Wikipedia talk:Notability

Nutshell

The nutshell is being widely quoted in AfD discussions as meaning that WP:N refers to the attention given to the subject, rather than being anything to do with sources. Under this interpretation, any article with one source saying that a subject has lots of attention is sufficient to pass.

Is the nutshell officially part of the policy? Can I quote it in AfD as representing the meaning of WP:N? Dysklyver 15:06, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

If you have a single reliable source (per WP:RS that says a topic got wide-spread attention, that is a reasonable presumption for notability, but puts a demand that someone should be trying to add where that widespread attention came from. If subsequently to that, someone does a thorough search of other sources (print included) and finds nothing to support that, then the presumption was wrong and deletion should happen. --MASEM (t) 18:43, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

There are two different "nutshells". One is an accepted high level summary of policy, while the other shorter summary is not yet vetted by the community. They are WP:Nutshell, and WP:NUTSHELL, respectively. To which nutshell are you referring? Huggums537 (talk) 18:52, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

This: Dysklyver 19:23, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Ok, thanks very much for clearing that up. I now see you were talking about the WP:N nutshell on this project page. I stand corrected since there are actually three "nutshells" you could have been referring to if you include the "nutshells" on an individual project page. I guess I got confused since the discussions from somewhere else over at AfD were brought up, and the nutshell presented here never even entered my mind. So, thanks again for clarifying. As to your question, I would say it's safe to quote the nutshell. The nutshell should represent the policy well enough to be quoted, or else it shouldn't even exist. Huggums537 (talk) 20:18, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

I guess I forgot to mention that while I think it's probably ok to quote from the nutshell, I believe quoting directly from the body has a bigger impact because the very existence of your question demonstrates the nutshell can be seen as not holding the same weight as the content in the body. Quoting from the body is better, and it might be helpful to let the folks over at AfD know that too. In fact, I'm surprised they aren't already aware of that. If given the choice, I would just about always choose to quote from the body over the nutshell, unless the nutshell were the only choice I had, and if the nutshell were the only choice I had, well then, I'd be in quite a predicament... Huggums537 (talk) 04:13, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

First of all, note that the OP is trying to undermine arguments I have made at AfD ("his" AfDs, to be more precise).  He wants to skip the lede and nutshell of WP:N and get right to the good stuff, meaning arguments he can use to get articles deleted.  Unscintillating (talk) 16:05, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

I would state that differently, as, WP:N is poorly organized and is at risk of becoming a coatrack for WP:GNG.  WP:Notability contains a blur of ideas involving both WP:N itself and WP:GNG.  It contains a rationale section which technically is not a part of the standard, and in practical terms is a political compromise to retain ideas rejected years ago as incompatible with our core content policies.  The nutshell is the best overall description of what is happening.  The nutshell is the only place in today's guideline in which the word "evidence" appears.  Unscintillating (talk) 16:05, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

I see your predicament. This post actually got me interested in the AfD area, and I've registered my first argument here. It appears to me that many are just plain delete happy, and provide no real arguments to justify deletion, but rather randomly toss out WP:THIS and WP:THAT without citing any facts to back up the claims. It's all too easy for anyone to claim WP:THIS or WP:THAT, and provide absolutely nothing to support the claims. What truly amazes me is the amount of support that this ridiculous method seems to garner by the number of people who will agree with them. It's scary to think that there may be that many who apparently don't know how to do their own independent evaluation of an article. I've looked at a few of your arguments, and I respect your position to adhere to the WP:PRESERVE, and WP:DELETE policies, even if they seem to be somewhat minority viewpoints. Huggums537 (talk) 05:34, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

@Dysklyver: Dysklyver, thanks for your recent edit to the AfD where I made my first argument. Perhaps my assessment alluding that some volunteers at AfD might be inept was a bit hasty since I have observed, by your contribution, that you seem to know how to conduct the evaluation of an article just fine, even if it might be a bit on the critical side. However, constructive criticism is one way to build better articles. Huggums537 (talk) 11:26, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I think the wikilabel that best describes how I look at articles is the meta:Immediatism. I generally think that unless an article can be pretty good and reliably sourced at any given time, then it has a problem. I will point to TUC (cracker) and Filipinos (snack food) as what Unscintillating must be referring to if that helps at all.

