclad rule on. Patrick Nyarko, for instance, was an article I wrote after he was drafted by MLS. He was AFD'd twice based on WP:ATHLETE when it was only a matter of months before he would play and get his blessing of notability. This is all instruction creep and is not needed. Both this and WP:ATHLETE should go away. --B (talk) 22:35, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

   But opposing this will do nothing to make ATH go away. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:44, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

8. Oppose. It still needs work. It will be an improvement over ATH (which is something I support), but I'd rather see some of the concerns addressed before it is promoted, rather than trying to do it afterwards. Niteshift36 (talk) 03:41, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

   Niteshift, which concerns, specifically? Some of us would likely be happy to fix them asap. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:22, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

   I tried to address some of them above, citing specific concerns in skating, gymnastic, track and field and others. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:28, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

   I've gone back and looked at your comments in this talk, and then looked at the present version of the page. It looks to me like all mentions of junior divisions now specify either a gold medal or a world record, no number twos or below. Is that good enough? I also looked at the high school section, and I'd like to suggest that it go. It basically just says that they have to pass GNG without shedding any further light, and I think consensus is that high schoolers who do not go on to greater accomplishments later should really not get anything looking like a pass here. I'm going to make a bold edit to that effect, and will be happy to discuss it if anyone wants to revert it. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:50, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

   I'd like to point out that yes the track one was fixed to now require records and gold medals only (I think the road race section needs to be tightened up though). Niteshift36 has refused to comment on what parts of road racing he doesn't like, even though I said I would likely agree. I don't know why Niteshift36 is brining up gymnastics again, since he claims not to have any problem with that one, and specifically scolded me for claiming he had a problem with it. I think skating is the big problem, and I agree. However, when I asked if we could come to a compromise on skating there was no more talk from his side. After talking to skating experts I have discovered that skating is unusual in that there is always several juniors that are some of the best skaters in the world, and the top junior skaters always satisfy GNG. Of course Niteshift36 is right that it is a stepping stone. But my belief is that if a stepping stone makes them notable we shouldn't wait to grant them notability. I think this is the advantage of having sports specific pages is that we acknowledge that skating is different than track. That being said I do agree that making the free skate in the junior world championships is too lenient. That is currently only up there because it originally stated competed in the junior championships (without any qualifications). I changed it to free skate to make it more strict, but I would prefer something a bit stronger like finished top 6 or 10 and would be willing to go even as far as to say medaled. I even apologized to Niteshift36 on his talk page saying that my words became too passionate and that I was sorry if I sounded stubborn and dismissive, and that I would really appreciate it if we could come to some agreement, and for him to continue to offer his suggestions. However, he decided to not leave any input. --MATThematical (talk) 23:22, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

9. Oppose. I'm opposed to any guideline that would set a higher notability standard for athletes than business people, academics, politicians, entertainers, etc. Some editors view athletics as inherently less worthy than other fields of endeavor, but that's a value judgment that should not modify our general notability standards. For example, the college athletes section that says a college athlete is the appropriate subject of an article if he has "Gained national media attention as an individual, not just as a player for a notable team." It's not clear what "national" media attention means, and that is not part of the general notability standard for other biographies. If an Illinois politician gets feature story coverage in the Chicago Tribune or other major daily newspapers in his/her region, there's no requirement that he also be covered by the media in New York or California. Of course, if that same politician has only trivial coverage in a small, hometown newspaper, notability may not be met. There should be no different standard for athletes. Imposing a requirement of "national" coverage on athletes (but not others) is imposing a value judgment that athletics are less valuable to society than academics, business, politics, or entertainment. Disparate notability standards based on those types of value judgments are, in my view, inappropriate. If someone meets GNG, that should suffice. 18:55, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

   Also, I happened on this discussion by dumb luck. If new guidelines are to be established for college sports, a notice of this discussion should really be posted on the impacted project talk pages, e.g. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football. Cbl62 (talk) 19:02, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

