Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)

New notability criteria for MMA fighters

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

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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)

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)
• Support in line with combat sports (boxing and kickboxing) notability criteria. Cassiopeia^(talk) 03:32, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
• 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)
• Support. GameRCrom (talk) 04:20, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
• 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)

@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)

• Support. Per above. It's about time. Gsfelipe94 (talk) 11:35, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support.In support of it. Sounds easy enough. Powderkegg (talk) 15:05, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support: Good heavens, reform's failed to gain consensus for several years now. Well done. Ravenswing 23:30, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
• 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)
• Support - simple and straightforward. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 22:09, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
• 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)

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)

• 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)
• Support - Same with Gsfelipe94. Kosbit4 (talk) 00:04, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support. The new prong (top 10) is quite narrow and appropriate. Cbl62 (talk) 17:42, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• 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)
  • Not another moment; there was near-unanimous consensus on this. I've just made the change. Ravenswing 02:16, 11 March 2021 (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.

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

Summary

Providing a very broad summary for convenience: Most of those commenting (10 out of 13) in this section agree that there is some form of a problem caused by (some, at least) overly lax NSPORTS SNGs. Some editors note the difficulties posed at AfD by this (obligatory mention of the thread involving mass-created stubs at ANI) Some editors ask whether there's really a problem, and if there is, if it poses any harm at all. For your convenience, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:13, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Fixed. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:43, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

• 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)
• 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)

  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)

  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)

  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)

• 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)
• 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)

  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)

  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. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 19:40, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

  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)

  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. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 20:18, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

  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)

  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)

  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)

• 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)

  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)

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)

• 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)

  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)

  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)

  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)

  @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)

  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)

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)

• 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)

  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)

• 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)

  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)

  Interesting. So what you're saying is a man who swings a baseball bat once is notable. But a man who swings a cricket bat isn't? Unless of course some newspaper from eons ago takes a disliking to the subject, then someone mentions the subject in a book (where even they cannot identify them). The pad it up with stuff which isn't even about the subject and boom, notable! Would be nice if some of the people wanting to promote 'change' would be so willing to contribute to expanding the cricket project. StickyWicket (talk) 08:28, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  To be fair, the unknown Lewis player isn't notable "because he swung a bat once", he is notable because of how bad he was and that nothing else ever became of him. A single appearance, being average, and not being written about anywhere other than a stats database is not equivalent to a single appearance and holding records for it. I would recommend not using the Lewis baseball example for non-English pre-online sourcing as a comparison in the future. Yosemiter (talk) 00:44, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

• 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)
• 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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

I'm not saying you weren't, although I haven't read the whole of the discussion in detail. I just feel that removing it altogether until we come up with a new solution is just a way of removing it entirely, because with how discussions have gone, it's unlikely there will be a consensus on how to replace it either. Some of NCRIC works well, certainly for international cricketers and domestic cricketers playing in the bigger competitions such as the County Championship or big T20 leagues, so removing it entirely seems a bit extreme. I've suggested an option below, but I'm not sure it'll gain support either. I think we should also remember that the SNG problem goes further than Cricket, with other SNGs such as the football and Olympic ones being overly inclusive and a not great precursor of GNG either. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 09:37, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

• WP:NCRIC is probably one of the most restrictive sports inclusion guidelines, which people don't seem to understand. In football, anyone who has kicked a ball for a club who has a wiki page tends to get an artice, that could well be half a dozen appearances for a non-league club. Whereas for cricket the match has to carry status: first-class, List A, or Twenty20. If a player hasn't played in any of those matches, they don't get an article. Over the years I've PRODed/AfD'ed hundreds of players who don't meet that criteria. While football allows pretty much anyone in from many leagues, if you play club cricket in an ECB Premier League, you don't get an article. StickyWicket (talk) 08:35, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support change I don't really want to get into the nitty gritty, but any SNG that is improperly calibrated to WP:GNG must be revised. Some SNGs are overly strict (e.g. WP:SCHOLAR), others overly lax as discussed here. Both cases are problematic. Polyamorph (talk) 15:42, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

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)
  • 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)