[insert begins here] And Cheese Nips.  Unscintillating (talk) 14:09, 5 November 2017 (UTC) [insert ends here]

Yes good point, can't forget the cheese nips. Dysklyver 14:23, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

(also as a helpful aside, @Dysklyver: won't ping me, you need to use {{Reply to|A Den Jentyl Ettien Avel Dysklyver}} or other 'ping' template from Template:Reply to and make sure you don't use subst: on it.) Dysklyver 12:15, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

I reformatted my comment because I actually wasn't trying to ping you since I knew you were probably watching the page. Some people dislike being pinged if they are watching the page anyway. (I've seen a few people speak up about it before) I guess I should have known it would appear I was attempting to ping by responding in that format. (It's common to reply using that format in other venues, and I must remember this isn't a social media site like other venues...) Anyway, thanks for being helpful, and for the links you provided. Huggums537 (talk) 14:02, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

I viewed the discussions for deletions, noticing all three of them were relisted twice and eventually kept. This leads me to conclude that maybe I was wrong about Unscintillating having the minority viewpoint, and perhaps it could be Dysklyver bearing the minority position. Anyway, the arguments seem fine at TUC, and Filipinos. However, neither of you seemed to be willing to accept perfectly legitimate parts of the current guidelines in the Cheese Nips discussion. Rejecting WP:WHYN because it was rejected 10 years ago is just as unreasonable as rejecting the nutshell only because it isn't part of the body. I think it's just as reasonable to accept WP:WHYN for quoting as it would be to accept the nutshell for quoting. At any rate, these discussions have led me to discover a small issue I found with WP:WHYN, which I will be bringing up in a new section very soon, and I hope to get the opinions of you both in that new topic. Thanks very much. Huggums537 (talk) 16:17, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Censorship

Certain incidents throughout history would have significant media coverage, both national and international, if not for censorship of certain topics for news that could make a government look bad, ex an aviation accident. This should be taken into consideration for notability guidelines because an incident that would otherwise receive significant attention would be kept quiet and mentioning it would be banned in newspapers. (I am specifically referring to aviation accident involving the Tupolev Tu-104 in the Soviet Union during the era of the "iron curtain") For these incidents, it is hard to measure prolonged media coverage because archives will often be recently released despite such incident happening decades past. Hence I argue that censorship should be accounted for in the amount of media coverage an incident gets relative to the intensity of the incident.--PlanespotterA320 (talk) 21:57, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

• Notability is not determined solely based on media coverage: that would actually be primary sourcing as compared to long-term coverage in things such as books or later media, which is secondary. The issue in those cases is not notability, but verifiability. If Wikipedia cannot verify information on a topic we can't have it, regardless of how important it is. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:01, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

AfD request

Quick question - where can I request an AfD? I don't want to create an account. I'd like to nominate List of cities and counties in North Alabama because it essentially duplicates List of cities and towns in Alabama and List of counties in Alabama and also the material should be included in North Alabama. Also, it was created more than ten years ago when there weren't as many guidelines for these lists. Thanks 146.229.240.200 (talk) 07:44, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Usually WT:AFD is used to request AFDs, however, in this case, I don't really understand the argument. Do you think merging the list back to North Alabama is the correct way to handle it (despite WP:SPINOUT)? Then why not just do that yourself? Starting a deletion discussion when you actually want to keep the material will likely result in a speedy keep. Regards SoWhy 08:11, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

I guess I'll do that. But if I get reverted what should I do? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.229.240.200 (talk) 09:04, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

If someone disagrees with your edits, try to discuss it with them on their talk page or the article's talk page. You can find a lot of information on resolving such disputes at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. Regards SoWhy 15:01, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

RfC on journalistic independence

See Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies) for an RfC on notability's independence concept.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:31, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Nope. Killed. Jytdog (talk) 03:37, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Please clarify confusing notability issue for AfD purposes

Hi. I am involved in two AfD discussions Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/C. Sandanayake‎ and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CE Holkar‎ concerning notability of articles about sports players which seem to meet the subject-specific conditions of Wikipedia:Notability (sports) but, it is argued, do not meet the bigger picture conditions of the Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline.