   I have now added a neutrally worded notice at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College basketball and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College baseball. there are likely other projects that should be notified as well. Cbl62 (talk) 19:16, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

   It's posted on multiple RfC listings and on CENT. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:41, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

   Please bare in mind that not meeting this page doesn't mean they can't have an article, they can still get an article if they meet the GNG. This page is just a guideline as to when someone is likely to already meet GNG. Also all the sports projects were notified weeks ago. -DJSasso (talk) 11:27, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

   As of yesterday, this vote had been posted on the Baseball Project page (here) but not on many others. I added it to the three noted above.[4][5][6] As for your substantive point, I would be less troubled were that the view of all commenters here. However, it appears from many comments that there is a push to require athletes to satisfy both GNG and this guideline. I believe that this guideline, if adopted, will be used by those with a bias against athletics articles to establish a higher notability standard for athletes. Cbl62 (talk) 17:11, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

   I think what they mean when they say both need to be met is actually in the other direction. That you can't just meet this and be notable. That you have to still pass GNG after passing this. Because currently people believe that if you pass WP:ATHLETE then you are notable, when really you have to pass both WP:ATHLETE and WP:GNG or just GNG. Actually you have to go back further than yesterday, most were notified about a month and a half ago (atleast) of the ongoing development of this guideline. College Football for example was notified 14 sections above your notifications. College basketball was notified 10 sections above your notification. And the baseball project had their discussion about it beginning April 21st. Alot of these guidelines were discussed at thier respective projects and then brought here to this page. -DJSasso (talk) 17:27, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

10. Oppose based on this wording: "In addition, standalone articles are required to meet the General Notability Guideline. This essay provides bright-line guidance to enable editors to determine quickly if a subject is likely to meet the General Notability Guideline. Information about living persons must meet the more stringent requirements for those types of articles." In short, that makes this wholly unnecessary as policy. If a person already meets WP:GNG, there is no need for additional "bright line guidance" saying he is notable. What it does instead is remove the exemption that professional athletes currently have under WP:ATH. If there is consensus to do that (and I'm agnostic on that) then so be it. But elevating this to policy is not needed, and appears to me to simply be an end around of WP:ATH. Strikehold (talk) 02:30, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

    Not to split hairs, but this would be a guideline, not policy. And ATH has been intended to provide guidance as to what will pass or fail GNG, and this is just doing the same thing, but more specifically and clearly. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:34, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

    That is not true. WP:ATH provides additional criteria under which people may meet notability standards, i.e. people who do not otherwise meet WP:GNG can be "notable". This proposed text makes WP:GNG a requirement. So if WP:GNG is required (and met), what point does this serve? The person is already notable. I understand the intent to give "rules of thumb". And I disagree with it. More (unnecessary) rules never make things clearer, just the opposite. If there is support to get rid of the additional criteria, it shouldn't be replaced by anything. Strikehold (talk) 03:48, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

    Really? So you would claim that someone who actually fails GNG (actually fails it, not just a case of it being difficult to track down some sources that exist) can pass ATH and be notable? Well, if you feel that this ought to be the way we define notability, I guess that's a valid reason to oppose. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:45, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

11. Oppose I'm not in favor of any notability guideline that requires satisfying both it and the GNG. Even if that weren't the case, gymnastics criteria should cover all amateur sports, and we still have the longstanding issues of boxing/mma not having any guidance.Horrorshowj (talk) 02:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

    But it doesn't require passing both it and GNG. Adding a boxing section would be a good idea. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:50, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

12. I Oppose any policy that requires a higher standard that GNG. Fully professional is not the only way to be notable; some amateurs who won a national championship should be able to have an article if GNG is demonstrated. Royalbroil 00:33, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

    But it doesn't give a higher standard than GNG, anyone who passes GNG gets an article. This provides guidance to say when an athlete likely passes GNG (but sources are not blatently obvious in a Google search). Of course amateurs can be notable, this is why there is an amateur section, and as said before anyone who passes GNG is considered notable. --MATThematical (talk) 06:41, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

