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===Arbitrary break 1===
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*'''Support change ''somewhere'''''. I don't know what the language of this change would actually be (though I like [[User:Levivich|Levivich]]'s proposal and the general ideas articulated by [[User:SportingFlyer|SportingFlyer]] and [[User:RandomCanadian|RandomCanadian]] above), but clearly there is an issue when SNGs are this poor at predicting general notability. The arguments for the status quo all seem to rest on defeatist, reactionary, or [[WP:NOHARM]] attitudes. These positions only make sense if you ignore [[WP:NOT]]; why have any notability criteria at all if it's technically not going to cause harm? Why not include every player who appears in a sports database at any adult level? At the same time, NOHARM could be used as an argument ''for'' making various sports SNGs tighter -- after all, athlete bios still have to meet GNG, so who cares if under stricter criteria trawling stats databases wouldn't occasionally uncover (e.g.) notable cricketers who weren't fully professional? If they truly had a lasting impact they should meet GNG, and furthermore shouldn't all the cricket experts over at NCRIC be familiar enough with historical leagues that they'd run across the likes of [[W. G. Grace]] outside of databases? No one is preventing editors from using ''non''-directory sources for article creation, so the opposition here really seems to be toward reducing the number of mass-created, low-effort stubs one can make and abandon. Which is...basically opposition to how WP expansion functions in most every other discipline, where you can't just import half a kb of trivia from stats sites and call it done. [[User:JoelleJay|JoelleJay]] ([[User talk:JoelleJay|talk]]) 23:48, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
*'''Support change ''somewhere'''''. I don't know what the language of this change would actually be (though I like [[User:Levivich|Levivich]]'s proposal and the general ideas articulated by [[User:SportingFlyer|SportingFlyer]] and [[User:RandomCanadian|RandomCanadian]] above), but clearly there is an issue when SNGs are this poor at predicting general notability. The arguments for the status quo all seem to rest on defeatist, reactionary, or [[WP:NOHARM]] attitudes. These positions only make sense if you ignore [[WP:NOT]]; why have any notability criteria at all if it's technically not going to cause harm? Why not include every player who appears in a sports database at any adult level? At the same time, NOHARM could be used as an argument ''for'' making various sports SNGs tighter -- after all, athlete bios still have to meet GNG, so who cares if under stricter criteria trawling stats databases wouldn't occasionally uncover (e.g.) notable cricketers who weren't fully professional? If they truly had a lasting impact they should meet GNG, and furthermore shouldn't all the cricket experts over at NCRIC be familiar enough with historical leagues that they'd run across the likes of [[W. G. Grace]] outside of databases? No one is preventing editors from using ''non''-directory sources for article creation, so the opposition here really seems to be toward reducing the number of mass-created, low-effort stubs one can make and abandon. Which is...basically opposition to how WP expansion functions in most every other discipline, where you can't just import half a kb of trivia from stats sites and call it done. [[User:JoelleJay|JoelleJay]] ([[User talk:JoelleJay|talk]]) 23:48, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
:* We don't need to be flailing around just for the sake of Being Seen To Do Something, the more so in that it's obvious there's no consensus that there's even a problem. Nor are you likely to win hearts and minds by jeering at those you oppose. It is entirely possible -- strange though the premise might seem to you -- that those who see no reason to invent new rules feel that the various NSPORTS criteria ''already'' (as the guidance explicitly states) operates under the premise that they are subordinate to the GNG, and that they are intended to reflect the likelihood that a subject that can meet them ''will'' meet the GNG.<p>If there are individual criteria with which you disagree, AND for which you've done the legwork to demonstrate that an unacceptably high percentage of those who meet it do not meet the GNG, then make that case and propose your changes. [[User talk:Ravenswing|'''<span style="background:#2B22AA;color:#E285FF"> '' Ravenswing '' </span>''' ]] 05:30, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Revision as of 05:30, 28 March 2021


New notability criteria for MMA fighters

UPDATED
The notability criteria for MMA fighters has been updated with the proposed language by Ravenswing, who had noted the near unanimous support for it, of which I am of the same view. This close is a procedural one. – robertsky (talk) 03:15, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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.