• Support change- Firstly, the cricket SNG is demonstrably very bad at predicting which articles will be shown to meet GNG- the proportion of these that get deleted at AfD are proof of that- and any subguideline that seeks to carve out an exemption from WP:V and WP:GNG is not OK. Secondly, the mountain of microstubs does do harm. For the worst and most obscure of these articles it can actually be difficult to distinguish between similarly-named people, introducing inaccuracies and potentially creating BLP issues. Multiple pages containing minimal information each are a pain to the reader because they have to flip between several similar articles to get any kind of useful information and context. Unattended clouds of microstubs are susceptible to undetected vandalism. And they contribute to making the Random Article feature a pointless joke. Thirdly, I have objections to the way the Wikiproject behaves. Producing contentless substubs at a rate of one every few minutes is A-OK- but a few AfDs a day posted an order of magnitude more slowly and typically containing an order of magnitude more work than the article they're about is apparently a great crime. Then we get told by the Wikiproject we're not allowed to object to the bad articles on non-notable people until we've cleaned up all the bad articles on notable Test cricketers for them. And the sort of content one would expect to find in a biography, like biographical information, is derided as unnecessary filler, so it isn't as though they let you do the job properly even if you want to. Plus, you get a ceaseless stream of smarmy commentary that you can only possibly be objecting to bad articles because your motivations are awful and you can't edit properly. ... In short, write-only memory is a bad idea, and so is outsourcing the job of article writing to people who are unconvinced of the merit of the work and whom you intend to obstruct and insult at every opportunity. Reyk _YO! 06:47, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I'm happy to support change if somebody can name any form of solution to the problem that will likely result in some for of consensus. This was the problem when NCRIC was discussed here at the end of last year rolling into the start of this year. Plenty of people said "oh yes it needs to change" but nobody could come up with solutions that gained any form of consensus. There we different viewpoints discussed, from re-writing NCRIC completely with various drafts created, but no consensus, too removing NCRIC entirely, again to no consensus. The only potential idea I have that may gain any form of support would be to create a list of competitions that qualify as 'notable' (there's a list currently, but it just lists all competitions that have FC/List-A/T20 status) similar to used in football, but again that would be fraught with discussions on what competitions are notable and what aren't, although AfDs have tended to show that NCRIC is not great at presuming notability for certain Pakistani and Sri Lankan cricketers. To be honest I'm not even sure that this would get support given how the previous discussion went. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 09:32, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  How about this:

  • Biographical information and substantial sources -> stand-alone article
  • Only playing statistics in databases -> entry in a team list of players