13. Oppose "Fully professional" still too vague and arbitrary. There's double standards with some amateur sports (Gaelic games) given a different notability benchmark to others (Women's soccer in the UK). Eliteimp (talk) 16:26, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
14. Oppose. It is due to guidelines like this that we have large numbers of BLPs only sourced to statistics websites. Eventualism has failed. The GNG should be the only criteria we use. We should simply demote WP:ATH from being a guideline and be done with it. I would not oppose this if it only applied to dead people. Quantpole (talk) 09:54, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

    But opposing this will not accomplish that. Opposing this does nothing to revoke ATH; it leaves ATH as all that there is. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:04, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

    I oppose WP:ATH too, and sooner or later it will probably be rescinded. I don't want what looks like an equally anemic policy in its place. Quantpole (talk) 21:48, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

    I've been complaining about ATH myself at WT:BIO for quite some time, but if you look at the responses that come from the sports community whenever the issue comes up, ATH is never going to be deleted outright in favor of GNG by itself. It's never going to happen. This is pretty much the best improvement that can realistically be hoped for. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:06, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

    I don't know - BLPs have been getting tightened up recently, so things can change. And it's going to be easier to change if this isn't instigated. Otherwise the argument will just be that we all came to a nice consensus and decided on NSPORTS. That will simply prolong the number of BLPs sourced to statistics sites and the like for another couple of years. Quantpole (talk) 22:15, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

    (Thanks at least for this thoughtful discussion.) Anyway, I hope that you will look carefully at what NSPORT actually says about sourcing to statistics sites, and compare that to what we have now. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:20, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

    To be honest I don't see how this harms living people. Yes I understand they may have done other things in their lives besides what we have pidgeon holed them into. But chances are whatever we have pidgeon holed them into is the most notable thing they did on a wider scale. Protecting BLPs is about preventing harm. Not sure how this guideline causes harm. -DJSasso (talk) 19:22, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

    It depends on your viewpoint - I see having lots of biographies on low profile people who are not notable as being a problem. If we do not have decent biographical information about someone, we shouldn't have an article on them. If you disagree, then I don't think there's anything more we can say about it. Quantpole (talk) 21:48, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

15. Oppose Well-intentioned, but standards like this inevitably end up being used to trump GNG even though there's existing guidance to discourage the practice. Townlake (talk) 01:17, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
16. Oppose, a subject is notable if it receives substantial third party reliable source coverage and non-notable if it does not. Period. The subguidelines confuse that too much. With the "deemed notable" wording, this even seems to give the idea it can override the primary guideline, which it cannot. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:20, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
17. Oppose — Micromanaging instruction creep, replacing a couple coherent paragraphs with a ream of gook. Doesn't mention MMA, Professional Poker, or a host of other sports, so rest assured that 5,000 words is just the beginning. Practical effect of implementation will be nil, since all the vast new guidelines do is document already extant practice. Carrite (talk) 00:26, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
18. Oppose. Current football guidelines state that this player is notable, but this one is not. Given that the AfD was heavily influenced by WP:FOOTY, and this specific point was raised, I question an individual wikiproject's ability to self govern, and daren't contemplate the administrative ramifications of a wikiproject deciding one thing, only for the wider community to decide otherwise years down the line. At least with the Pokémon case there were only a couple of hundred articles to worry about. WFC (talk) 21:26, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

• I'm confused as to the exact relationship between this and the GNG. Would this permit articles that don't meet the GNG? The line "standalone articles are generally expected to meet the GNG" (my emphasis added) is particularly ripe for interpretation. If the individual sports' guidelines would supercede the GNG it would allow articles that are written with only primary sources, which go against our original research policy. I wouldn't be able to support that. ThemFromSpace 04:32, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

  This is definitely not intended to supersede GNG - rather it's meant as an attempt to correlate between accomplishments in the sports world and coverage in reliable sources. Any wording that would allow this guideline to supersede GNG should be removed or changed in my opinion, and I think the opinions of the few dozen editors that have worked on getting the page to its current state.