One editor has argued that the articles must be kept because, per this Wikipedia:Notability guideline,

A topic is presumed to merit an article if:

1. It meets either the general notability guideline below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right; and
2. It is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy.

One of the guidelines in the box on the right is sports. He concludes that whether or not the articles meet GNG is irrelevant, as they meet the SSG, as specified by our overarching notability guideline (in the introduction of this project page).

Another editor, who wants the articles deleted because he thinks they fail the GNG, has answered by saying that there was a village pump policy debate surrounding this issue and consensus was clear that GNG overrules any SSG, not the other way around.

It would seem to me that there is a serious inconsistency here because, if the "village pump policy debate" outcome is correct, the notability guideline introduction is out of date and should be amended to say that GNG overrules SSG. If the debate outcome has no effect on the guideline and the current notability wording is still effective, something needs to be done to ensure that it is consistently followed at AfD discussions. My understanding, having read comments by other editors, is that some articles have already been deleted because they did not meet the wider GNG even though they did meet the specific SSG.

This is an unsatisfactory situation. Please can you provide a solution? Regards, Waj (talk) 16:49, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

@Waj: The guideline page itself clarifies it. Under "Applicable Policies and Guidelines:" "All information included in Wikipedia, including articles about sports, must be verifiable. In addition, standalone articles are required to meet the General Notability Guideline." (emphasis added) So the very page you're citing makes crystal clear that articles must meet the GNG. While meeting one of the "sports" criteria creates a presumption that it will, that is a rebuttable presumption if it turns out sufficient references don't in fact exist. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:11, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Notability by either the GNG or the SNGs are a presumption that we can expand the article to meet all content policies (V, NOR, NPOV, NOT) and thus allow the standalone article. That is, while we do allow the NSPORTS criteria to assert presumption for a standalone, we need more coverage ultimately to validate that presumption. However, to challenge that presumption, one is required to follow the steps of WP:BEFORE to demonstrate that there are actually no further sources coming (which includes looking to print sources which might be local). That's the only way to properly challenge the presumption at AFD. --Masem (t) 17:19, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