I am bringing forth a modification of the notability criteria for MMA fighters. It has been agreed to by the MMA project, which you longer term editors will agree is no mean feat. The first two criteria are unchanged from the current criteria. The third one is the addition. It stems from discussions about adding more organizations to the top-tier, but that was because editors wanted to include additional fighters. There is a growing list of fighters ranked in the world top 10 that are fighting for organizations that are not considered top tier, due to a lack of depth, and hence those fighters were not considered notable by WP:NMMA. This proposal puts more emphasis on the individual fighter and less on the organization/promotion. It also brings it more in line with the notability criteria for boxers and kickboxers, which both use top 10 rankings as indicators of notability. The participants in the discussions leading up to this proposal believe that Sherdog and Fight Matrix are the two best sources for rankings. I don't believe this proposal will add a large number of fighters, but it seems likely that a fighter ranked in the world top 10 is likely to have significant independent coverage. Papaursa (talk) 02:57, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Mixed martial artists are presumed notable if they:

  1. Have fought at least three professional fights for a top-tier MMA organization, such as the UFC (see WP:MMATIER); or
  2. Have fought for the highest title of a top-tier MMA organization; or
  3. Been ranked in the world top 10 in their division by either Sherdog (sherdog.com) or Fight Matrix (fightmatrix.com).
  • Support as nom. Papaursa (talk) 02:57, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support in line with combat sports (boxing and kickboxing) notability criteria. Cassiopeia(talk) 03:32, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Easy, straight forward criteria and similar with regards to know other martial arts have their notability criteria. HeinzMaster (talk) 03:35, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. GameRCrom (talk) 04:20, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I've always got a slight anxiety when criteria are added, without tightening up other ones. It would be useful to have examples of people covered by the criteria 3, who fail 1 and 2. Are the historical top-10 rankings readily available for someone to check? (A quick look on petscan shows that we currently have 2889 "Mixed martial artists" biographies) Nigej (talk) 08:08, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Nigej:Like Papaursa mentioned, the new proposal will only add a handful of new fighters, in my quick review off the top of my head, it would only apply to people like Juliana Velasquez, Jiří Procházka, Manel Kape, Larissa Pacheco. It would overall not lead to a huge addition of fighters, mostly only one or two each year. In regards to viewing the standings, fight matrix has easily accessible hisotrical rankings https://www.fightmatrix.com/historical-mma-rankings/ranking-snapshots/ and you can click on each fighters name to see what their highest ranking ever was. Sherdog has all their rankings arhcived as well. https://www.sherdog.com/news/rankings/list/1 HeinzMaster (talk) 15:47, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Per above. It's about time. Gsfelipe94 (talk) 11:35, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support.In support of it. Sounds easy enough. Powderkegg (talk) 15:05, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Good heavens, reform's failed to gain consensus for several years now. Well done. Ravenswing 23:30, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. If only to hopefully convince people that it actually is okay to add new criteria here. Ejgreen77 (talk) 08:22, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - simple and straightforward. Onel5969 TT me 22:09, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Natural I see don`t see Bellator as a top tier because of the way drug testing are done there wont really show their true self like UFC do. I do agree with some expansion in guidelines for new MMA fighters creation, but some guidelines can be removed and made clearer in future. Some guidelines might of been sneaked into the MMA wiki project needs to be removed. Oppose and reduce guidelines Even if this pass or not. Ask MMAProject to clear some guidelines that "quietly" added in before adopting or expanding more guidelines. This cant "let it go" any longer. Kent Bargo (talk) 00:09, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Genuinely confused what exactly you are talking about. You keep talking about some guidelines that were added in some nefarious way but the criteria haven't been changed in years. HeinzMaster (talk) 01:47, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. If this concerns only a handful of fighters, for whom there is likely to be significant coverage, then it would make sense to make a handful of source searches when making those articles rather than to bloat the criteria with WP:CREEP. SNGs should provide the most common categories of sportspeople and not be tailored to fit absolutely all of them. This is why we say that if the SNG criteria aren't met, you go with GNG, and there's nothing wrong with that. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:49, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Same with Gsfelipe94. Kosbit4 (talk) 00:04, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. The new prong (top 10) is quite narrow and appropriate. Cbl62 (talk) 17:42, 14 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question There have been no additional comments in weeks and there appears to be consensus. How long does this discussion need to remain open? Papaursa (talk) 23:48, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not another moment; there was near-unanimous consensus on this. I've just made the change. Ravenswing 02:16, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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.