  Please feel free to change the language to bring the (proposed) guideline into compliance with that overarching goal.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 04:39, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• I'm confused. The purpose of this guideline is to help determine if a sports figure meets GNG, not to supersede it. Most of the opposes I agree with, however they seem to be reading a different guideline than I am. User:themfromspace and I tweaked the language to make this more clear, but it seems strange to oppose because it's superseding the GNG, when the language states explicitly that it is not.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 17:10, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• Correct, any small town high school quarterback (sorry for the American reference) would pass WP:GNG but not WP:NSPORTS. J04n(talk page) 17:22, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• This proposal was not clearly-worded in that regard, but was changed recently. [7] cmadler (talk) 18:01, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks. I'm glad that helped. Per my "support" comment, I really do not think this is an issue, or at least it is less of an issue than it is with ATH. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:04, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• Again, this is not true. If the high school quarterback is only covered in local sources, that's not "significant coverage" to pass the GNG. Yes, GNG does not talk about local sources but it should be fairly obviously when reading between WP:V, OR, PSTS, and N that a local source is going to be of questionable use as a independent secondary source about a person. --MASEM (t) 18:18, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• Please see the last bullet point in the Basic Criteria section, which addresses local sources. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:27, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• The more I think about this, the more it seems to me that this proposal is trying to do two things simultaneously, and needs to clarify this. First, it is giving guidance as to where the GNG is likely to be met. Second it is setting a bar higher than the GNG. I think it might be simpler if this were actually stated. After "This essay provides bright-line guidance to enable editors to determine quickly if a subject is likely to meet the General Notability Guideline" we could add something like "In some cases, this guideline intentionally sets a higher bar than the General Notability Guideline..." then go on to mention the above point about "any small town high school quarterback...would pass WP:GNG". cmadler (talk) 14:58, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

• Agree with everything that cmadler just wrote. J04n(talk page) 15:21, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

• Cmadler, please make the change you outline here. We did intentionally set the bar higher than the GNG in many cases. This was done intentionally so that this guideline could not be construed to include an article that didn't have significant coverage.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 20:51, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

• Per the discussion in the next section below, it's not at all clear to me that there's consensus in this regard. cmadler (talk) 09:41, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
• It sets the bar higher than GNG, but not in the way that I think is being described up here. In other words if an athlete meets the standards on this page then they almost always meet GNG. This article is to provide guidance saying when someone is extremely likely to have significant coverage. There will be many athletes that do not satisfy this article that may satisfy GNG. For these athletes sources must be in the article or presented at AfD in order to avoid deletion. Of course this essay sets the bar higher since we don't want a bunch of athletes that do not satisfy GNG getting unsourced BLPs. Hence we set the bar higher than GNG so that the people satisfying these points form a subset of GNG satisfiers. --MATThematical (talk) 00:36, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

• On what basis is it presumed that people meeting these criteria almost always meet the GNG? I don't see that at all. What I do see with this guideline is that a load of BLPs are going to remain poorly sourced, because there is no incentive to look for sources. Quantpole (talk) 10:06, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Moratorium

Articles extant before this guideline was in place should be exempt from deletion under it for a period of 6 months. After 6 months, AfD should be used to delete any articles not meeting the new guideline.

• Why? Niteshift36 (talk) 19:15, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

• My guess is that we don't want to start a slew of deletions right away, we would preferably want to notify editors that there is a new policy stronger than WP:ATH and that some pages may no longer meet the criteria. Therefore, in order to avoid AfD you will want to find sources that show the athlete in question meets the guideline or find sources that satisfy GNG coverage. Obviously this is just a temporary thing so that people can adjust to the new rules, once the 6 months (or how ever long we decide) amount of time has passed then all articles can be put up for deletion. --MATThematical (talk) 20:03, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
• I'd support that. Nothing will turn an editor off of Wikipedia quite like getting 732 notifications for AFD on Monday morning!--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:28, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