• The issue is a very large number of boilerplate articles sourced, if you want to call it that, to a single scorecard entry each. That is, a handful of statistics amounting to at most a few cells in a spreadsheet and no actual prose. It's frequently not even possible to discern the subject's full name. Ambiguities about similarly name people are among the problems that arise from that kind of less-than-minimal information. Since these are biographies of (mostly) living people, more substantial sourcing is necessary and almost invariably nothing more ever turns up. As for WP:NCRIC itself, I think it's clear from the RfC and the outcome of the majority of these AfDs that this SSG no longer enjoys community support (if it ever did). It's therefore no longer possible to blithely wave a hand and yawn "speedy keep- passes NCRIC" and expect that to count for anything. Reyk _YO! 17:57, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
  • It likely comes back to the "played one game" element of the NSPORT (which affects NCRIC), which I know why its there, why its argued, but totally agree that it is far too loose a critical to show that the GNG can be met. Right now, it exists by apparent community consensus, but I would expect that could be challenged in a new global RFC, particularly if you can show cases like this for cricket. (Maybe it needs to be restricted to certain spots). --Masem (t) 18:13, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
• The sports specific guideline does require meeting the GNG and always has. Other SNGs are presumed independent of the GNG by WP:N, unless explicitly stated otherwise. WP:PROF in particular is specifically independent from the GNG, and this has been confirmed by a recent RfC. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:05, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
  • That "RFC" (it never was called out an RFC nor appeared to have been advertised) is problematic given that we already established no SNG can override the GNG. That's going to need to be revisited for community consensus (as the other SNGs have generally been in regards to the relationship with WP:N and the GNG). --Masem (t) 18:10, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
    • Wrong on all counts: if you want to change the unamibgious text of this guideline, you need to start an RfC on or about this guideline: It meets either the general notability guideline below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right. The PROF RfC was called an RfC, was advertised on CENT and at the village pump, and closed with overwhelming support in rejecting the view that the GNG trumps all. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:17, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
      • Okay, yes, it was called all that, I'm just surprised headers / info about that were not present. I still think it's wrong to consider NPROF overriding the GNG, but this does require reworking how notability should be perceived to better establish the relationship between the core content policies, the GNG, and the SNGs. (See my comment in that discussion, that's basically where we need to go) - basically keeping in mind that the GNG is nothing if consensus still believes that no sources exist to meet V/NOR/NPOV. --Masem (t) 18:30, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
        • The problem is that the GNG has nothing to do with notability at all, it has to do with verifiability. Arguments phrased as not meeting the GNG are better phrased as WP:DEL7 arguments. The best thing that we could do for notability reform on en.wiki is to move the GNG out of WP:N and to WP:V. It would end all of this confusion, and would be much easier to act consistently on inclusion decisions. I know this isn't likely to happen anytime soon, but long-term I see it as the only solution to deal with our evolving standards as we become more relied upon by the public. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:38, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
          • The GNG is all about notability, as it requires secondary sources - those that transform rote facts into something novel and different, things we can't do without violating OR. If we just had WP:V-meeting facts and used that as the minimum requirement, that doesn't help - it would allow a whole mess of things, and we're not supposed to be a collection of indiscriminate info. WP:N is meant to distill to when third-parties have given some degree of evaluation to a topic to judge it to be more notable than just facts. Meeting the GNG - showing that there seem to be a couple of these types of sources available, is a presumption of notability being met. (However, I will point out I don't think that is clear in the current languages of N and the SNGs.) --Masem (t) 20:45, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
            • WP:N combines verifiability with other core policies such as NOT and is designed to tell us what is important enough that we would expect to find it in a general purpose encyclopedia. It was also written a decade ago when the media was significantly different than it is now: any one on this talk page could meet the GNG as written within a month or two if they tried hard enough. It is utterly useless at telling us if something is important enough to be in an encyclopedia, as demonstrated by the existence of guidelines such as CORP, which are basically lists of how to pay lip service to the GNG while ignoring it in AfDs. It doesn't work, and we need to stop pretending that it does. What we do need to do, however, is more stringently enforce V, which really is what most people who oppose SNGs from a deletionist perspective are arguing. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:00, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
              • I'm going to work out an essay, because I do think the language in WP:N is outdated to reflect the way we should be handling things. But I will point out that that there are plenty of issues with COI (and thus factoring into NCORP), there are problems with inconsistently handling of AFD closures, and there are problems throughout most of the SNGs in that people do want to have their pet projects included if they can (not to blame them, that's natural instinct). Notability is still important, but how it is handled and treated is too widely varied between all parts of the project and it needs to be fixed. --Masem (t) 21:11, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