  Reyk _YO! 09:45, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  That's going to remove a lo-o-o-ot of Test cricketers. You can't tell me "they're obviously notable" because there are many for which there are no references. Bobo. 13:20, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  Personally I think that's an overly simplistic view on it. I think list articles are a good alternative here, but the cricket WikiProject were told in the past that list articles were unnecessary and unwarranted and so may well be against them, although some have been created recently for articles deleted at AfD. The whole point of SNGs though is that they presume notability, with your suggestion we may we just get rid of them entirely as they'd have to pass GNG. There's plenty of Olympians who just have articles because they competed at Olympics in the past, so we'd have to do the same with all of them as well, and footballers as well, and I'm sure other sports. By creating a list of notable competitions that better reflects presumed notability it would at least stop some article creation on subjects that were never going to be notable, but also appease those on the WikiProject somewhat. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 10:12, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  That hasn't been my experience. Three or four years ago I participated in a few of these AfDs and suggested mergeing/redirecting to list articles. For this I got screamed at. It wasn't WPCRIC being told list articles were out of the question, but them telling me that. Anyway, SNGs (at best) provide a rebuttable presumption of notability- it's not a permanent exemption to sourcing requirements. I would argue that, if the article creator cannot find anything beyond match score cards, and neither can the AfD nominator, nor anyone else at the AfD- then that presumption has been rebutted. Reyk _YO! 11:20, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  Reyk I don't recall that at all, any archived discussion? StickyWicket (talk) 19:22, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  Bobo192, AssociateAffiliate, Lugnuts and Johnlp will probably know more on why people didn't want list articles in the past. SNGs are there to show that sources likely exist for topics, when it's not always possible to find sourcing on people, perhaps because all information on them isn't online or is in different language sources that are difficult to find in a search. I've said above in the discussion why I don't feel GNG is great for completely determining notability for sportspeople because of it's bias towards recency and it being Anglocentric, and this is why I feel that keeping SNGs but improving them is important. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 11:29, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  Rugbyfan22 I honestly don't recall such a conversation. And right now, even lists (some of which are FA and reliably sourced with in-depth leads) are being deleted. StickyWicket (talk) 19:22, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  I'm not sure it was ever a conversation, I just remember I think Bobo mentioning it in a previous discussion when someone suggested list articles, I'm not sure how long ago we're talking about as well it could have been years ago and consensus on list articles may have changed. Obviously there have been some international century lists deleted (which I disagree with), but i don't see a problem with 'List of xxxx cricketers' being created as it seems that the AfDs are going to continue and articles be deleted. It's at least a starting point for reaching some form of common ground. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 19:32, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  I've been around the cricket project for more than 15 years and we've had lists in most of that time. Indeed, lists of the kind being discussed here have pointed the way, with their redlinks, to "missing" articles on cricketers who might pass the SNG. Many of the lists that have recently been deleted or merged back into individual cricketer articles were specifically created as a result of a vote in the cricket project when it was felt that tabular, primarily statistical material was unbalancing the narrative style on important cricket articles. Johnlp (talk) 20:32, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support change The issue with SNGs is that they do encourage the creation of articles that should be notable, but when they're not calibrated to the GNG, this becomes irrelevant. In the context of sports, WP:NSPORT says GNG must ultimately be met. I think the easiest thing to do would be to deprecate the SNGs which clearly don't pass GNG, I think the two which clearly don't at the moment are NOLY and NCRIC but others likely exist, and replace them with text which actually predicts when a player will have been written about in significant coverage. This differs from the previous proposal by acknowledging that a properly calibrated SNG should exist, but when it's clear the current SNGs don't, we shouldn't be supporting them. SportingFlyer T·C 11:30, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  Agree generally with this. In theory the SNGs should have been tested so that someone just meeting the bar set would likely pass GNG, but I’m not sure that’s ever been done. For example, how likely are sportsmen to be notable if they made a handful of appearances in an early season of the Veikkausliiga, or perhaps one game for Sussex in the 1892 County Championship, or who finished towards the rear of the Shooting at the 1912 Summer Olympics – Men's 30 metre rapid fire pistol competition and who never made the Olympics again? Personally, I’m not convinced why SNGs exist when there is GNG, but that may be a minority view. Eldumpo (talk) 16:51, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - It has been my opinion all along that both should exist, and people protested. Now people think it is necessary I question their aims for the project. The amount of division which is now present in the project has driven away long-term members, of whom Rugbyfan22 has listed four of us. I don't see the purpose of a spiritually incomplete project. Basically, we are stuck inside 1984, and that does none of us any good. The impetus for article creation no longer exists, as proven here. Not to make too many excuses but I'm going through off-wiki stuff at the moment and it's making me tired. With all of this going on, I apologize if people think I was somehow snapping or being unnecessarily defensive. Change is hard and confusing. Bobo. 11:54, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - As for stubs with sporting information and biographical information, there's always going to be two groups - one group who says there is too much biographical information and one which says there is too little. I see very little middle ground. Bobo. 12:12, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I see two problems here. The first is the concept of articles sourced only to statistical databases; cricket is not the worst offender here (the Olympics articles are worse, actually). I recommend that discussion be a separate RFC. The second is that the standard "one first-class match" doesn't correlate well enough with GNG. For at least modern biographies (people with post-2000 appearances, roughly), I recommended abandoning first-class as a criteria entirely, using "fully professional" or an explicit list of leagues. Appearing in one match in the Indian Premier League should indicate notability, playing one match for Cambridge University against an English county side should not. Yes, the criterion may not work for pre-1945 cricketers; I think we're better off with a gap in the SNG until somebody can fix CRIC for those people. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:41, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  The guideline could be rewritten that only those who have played at the top international level (this is more restrictive than just "first class"; and should probably work even for most pre-modern era players) are presumed notable (a presumption which is of course rebuttable at AfD); and that players who have played in top domestic leagues (FC, T20...) may be notable but that there is no presumption: it is up to the article creator to provide sources establishing GNG. But this distracts that the issue is not just with NCRIC. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:48, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  My position is that for a well-crafted SNG, the "statistical database" issue isn't a problem, or is at least far less of a problem. If (hypothetically) the football SNG required that people appear in a FIFA World Cup match, people should be content to have an article created that was only sourced to a statistical database; the presumption would be that sources exist. I haven't noticed this type of problem with WP:NHOCKEY, as an example. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:56, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  While I appreciate RandomCanadian's comments I feel his suggestions are overly uninclusive. Plenty of domestic cricketers gain significant coverage, some certainly far more than some international cricketers. Any player that's played in the Indian Premier League, Big Bash or County Championship in the last 10 years will almost certainly have significant coverage. International cricketers who perhaps have played a couple of One Day Internationals for Nepal would gain less coverage than them, but be included because of that change in SNG. Improving the list of competitions that lead to presumed notability could be done but would take much discussion at the cricket WikiProject. But as you say this is a problem with the majority of SNGs not just cricket. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 17:27, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  The suggestion with NCRIC was just that. It could be "at the top international level [i.e. countries with Test status; or ODI/T20] (any time period) or in top-level domestic leagues (modern era; since [pick a date - prob. not earlier than the World Series Cricket])... Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:48, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  Ah apologies I misread it. It's the only solution I can think of though that may get some consensus from the cricket WikiProject though. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 17:54, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