• 6 months is far to long IMO. Most that pass these will already pass the pathetic and anemic GNG anyway. Niteshift36 (talk) 18:32, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

• That doesn't make any sense. The only thing that will do is delay the first-day Afds for six months. It will still happen. elektrikSHOOS 06:34, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Ronald Eckersley

I use this article as a test case, as I cannot support any guideline that would mean this article is kept. As I understand it this article would still be kept. This is a BLP on someone who played one game for Yorkshire in 1945. Apparently on this basis he has played 'first-class cricket' and so is kept. It didn't seem to matter that the only sources there were on this person were statistics websites (at the time of the AfD, I see since then that a source to the history of his amateur side has been added). I wouldn't mind if people used a bit of common sense in evaluating the articles, but it seems to me that the phrase: Failure to meet these criteria is not conclusive proof that a subject should not be included; conversely, meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included is ignored. Quantpole (talk) 13:38, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

He already meets standards currently in place, but opposing an attempt to make the current guidelines stronger because you don't feel they go far enough seems to be silly, because in essence it means you are supporting lower standards not the stronger standards you suggest. -DJSasso (talk) 14:48, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

As far as I was aware we still do things by discussion here, and I think this is a useful test case. Rather than speaking in generalities about where the line is drawn, it is helpful to look at specific examples. If most people are happy that articles such as this will still be kept under the proposed guideline then fair enough. Quantpole (talk) 16:25, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The guideline already clearly spells out that people like the particular article you point to would not still be automatically kept. It specifically states that people who meet this guideline are likely to have references on them and meet GNG. But that GNG is the ultimate determination on if articles would be kept. So exactly what are you trying to use him as a test case for? -DJSasso (talk) 16:29, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