No such thing as 'automatic pass'

I boldly added this (which seems a reasonable clarification, especially for newer users), but since well that is apparently a large change it might be better to discuss it, so let's see if there are any objections or improvements to be suggested. This comes, at least for me, indirectly, from a discussion at WT:MILHIST about deprecating WP:SOLDIER (which was not even an SNG, but nvm), where the overall sentiment was that such guidelines are too often misinterpreted as automatic passes. While a whole different context, I think the clarification I propose here would be a helpful improvement in a similar vein. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:52, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Unnecessary: prior sections already set out, more than once, that the sports SNGs are not absolute. Ravenswing 17:59, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Except the page then goes on to use rather absolutist language "are presumed notable" (and this leads to the same unhelpful consequences as WP:SOLDIER, see the section above about NCRIC). A less redundant change, then, would be to change all instances of "are presumed notable if" to "are likely to be notable if". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:07, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is going to affect many of the criteria here, especially those that stated that they are 'presumed to be notable' or similar. I believe a RfC is necessary instead for such a wide ranging change. – robertsky (talk) 18:02, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • My own view is that the "presumed to be notable if" words are a much bigger problem. WP:NBAD says "likely to be notable if" instead, which is clearer. Or perhaps we could have "satisfies ... if" eg "satisfies WP:NGOLF if" (or something similarly blunt). Nigej (talk) 18:22, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Nigej: See my post above. The change can be easily implemented (search and replace using any off-wiki text editor) in any case, but I prefer the less blunt option, especially if we're trying to make this less prone to misinterpretation. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:28, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    One issue with "likely to be notable if" wording, is whether it should be firmer. eg "highly likely to be notable if". Of course, this doesn't really work unless the criteria actually reflect the likely/highly likely wording, which in many cases they don't (but perhaps that a separate issue). Nigej (talk) 18:38, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Depends. I's say 'likely' since that seems the more prudent option. 'highly likely' could work with more selective criteria (but I don't think that is the case for much if any of the sports currently listed). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:58, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    For reference, using "highly likely" in the general text portions of this guideline (such as in this diff) was last discussed at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 35 § Guidance for creating sports-specific notabiity guidelines. When closed at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 36 § Guidance for creating sports-specific notabiity guidelines (reprise), the closer felt most of the discussion was related to the FAQ and so only altered the FAQ. isaacl (talk) 20:04, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

All-American for American football/Arena football/Canadian football

Why achieving All-American honors is no longer recognized for American football, but it is for Ice Hockey ? Tecmo (talk) 03:07, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Very likely because ever since WP:ATHLETE was deprecated, the various NSPORTS SNGs aren't in cookie-cutter lockstep. Which is a good thing, seeing as different sports have widely differing criteria for relative importance. Minor-league teams in baseball and hockey have as much as a century or more of history, and often in major metropolitan areas; minor leagues in football and basketball have been ephemeral at best. (Meanwhile, due to the relegation/promotion system, there is exactly ONE top-flight team in English football that hasn't spent at least one season in the minors in the last century.) American collegiate football and basketball are very noteworthy, less so in other sports, and not much at all in Canada. And so on: there are dozens of examples. By and large, the individual sports WikiProjects tend to their own knitting. Ravenswing 05:00, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:NCOLLATH does encompass first-team All-Americans for college football. See prong 1 which encompasses Template:College football award navbox. Cbl62 (talk) 05:08, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That section mentions unanimous All-American only. What would happen for example for Football Championship Subdivision or National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics All-Americans.Tecmo (talk) 14:22, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
NCOLLATH plainly sets out Division I as the benchmark. A NAIA athlete would rise and fall on the GNG. Ravenswing 14:49, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Actually the college football template doesn't say just unanimous All-Americans - that is a separate, more targeted link sitting next to the generic All-American link that is also included in the navbox. Rikster2 (talk) 15:15, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't miss the forest for the trees here. Deciding whether or not a subject of any sort (including, but not limited to, people) the only real decision point is am I able to write enough reliably sourced text to write a decent length, relatively complete article about this person. That requires more than meeting some arbitrary condition. There are a few conditions whereby we expect, without exception, every person on the planet who meets that condition to have enough reliable source text about them for us to draw from (like "Has been the head of state of a sovereign country" and that kind of stuff), however the meeting of a condition is not a substitute for actually having good source text to draw from. If a subject specific notability guide has a condition that does not indicate that there is highly likely to be enough source text, then it isn't a good criteria for notability. The ONLY thing you really NEED to care about is "where am I getting the information from to write an article" and "is there enough of that information to write the article from". If all the article can say is "So and so was named to an All-American team" and nothing else, then you don't have enough to write an article. --Jayron32 13:17, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that there are currently Wikipedia users making decisions about deleting or keeping articles based on arbitrary conditions. My