                • Yes: we agree on most of that. I just think the best thing we could do to make the notability system salvageable is scrap the GNG or change it to be very different than it is written today. The SNGs provide a way forward here, and it's easier to fix them than it is to fix the GNG, IMO. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:17, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
                  • The way I have kept in mind is that there's a point that a well-developed article never will be presumed notable, because there is a large swath of secondary, third-party sources to prove it notable beyond a doubt. We aren't ever going to delete World War II for example. Where that threshold exists is impossible to quantify, but we do know the more secondary, third-party, independent sources covering the topic in depth you can add to an article, the less likely it will be ever be challenged at AFD. Note to stress here that except for the articles that suit our purpose as a gazetteer (geographic places), we are not using "inclusion" guidelines, which would that that a topic must have an article because it belongs in a certain class. It is about the quantity and nature of the sources and how that lets us meet the content policies.
                  • Because we don't know where that line sits, we rely on the presumption of notability to allow the article to develop until it reaches that line. This presumption must be based on verified sources and making sure all content policies are still satisfied. To that end, we have the non-specific GNG, that says if you can pull a couple of such sources that may be representative of a larger number out there, then you can presume the topic is notable. That works for most broad topics, but when you get to the subject areas, it may be more difficult to find those sources immediately. So the SNGs exist to be based on a type of merit or accomplishment that, for most cases where that had happened, a large number of sources have been found or will emerge. This emphasizes the "GNG or SNG" approach, but still makes both guidelines that are meant to help guide articles towards meeting the threshold discussed above, while giving these articles the time and space to grow in an open wiki.
                  • The problem right now is that WP:N as read and sometimes used, suggests that the GNG is the notability guideline (it's not), and that the SNGs are to approach that (they're not). We need to make this distinction much clearer. I have been giving a lot of thought to this and making this clarification keeps everything in line, doesn't break SNGs, AFD or other processes, it just strengthens how all these guidelines should come together to support crafting new articles without fear of deletion, while avoiding IINFO and issues relating to COIs and the like. But I need to draft this all out as an essay first --Masem (t) 21:40, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
                  • The key sticking point is that in the real world, a topic is deemed to be notable based on some criteria, such as impact of subject X on domain Y. But for many domains, this determination can only be made by those with specialized domain knowledge. English Wikipedia's current decision-making tradition isn't very well suited to delegating decisions to a smaller subset of persons (and there is a reasonable concern that domain specialists might draw the line of inclusion more broadly than can be managed by the available volunteer editors). So instead the community has, at present, chosen to evaluate real-world significance through the proxy of how independent, non-promotional, reliable third-party sources cover a subject. While using domain-specific guidance for determining if a subject should have an article could in theory be more effective, it would require the community to agree to cede its veto power over article creation, and to trust domain-area specialists. isaacl (talk) 22:14, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
                    • The bigger issue is that, although the community says it's deciding these things through the existence of multiple in-depth published independent reliable sources, it actually has lots of unclearly-documented and unclearly-motivated exceptions (e.g. same-city newspapers don't count even if they would be reliable for subjects from somewhere else) that have nothing to do with verifiability and instead are aimed at some subjective notion of significance. And significance through media coverage is too easily gamed to be a good proxy for subject-specific expertise. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:21, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
                      • I was commenting specifically on Tony's idea of scrapping the general notability guideline in favour of topic-specific notability guidelines, which would at least in some domains move away from a coverage-based standard to an achievement-based one. (With regards to the issue you raise, "non-promotional" is one of the tricky aspects with media coverage. Particularly when covering matters of local interest, newspapers will typically provide some degree of promotion. This is especially true for sports journalism.) isaacl (talk) 07:50, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Well, I'm grateful to TonyBallioni, Masem, Reyk and Seraphimblade. I'm afraid I still have difficulty with this because Wikipedia:Notability says an article is merited if it meets either the general notability guideline or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline. This, to me, says the two are equal (either one or the other). That is contradicted by Wikipedia:Notability (sports) which says, as Seraphimblade quoted, that (sports) articles are required to meet the General Notability Guideline in addition to being verified. What makes it worse is that, in the introduction to NSPORT, it repeats WP:N by saying in bold that "The article must provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below". I'm afraid it doesn't help and this to me is a very unsatisfactory situation because it is ambiguous and contradictory. I think that Tony's solution would help and really it needs to be done as soon as possible. As you say, Tony, because the site is "relied upon by the public". Regards, Waj (talk) 20:51, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