extended content

I would be happy as dandy if the GNG were the ultimate determination, but they are not in current practice, and I don't see where this guideline changes that. If this were sent to AfD, you would quickly get a group of editors who just trot out that it meets WP:NSPORTS, and so should be kept. Have a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ronald Eckersley, and tell me what would be different with this guideline. Quantpole (talk) 16:44, 28 June 2010 (UTC) And when you posted that Afd, you did follow the criteria for deleting something, in that you made a good faith attempt to find sources for him and could not find any? (ie you went though local news paper archives in the places he had played) Because that is a requirement of posting an Afd. I do not see that you made such an attempt, and as such WP:ATH was correctly followed, and NSPORT would not be any different. Because one of the main purposes of ATH and NSPORT are to protect athletes from the pre-internet era from being deleted because you couldn't find sources on a google search and people are too lazy to do a real look for sources before nominating them. -DJSasso (talk) 17:07, 28 June 2010 (UTC) This person is not an athlete from the pre-internet era. They are a person who played a single game for Yorkshire. We do not know what the circumstances of that were, but it's pretty obvious they were not a regular player. I would have no problem in these sort of guidelines, if they were realistic. I looked at this proposal and at first thought, great, it's going to make some difference to the waste of space that is WP:ATH, but for the first article I look at it doesn't change anything. And no I didn't go to the fucking local archives, and it is idiotic to state that that is what WP:BEFORE expects. And you know what - neither did the person who created the article in the first place. All they did was go onto cricinfo and translate the stats into a stub of an article. They didn't look for any fucking sources and they created the thing in the first place. Now we have an article which boldly states that Ronald Eckersley is a first-class cricketer - it doesn't matter what he has done in the whole of the rest of his life, that one game for Yorkshire has him pigeon holed now. The sport specific guides are supposed to be indications that reliable sources are likely to exist. Are you seriously arguing that you think there will be significant coverage in reliable sources of this person because they played one game of cricket? Quantpole (talk) 22:13, 28 June 2010 (UTC) I'm sorry, silly me a player who played in 1948 was playing after the internet came to prominence, of course you are right. I completely forgot the internet was around 60 years ago. Its not idiotic to state that before says that, it spells it out in almost exactly those words. That before you nominate an article for deletion you must make a good faith effort to look for sources for it. For a player who played before the era of google, this means looking through newspaper archives or other archives that would have information on his amateur and pro career. To make it to the premier level likely he had a top notch amateur career that would have led to coverage. -DJSasso (talk) 22:43, 28 June 2010 (UTC) All I see is assertion after assertion. It would be very easy to prove me wrong - find significant coverage in independent reliable sources. And don't you fucking dare call me lazy again. If you want to change BEFORE to insist on the sort of research you are talking about, go for it, but I wouldn't hold out much hope of it sticking. I don't disagree that he was before the internet, I disagree with you calling him an athlete. He was an amateur cricketer, a good one no doubt, but that is as far as it goes, and he would have had a profession outside of cricket, so describing him simply as an athlete does him a disservice. Anyway, now you seem to argue that even if he is not notable for his one game for Yorkshire, he will be notable for his amateur career. You also seem to think that having a few reports in local papers (even if they exist, which I do not think is all that likely) is enough to show notability. On that basis we could have articles on the people in this report, or any high school american athlete. I thought the whole point of this guideline is to have some discernment about how we treat these sort of low profile individuals. You also seem to be arguing for eventualism. As seen by the recent debates and now the BLP prod, this has been rejected for BLPs. It also runs completely contrary to our attitude towards low profile individuals, where the emphasis is on privacy and merging information to other articles. It would be much better to have what information there is on an article like Yorkshire Cricketers of the 1940s. If this is the sort of article that NSPORTS is going to end up keeping, then it will fail, just as WP:ATH has failed. Quantpole (talk) 08:38, 29 June 2010 (UTC) First off I never called you lazy so get off your high horse and read WP:CIVIL because you have gone far past violating it. Secondly, before does already say it so there is nothing to change. Thirdly if there are sources from multiple papers then yes an amateur would qualify for an article, because WP:GNG does not distinguish between local sources and non-local sources. All it requires is for a person to have multiple sources. The point of this guideline is to give better guidance on when sources are likely to exist than Athlete does. But this nor Athlete overrule GNG which currently allows the sort of people you are talking about. If you want to nix those sorts of articles completely you will have to change GNG to account for them. -DJSasso (talk) 11:35, 29 June 2010 (UTC) Where have I been incivil? You are the one who has entered into the realm of personal attacks by calling me lazy. Local sources are often not regarded as being enough to show notability. Just look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kenneth Dickson (2nd nomination) - as you are an admin you will be able to look at the deleted article. Quantpole (talk) 12:11, 29 June 2010 (UTC) Swearing, Edit Summary. These are just the first two that popped up at me. -DJSasso (talk) 12:32, 29 June 2010 (UTC) Swearing is not forbidden by CIVIL. The edit summary I felt was entirely accurate. Quantpole (talk) 12:38, 29 June 2010 (UTC) That is a matter of opinion. Where I come from swearing at someone is considered harassment. Which civil does specifically forbid. As for if you felt it was accurate or not, that doesn't mean its ok to say. -DJSasso (talk) 12:46, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

RfC result?

At the time I am making this edit, the RfC !vote is 20 support and 17 oppose, and the bot has removed the RfC tag as "expired". There is still a link at WP:CENT, which should probably be removed unless we decide to renew the RfC. If we decide to close the RfC, we will have to make a decision as to what the result was. I'm no expert on these protocols, but I think the decision is between "successful" and "no consensus". --Tryptofish (talk) 14:08, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

• FWIW, 20 of 37 supporting computes to about 54.1%. Townlake (talk) 16:12, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

As of my edit now, the count is 23 support (56%) and 18 oppose (44%). I have just removed the listing from CENT, and I think the RfC has run long enough. My understanding of policy (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that any uninvolved editor can close a discussion such as this one. However, I think it is best to request an uninvolved administrator in this case, so I am going to make a request at WP:AN. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:31, 17 July 2010 (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.