suggestion is to keep this specific condition as it was before (I'm still not sure why it was removed) and how it currently appears in the Ice Hockey section, or as a community we will not be able to keep great college athletes articles any longer.Tecmo (talk) 14:12, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And what makes your preference less "arbitrary?" In any event, our focus should not be on keeping "great college athlete" articles. Our focus should be on keeping articles that pass notability muster, and that are more than sub-stubs such as Jayron32 cites. If you believe, and can demonstrate, that all college football All-Americans can pass the GNG, then make that case. Ravenswing 14:43, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Don't talk in generalities. Talk in specifics. What article, which was deleted recently, had sufficient well-referenced text, or at minimum had sources to use to write sufficient well-referenced text and such was deleted incorrectly. Please, let us know which article or articles we lost that has information we need to save in some way. What specifically have we lost that needs to be recovered? --Jayron32 15:14, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is the article that is being considered for deletion: Drane Scrivener, when before there wasn't an issue because this player was an All-American.Tecmo (talk) 18:21, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ummm. That wouldn't be the example I'd choose of a worthy article being canned by wikilawyers. That's a barebones stub of a player declared an "All-American" by ONE outfit, sourced solely through primary sources and stat aggregators. Ravenswing 22:09, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Per Ravenswing, that article is not worth saving. Where is there evidence of any reliable, independent prose written about his life or career? If Wikipedia didn't exist, where would I learn about this person? If you can't answer that, the subject isn't notable enough for a Wikipedia article, and the article should be deleted. --Jayron32 17:25, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To be candid, If Wikipedia didn't exist, we wouldn't learn of a lot of persons or subjects. I think you want to focus on the most popular athletes in the world of sports and leave the others out.Tecmo (talk) 01:21, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My request is just for american colleges in American football. I undertsand the point that this will not apply to all sports.Tecmo (talk) 18:25, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's contrary to your OP. Have you changed your mind on that, then? Ravenswing 22:09, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think that I have been consistent the whole time, when have I talked about another sport ?Tecmo (talk) 01:21, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

RFC on Notability (sports) policy and reliability issues

A discussion about whether any action needs to be taken regarding the current sports notability guidelines. 16:43, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

To date, the WP:Notability (sports) guidelines have largely been used to justify the existence of a breadth of sports related articles that lack significant coverage in contrast to WP:GNG. This has had a huge impact on the encyclopedia, creating a canon of articles not in compliance with WP:Verifiability. It's my contention, that this has created a systemic problem in this area, drawing into question the quality and reliability of what wikipedia offers as an encyclopedia within the field of sports. This can be seen by a lengthy history at WP:AFD in which articles without reliable referencing or significant coverage are kept based on the lenient criteria in regards to sourcing at WP:Notability (sports). WP:INDISCRIMINATE and WP:5P1 would seem to indicate that we owe our readers better than this. I strongly suggest, that the guideline here not be used anymore to override WP:SIGCOV, and that we adopt a wikipedia wide policy on sports related articles that demands multiple sources in compliance with GNG.4meter4 (talk) 03:42, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's not clear exactly what change you are proposing. Can you state exactly what change you want made to site guidelines? User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 03:48, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not exactly sure what the best solution is, which is why I wanted the RFC. I'm just saying, this is the problem. Isn't an RFC about getting people to problem solve together when a policy isn't working well?4meter4 (talk) 04:05, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes (in theory) and no (in practice). RfCs are usually when there's been some previous discussion but it's stalled with no agreed consensus; or when it's a formal proposal to alter policy in a clear fashion. We're still in the "brainstorming" phase so well unless you want to keep the RfC open to attract more people, it's malformed per the usual requirements. Though again WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY so if it does attract people that's a good thing. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:09, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Though some RfCs are opened for brainstorming, most are for specific proposals, and in most cases it's been more effective to brainstorm in a less formal manner. isaacl (talk) 04:13, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The sports notability guideline already defers to the general notability guideline, as has been discussed many times over the years. However unless participants in deletion discussions actually refer to that portion of the sports notability guideline, closers don't take it into account. In accordance with English Wikipedia's guidance on determining rough consensus, closers aren't bound to discount expressed viewpoints based on guidelines. Accordingly the participants at deletion discussions have to be convinced to follow the entirety of the sports notability guideline, versus cherry-picking the parts they're interested in. isaacl (talk) 03:51, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Unless the proposal above is to get rid of this entirely and let GNG supersede it (a bit radical, but maybe not entirely without merits); then it is malformed and needs early closure until a proper RfC question can be put. I'd add the regular discussion and survey sections, but given my concerns I'm not going to do that just yet. @Isaacl Or maybe there needs to be recognition that some, if not many, parts of NSPORTS are not fit for purpose... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:54, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what you are asking of me? There is disagreement on the utility of the criteria for various sports, but for better or worse, an insufficient number of editors have been able to reach a consensus on what to do for them. For other sports, discussions have proved fruitful and the criteria have been revised. RfCs can be more freeform... Personally I think for this particular topic, a more structured format would be beneficial, though. isaacl (talk) 04:00, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not an experienced editor with RFCs, and I'm not exactly sure what the "proper" way would be. This is just my thoughts on a policy page that doesn't seem to produce good results for the encyclopedia. I really just wanted to draw attention to it, and see if we could come up with something better than the current system. Even if we were just to put a note in about references in each section of the NSPORTS page, so that its readily clear during AFD discussions it would be helpful.4meter4 (talk) 04:11, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Example formatting. Although the current variant is acceptable too so let's keep as is unless it poses problems at some later point in time (at which point it's perfectly ok to launch a more precise proposal). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:26, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The main issue at present is that it doesn't begin with a short, neutral statement before the first signature, which causes problems with how the RfC gets presented on the page listing all RfCs. isaacl (talk) 04:46, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:43, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Those who present the view "Keep, meets sport X criteria" are going to keep doing that anyway. Because... that's what has happened even as it has been pointed out on this talk page to those editors that (a) the sports notability guideline says that the general notability guideline should be met; and (b) routine coverage is insufficient to establish that English Wikipedia's standards for having an article have been met, including pure statistics from a database. isaacl (talk) 04:18, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Understood, but couldn’t we have an addendum to each section saying something like. “Cricket players must first have significant non-routine coverage in multiple reliable sources in order to apply any of the following criteria:” etc as an example. That way anyone citing WP:NCRICK can immediately be referred to the referencing requirements inherent in WP:NSPORTS. Part of the issue is that the policy page is not often read in full and is cited in piecemeal parts. If we were to integrate referencing requirements into each section, it makes it a lot harder to misapply policy in AFD debate.4meter4 (talk) 04:30, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that problems are being caused by the unhelpful kind of "but it meets the guideline" voting (which an experienced closer should take with a grain of salt, per WP:ITSNOTABLE and WP:JUSTAPOLICY...). This could all be alleviated in part by changing the language from "presumed notable" to "likely notable" (see the above section started by myself, Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(sports)#No_such_thing_as_'automatic_pass'). For reference see also the thread at ANI, but I assume we're all aware of that. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:33, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Editors don't parse the language that finely. The nutshell summary, the first paragraph, the second paragraph, and the first paragraph of the "Applicable policies and guidelines" section already says "likely". For better or worse, some editors support an achievement-based standard for having an article on various sportspersons, and that's what they bring up in deletion discussions. isaacl (talk) 04:43, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is a guideline, and not policy. As per the guidance I linked to on determining rough consensus, closers aren't bound to override the rationales of deletion discussion participants based on guidelines. (This is exactly the response I got when I pointed out that closers aren't reading the entire guideline and are ignoring the consensus that established this guideline.) isaacl (talk) 16:55, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • As has been stated many times and for many years (and as Isaacl mentions again here), there is absolutely nothing one can do to deter AfD participants from voting however the hell they please, on good grounds or bad, and it isn't any easier to ensure that closing admins rule on policy rather than on head count. Ravenswing 06:21, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not clear that there's a problem that needs fixing. The OP claims that the issue is "creating a canon of articles not in compliance with WP:Verifiability" but that's incorrect because sports stubs are usually verifiable by reference to sporting records and reports. Of course, these won't necessarily cover the subject's non-sporting activities but I don't get the impression that this is an issue in practise. If a sporting stub is expanded with other unsupported details then they can removed as appropriate as with any other unsourced content. The real beef seems to be that the stubs are short and often unlikely to get any longer. But we have a policy, WP:NOTPAPER, that says clearly that there's no practical limit on the number of articles that we can have. So, what's the problem and where's the evidence to demonstrate that it is significant? Verifiability applies to complaints too! Andrew🐉(talk) 18:00, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem is that there's plenty of stubs about non-notable athletes who meet one of the arbitrary criteria here (for example, the recent lot of "has played x first class matches" cricketers) but who are not actually meeting GNG (beyond mentions in statistical databases). This seems to be more about WP:N (we don't have articles on everything) and WP:NOT (WP is not a statistical database or directory of athletes) than WP:V. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:14, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Per the policy WP:IAR, we're not here to make and enforce arbitrary rules. What's the actual, real-world problem that we're trying to fix here? Are there actually any complaints or incidents which these stubs have caused? My impression is that these pro-forma stubs are largely ignored by everyone in the real world. Surely it's the high-profile sports stars that will generate significant readership, vandalism and the like. But the high-profile cases will naturally be correspondingly notable. The less the notability, the less that anyone cares. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:25, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I seldom agree with Andrew Davidson, but here he's dead on: what's the actual problem here? Like most of you, I have little use for permanent sub-stubs, but as far as I can see the roots of the complaint here are "OMG there are a lot more sports stubs than I like, and far fewer articles on important things!" Alright, so stipulated, but we don't build policies around that. However uncomfortable the truth may be to some of you, the simple fact is that as a culture, we care a great deal about sports. Therefore, sportsmen get a disproportionate amount of media attention. I bet the tenth draft pick in the upcoming National Football League entry draft will have had more indepth articles written about him (and before he's played so much as a minute of professional sport) than about every 2019 Nobel laureate combined. Presuming this is an "imbalance" of some sort -- and lovers of popular entertainment aren't likely to agree -- there's no solution here that isn't far, far, far worse than the purported disease. Ravenswing 21:49, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • My personal preference with sports BIOs is to have far more collected pages rather than separate articles in the hopes that those might attract more eyeballs and editor attention, thus being less likely to suffer from undetected vandalism or BLP violations. As discussed above, I think this is one of several areas where there is a tension between what the community as a whole desires and what the editors most interested in a topic desire. The community will is reflected in the SNG, the passionate editors are what results at AfD. I don't have great solutions. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:19, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • My guess was this thread was started after the ANI thread I started on NCRIC/mass stub creation from sports database sites. I'm not sure I see a way to fix this except to deprecate NSPORT entirely and enforce the GNG strictly on sports articles, which should already exist. SportingFlyer T·C 18:49, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I appreciate why English Wikipedia traditionally considers guidelines to be descriptive of what happens in practice, and thus why guidelines are not considered to be binding. Consensus can change, and English Wikipedia tries to provide a path for it to change from the ground up. However it leads to the result Barkeep49 described: deletion discussions can often be based on a biased sampling of the Wikipedia community. Those arguing for an achievement-based standard (and there are some prominent editors who advocate for a shift away from the general notability guideline, even as they acknowledge that current consensus supports it) can continue to do so even if the sports notability guideline in its current form no longer exists. So unless the sampling of those turning up to each and every deletion discussion for a given sport changes, I don't think changing the status of this guidance page will make a big difference to the outcomes. isaacl (talk) 19:26, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    This is not really about xFD, where results will always be skewed by the balance of interested participants. Largely, the horse has bolted with those articles, but that's no reason to leave the gate open. More than anything, change here is about putting a lid on the ongoing industrial-level production of directory-entry BLPs with zero significant coverage. wjematherplease leave a message... 19:40, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    This guideline already shut the gate: it does not supersede the general notability guideline, and it specifies that listings in database sources aren't sufficient to meet Wikipedia's standards for having an article. The editors creating the articles aren't paying heed. Closers for deletion discussions aren't overriding participant views based on this guideline. There's not much more that can be done here. Editors have to be convinced to not create certain articles based on community consensus, and either the guidance on determining rough consensus has to change, or the participants in the deletion discussions have to be convinced. isaacl (talk) 20:04, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The overriding guideline may have shut the front door, but it's the sub-SNGs (NCRIC, NFOOTY, NOLY, etc.) that are used to justify article creation, and some provide an extremely weak presumption; i.e. GNG-level coverage is actually highly unlikely at the lower end of the scale. As long those sub-SNGs remain unchanged, the gates remain wide open. wjematherplease leave a message... 20:18, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The individual sport-specific guidelines are within the context of the overall guideline. The encompassing criteria have been pointed out to individual editors for various sports, so there's no question that they understand them, but they disagree and continue to do what they do, as they prefer achievement-based standards. Words here have failed to change their minds. isaacl (talk) 20:27, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Is this where we're going to get stuck, though? One of the single biggest complaints about Wikipedia is that there are too many sport sub-stubs, but as soon as any effort to fix the problem arises, the people creating these sub-stubs and the people who like these sub-stubs shout you down, and we're left with a massive cleanup effort. SportingFlyer T·C 21:01, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The essential issues are bigger than the sports-specific notability guidelines. There is disagreement on the form of subject-specific notability guidelines. Numerous editors have put forward cases for achievement-based standards in various domains, independent of the general notability guideline. The way rough consensus is determined, guidelines are hard to enforce unless they have broad support, so every single deletion has to be argued individually. English Wikipedia's consensus-based decision making traditions make it hard to achieve compromise when there are strong proponents of opposing views. So we remain pretty well stuck trying to resolve those differing views, article by article. isaacl (talk) 21:15, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Part of the issue for me that GNG doesn't infer notability in sports people to a good enough extent. GNG has a recency bias to it as it's far easier to find sources to current/more recent sportspeople. It also has a high Anglocentric bias towards it due to it being much easier to find sources in English or in languages that use a similar alphabetical style to the English language. The discussion on GNG being more important than SNGs also wasn't well enough integrated into the guidelines at WP:SNG (which still basically says you can create an article on something that passes an SNG and it's deemed notable, but may be deleted later). Too many things say different things, which brings confusion. But as Andrew says above, is there really a problem here? These stubs aren't really causing offence/upsetting anybody, and when articles come up for AfD often contributors cherry pick on when to use the GNG superseeds all SNG and when not too. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 19:34, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Well then we need to make it clearer which ones take precedence. As far as I see it, GNG is supposed to be the ultimate criteria; because SNGs are supposed to be helpful indicators of what may meet GNG - if they are not, then the SNGs need either to be rewritten or retired. Whether we need a more fundamental rewrite of notability and inclusion criteria is another question. The WP:BIAS concerns seem valid (well, yes, over time, information gets lost, there is not too much we can do about that, sadly), but then again, it's much preferable if articles are based on existent and verifiable sources (both for concerns about article content, and to be helpful to readers who might wish for more information), than if we assume "subject meets x criteria, therefore we should have a perma-stub on it even if that's all we can say about it". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:03, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That would be a start for me, just re-writing WP:SNG to say that GNG takes precedent would be a start and may help stop the production chain stub creation, but would have to be discussed with other SNGs. Is the issue stubs though, or just articles that don't pass GNG? Look at a FA this week in Lewis (baseball), for me this article doesn't pass GNG as the sources don't really cover him in enough detail to be significant coverage and the article is padded beyond belief, and yet it's a featured article. There's articles in hundreds of Olympians on here as well, how many of them would pass GNG, yet if we started AfDs on them they would likely all be kept because they competed at the Olympics. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 20:14, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here's (another) problem with WP:NCRIC. I recently declined the draft Draft:John Dronfield, a headmaster at St Peter's School, York. There are two 20th century headmasters of that school with articles: Stanley Toyne and Richard Smyth (cricketer, born 1951). Both are "presumably notable" for their minor cricket careers; Toyne appeared in two first-class matches, and Smyth played for Cambridge University Cricket Club while studying at that institution. Why should the encyclopedia focus on these individuals? This is bias being introduced in the encyclopedia due to a fixation with cricket databases as "substantial coverage", and a cricket GNG that allows non-"fully professional" matches to be sufficient for notability. I would suggest that the requirement for CRIC also require either one non-statistical source, or one fully-professional match. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 20:12, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:NCRIC doesn't require matches to be fully professional as cricket hasn't always been fully professional. Large amounts of cricket history have been when it was an amateur game. Making it one fully-professional match would rule out far too many notable people, such as W. G. Grace from being notable under the guidelines. WP:NCRIC is far from perfect, and there are discussions ongoing in how to change/improve it, but there's been no consensus so far on them. The only reason there's hundreds of articles at AfD currently is because one user has decided there should be, not because of any change in policy. He could easily have picked any other sport (football, American football or baseball for example) but picked cricket. I'm sure this is more than a cricket problem. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 20:19, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Making it "one fully-professional match" would exclude Arthur Conan Doyle as well; in any event there are non-statistical sources for both (and SNGs are supplemental to the GNG). And my point on St Peter's School, York headmasters has not been addressed. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 00:42, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    And regarding "fully-professional" - the article on County cricket says nothing about current compensation (or lack thereof) for English county cricketers (it does note that participants in 1871 may have been "amateur or professional"). That seems an important detail to discuss in that article; perhaps some of the cricket editors could improve that? User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 01:12, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @力: The top level (those that play first class) are all compensated (although for a long time the sport was solely "amateur" and no direct compensation was given or maybe even allowed - or if there was any if was rather meager; see this - and also World Series Cricket for a look at what drove the trend towards professionalisation). Nowadays, the minimum is (as of last summer, due to the pandemic) 24 thousand quid; while the total salary cap for a single team is around 2 million pounds (although it was scheduled to rise; don't know if that's been postponed due to COVID) - the corresponding minimum is 750 thousand. See this. Anyway, yes, the current leauge, at least in England (and I'd expect in most if not all of the other Test status countries) is fully professional. But a century ago that was not the case... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:30, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    For background, the recent discussion on modifying the cricket notability guideline is at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 39 (the whole archive page), in which explicitly requiring a non-database source was discussed (as well as the fact that the sports notability guideline already specifies that database sources are not considered sufficient to establish that the general notability guideline has been met). isaacl (talk) 20:21, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is what I was talking about, and further discussion is currently ongoing on the cricket WikiProject, but still there's no real consensus on anything as it's very much delete vs. create still. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 20:23, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem is too many pages and not enough people to patrol them, leading to a high incidence among athlete bios of vandalism and BLP vios. One out of six BLPs is about a footballer, and that's been the case for years. It's even higher when you add in all the other sports bios.
    The solution to this is to require all pages in mainspace to have at least two GNG-qualifying references. Articles with less than two GNG refs should be PRODable, and should be deleted after a week if no one adds two sources, similar to BLPPROD.
    I would support expanding BLPPROD to require 2 sources and not 1, to require them to be GNG-satisfying sources and not just any hyperlink (so stats websites wouldn't count), and I'd support expanding this to athlete BLPs, all BLPs, all bios, and even all articles.