The line " In addition, standalone articles are required to meet the General Notability Guideline." contradicts what NSport already establishes. I'm going to address that on that page, but that line needs to go because it is flatout wrong. --Masem (t) 21:13, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Masem. I think that will help the situation enormously. Regards, Waj (talk) 21:34, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Ultimately, a subject is eligible for a standalone article if there is consensus for that subject to have an article. GNG and the SNGs are useful proxies for how consensus has developed over time, so that we don’t have to constantly flood AFD with articles and waste a lot of editors’ time. As Seraphimblade and Masem properly note, both the GNG and SNGs are rebuttable presumptions, and no guideline is ultimately dispositive – AFD is dispositive. However, The more we can build broad consensus in SNGs, the less time we have to waste on AFDs and/or risk inconsistent results due to lack of AFD participation.--Mojo Hand (talk) 21:46, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

As described in Wikipedia:Notability (sports)/FAQ, the sports-related notability guidelines were explicitly created to provide a guideline to avoid rapid deletion of articles if the written text in the article did not immediately provide sources indicating that the general notability guideline is met by the subject. Meeting the sports-specific notability guidelines is considered to be an excellent indicator that sources meeting the general notability guideline can be found, given some time to uncover them. The article should always have some sources indicating that either the appropriate sports-related notability guideline or GNG is met, so anyone reviewing the article will have a way to verify the basis for the presumption of notability, and that is what the quoted sentence in Wikipedia:Notability (sports) is referring to. If after due diligence, it is determined that in spite of the sports-related notability guideline being met, the general notability guideline is highly unlikely to be met, then the article fails Wikipedia's standards of having an article. isaacl (talk) 21:50, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

The quoted sentence is inconsistent with the key point expressed in both guidelines and it must be changed to correct the ambiguity. An FAQ cannot have any official status, but if it repeats inconsistency then it too needs to be amended or it confuses editors and readers alike and is not fit for purpose as an FAQ. I as a new member am confused, hence this discussion. If an article can pass either the GNG or the SSG then there can be no problem with it having presumed notability, subject to verification and other policies. To assert that it must pass both is ridiculous because then it would be illogical to have both; one would suffice. Regards, Waj (talk) 22:18, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

The quoted sentence says The article must provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below. It doesn't say that the article must pass both sets of criteria. Getting the wording of the guidance changed has, unfortunately, not received consensus approval so far. The FAQ provides context to understand the motivation of the first three paragraphs of Wikipedia:Notability (sports). In an ideal world, a new article would immediately identify appropriate sources to illustrate that the general notability guideline has been met. The real-world compromise we have to avoid wasting time deleting and recreating articles is a set of rules of thumb that help us identify subjects that are highly likely to already have appropriate coverage that meets the general notability guideline, even if the current article text does not list them. isaacl (talk) 22:33, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

No, that is not the sentence in question. The sentence is "In addition, standalone articles are required to meet the General Notability Guideline" as quoted by Masem above. Regards, Waj (talk) 22:43, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Well, it's that sentence which you quoted above for which I was providing additional clarification (I said the quoted sentence in Wikipedia:Notability (sports)). isaacl (talk) 02:51, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

This situation is easily sortable. The two basic general notability guidelines contradict each other rendering each of them completely and utterly null and void, meaning the only, completely fair, NPOV way of sorting this out is going by subject-specific notability guidelines. Frankly anyone who doesn't do so is in breach of NPOV and has no interest working on an NPOV project. Bobo. 17:00, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• • This is the type of manipulation of rules to favor their position that makes it so hard to work with the die-hard advocates of unreasonable coverage of minor sports figures on Wikipedia.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:26, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
• GNG prevails with sports that is the takeaway. Sports fuidelines sepcifically say GNG must be met, which means we must have multiple sources that are more than just stat listings. On the other hand, if a person is only noted in sports and does not pass the sports guidelines, they are not notable. The cricket guidelines almost certainly have to be tightened. I think football and gridiron football rules both need to be tightened. Presumed notability for playing one game in the National Football League, the gridiron football league in the US, makes sense. Presumed notability for all players of at least one game in the totally marginal arena football league makes no sense at all. The sports rules clearly state that GNG prevails, so articles scrapped to stats which are not in any way indepth coverage, need to be deleted. If they are articles on living people, and living is assumed positively unless proved that they were born before 1907 or we have actual evidence of their death, than we should delete expeditiously and only allow recreation if people actually identify good sourcing.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:23, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

• How about we delete bad sourcing instead of using notability as a middle man?  Unscintillating (talk) 03:33, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

• WP:N is the controlling authority.  If a WP:N sub-guideline is contrary to WP:N, WP:N prevails.  If an RfC is contrary to WP:N, WP:N prevails.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:41, 21 December 2017 (UTC)