    Fundamentally, anyone who wants to create a page on Wikipedia should be required to do the work of finding and citing two GNG sources supporting that page's topic. We should require at least as much from our autopatrolled editors as we require of AFC submitters. It's a waste of our resources to allow some people to create as many pages as they want and expect others to come along and properly source them. Not requiring sources for new pages may have made sense in the beginning, but it doesn't make sense anymore after 20 years. Levivich harass/hound 20:17, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Personally, I agree that those creating articles ought to find sources meeting the general notability guideline, but stub creation is still widely supported by the community. In any case, it's not something that can be addressed within the scope of the sports notability guideline. isaacl (talk) 20:32, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. So why aren't all these GNG concerned individuals nominating Lewis (baseball) for deletion, or is the cricket project the target because we stood up for ourselves? StickyWicket (talk) 20:29, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Saying "the cricket project" when it's just the controversial opinion of a few is not helpful. And even then, that would be LOCALCONSENSUS attempting to override GNG (which is a resounding "no, never"). And really, as pointed out above, this is probably also a problem with many other sports articles. And no, nobody is interesting in making a pointy AfD for a topic which is clearly notable (attracting secondary coverage from a book written more than a century after the events in question shows that this one clearly meets the "lasting significance" as well as "significant coverage" portions of GNG)... The dime-a-dozen cricketers from the same time period who played a couple of first class games and for whom that is all we know, in retrospect, are clearly not. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:57, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The way I've always understood SNGs is that they create a rebuttable presumption of notability in AFD discussions. If there's no SNG, then the burden is on the Keep !voters to show that GNG is met. If it can be verified that an SNG is met, then the burden shifts to the delete !voters to show that GNG is not met. The issues raised above aren't with SNGs in general, but with the alleged leniency of specific SNGs. If a particular SNG is problematic, debate that SNG and find a way to narrow it to the community's satisfaction (as has happened here numerous times already); don't get rid of the entire concept of SNGs. Iffy★Chat -- 20:45, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This argument has been around for years, and doesn't just revolve around NSPORT. Our solution is to find the SNGs where they are too lenient (where a large amount of the catchment would not pass GNG) and update them to be more in line with those athletes who do meet GNG. The idea behind these guidelines is that most of the people who meet them also meet GNG, so you can create articles on the subject without doing a mass search for sourcing before putting the time in. This all stems from a discussion over NCRIC. If too many cricket players who meet NCRIC don't meet GNG, it's in our interest to make that less inclusive rather than report editors who have lots of articles deleted. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 21:14, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with your points here. But I will say that there have been discussions as recently as 3 months ago here at updating WP:NCRIC and there was no consensus on changing it. Discussions are still ongoing on the WikiProject about change as well. It's all good in saying we should make it less inclusive, but if we cant as a community come to agreement on what changes are to be made, we can't do it. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 21:18, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There's clear consensus it's too broad, though. The fact that there's no consensus to change it should mean that the entire SNG is deprecated, in line with what Fram suggested, as opposed to just having some sort of status quo. The error there was that the suggestion was to deprecate the SNG, not to fix it and deprecate it if it couldn't be fixed. SportingFlyer T·C 21:26, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The issue there is there will never be consensus to remove it all together. There was plenty of people in the discussion saying it shouldn't be removed altogether when it was mentioned. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 21:32, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't checked, but I think I was one of the people in the discussion saying it shouldn't be removed altogether. That's not really my argument though - my point is that since there's a general consensus NCRIC isn't tailored to GNG, so if it can't be reformed, it should be removed until a better SNG can be crafted, not falling back on the current problematic one. SportingFlyer T·C 21:52, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break 1

  • Support change somewhere. I don't know what the language of this change would actually be (though I like Levivich's proposal and the general ideas articulated by SportingFlyer and RandomCanadian above), but clearly there is an issue when SNGs are this poor at predicting general notability. The arguments for the status quo all seem to rest on defeatist, reactionary, or WP:NOHARM attitudes. These positions only make sense if you ignore WP:NOT; why have any notability criteria at all if it's technically not going to cause harm? Why not include every player who appears in a sports database at any adult level? At the same time, NOHARM could be used as an argument for making various sports SNGs tighter -- after all, athlete bios still have to meet GNG, so who cares if under stricter criteria trawling stats databases wouldn't occasionally uncover (e.g.) notable cricketers who weren't fully professional? If they truly had a lasting impact they should meet GNG, and furthermore shouldn't all the cricket experts over at NCRIC be familiar enough with historical leagues that they'd run across the likes of W. G. Grace outside of databases? No one is preventing editors from using non-directory sources for article creation, so the opposition here really seems to be toward reducing the number of mass-created, low-effort stubs one can make and abandon. Which is...basically opposition to how WP expansion functions in most every other discipline, where you can't just import half a kb of trivia from stats sites and call it done. JoelleJay (talk) 23:48, 27 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • We don't need to be flailing around just for the sake of Being Seen To Do Something, the more so in that it's obvious there's no consensus that there's even a problem. Nor are you likely to win hearts and minds by jeering at those you oppose. It is entirely possible -- strange though the premise might seem to you -- that those who see no reason to invent new rules feel that the various NSPORTS criteria already (as the guidance explicitly states) operates under the premise that they are subordinate to the GNG, and that they are intended to reflect the likelihood that a subject that can meet them will meet the GNG.

    If there are individual criteria with which you disagree, AND for which you've done the legwork to demonstrate that an unacceptably high percentage of those who meet it do not meet the GNG, then make that case and propose your changes. Ravenswing 05:30, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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