• Comment As per the previous discussion about NCRIC, I do think an evaluation is needed for that particular SNG. Or at the minimum, a look into the practice of simply creating sub-stubs based solely on a stats database listing. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Prem Bhatia (Gujarat cricketer) is a prime example of why this should not be done. If indeed, Prem Bhatia (Gujarat cricketer) is the same subject as Prem Bhatia (Delhi cricketer), and all we have are two stats databases to compare and create our own conclusions, that is a practice that is frowned upon across any other topic in Wikipedia. Unfortunately, I am simply an observer here as I am not an expert in Cricket or how to find the appropriate non-English print sources, I can't come up with a good way to "fix" the SNG. 18:29, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  I should say there is significant coverage of the Prem Bhatia Delhi cricketer, it's just not sourced in the article, but understand the point you're trying to make. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 18:41, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  I wouldn't be surprised if there is, but I find it hard to criticise someone making mass AfDs when they can't find sources when the creators are putting in basically the same amount of effort in source finding. Both behaviors lead to mistakes and cruft (either AfD cruft or multitudes of sub-stubs). There is a reason both sides have recently been brought to ANI. Yosemiter (talk) 21:21, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support change as per all the previous similar discussions. As always, it's a question of what change. I'd generally support anything which would prevent notability claims based just on extant data with no in depth coverage at all. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:48, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  I've attempted a rewrite of the beginning. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:33, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  And of course it was reverted saying "no consensus". No good deed goes unpunished... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:37, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support complete removal The reality is that NSPORT is past saving. Discussions about what was or wasn't said in the past are a sure sign that we're going round in circles. I remember editors claiming that we need criteria such that 99.999% of people satisfying the criteria should be notable; something so far from the reality as to be laughable. We've had folk creating the FAQ with different wording from the actual guideline (the "very likely"/"likely" difference) and then we've had long discussions with the conclusion that all this makes perfect sense. Apparently the FAQ is actually part of the guideline even though it says something completely different. And of course, this all makes no difference anyway, stubs continue to be created on an industrial scale. Recently I had cause to look at Eddy Carbonnelle, "a Belgian field hockey player" (thinking he might also be a golfer). Even though the sole reference uses "Carbonnelle" the article was created as Eddy Carbonelle (one n). Perhaps this slip was related to the fact that the article was created at 17:56 on 22 September 2019, between the creation of Guy Debbaudt at 17:54 and the creation of Freddy Rens at 17:57. I'm reminded of the Monty Python "5 minute argument" sketch. However this seems to be the "90 second article creation" sketch. And this is fundamental issue here, the article is created in 90 seconds but removing it is orders of magnitude more difficult. Of course, this is nothing to do with NSPORT, showing that NSPORT is largely a diversion to the fundamental issue. Nigej (talk) 20:32, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  It took at least three emails and at least three misspelt sources for me to work out how to spell Michael Bolochoweckyj's name... Bobo. 01:55, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

  In this case the source was correct. You'd think a cut and paste would be the most reliable action. Nigej (talk) 07:14, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

  So I presume you're in favor of ditching ALL SNGs, Wikipedia-wide? WP:BIO, WP:CREATIVE, WP:PROF, the whole kit and kaboodle? (That, as well as pitching in to deal with the consequences, which would almost certainly involve a thousand articles at AfD a day.) Ravenswing 06:29, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

  No. I'm happy with the others. It's just this one that is being abused on such a massive scale. Nigej (talk) 07:14, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose of removal all SNG but some SGN guidelines could be tighten - Sport SNG covers a huge array of sports and to blanket removal all of them is not just for (1) Some of the team sport members would not have in dept, sign coverage such as water polo, cricket or volleyball yet we allow a cat article to be in stand alone page as it have 3 IRS coverage of no important as compare to a player have represented their countries in Olympic or Commonwealth games for years. (2) Some of subject the pre-internet ear, and it might be difficult to find enough IRS to meet GNG. (3) If we remove sport SNG then we would face other SGN to be removed as well and all those academic [[WP:NACEDEMIC], politician WP:NPOL and WP:NORG will effected and we would see very little academic page, and thousands of companies and politicians pages emerge. (4) If certain sport SNG needs to be tighten, then let that particular SNG to be discuss in the WikiProject first to have want need to changed agreement and then bring the discussion to Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports) to gain consensus approval. Cassiopeia^(talk) 03:01, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

  1) Agree that many individual members of teams might not be independently notable. Whether we should function as a pseudo-database for such or simply provide external links to complementary websites is a valid question. 2) coverage was also different in pre-internet times (and many sports have changed dramatically over the past century, for example cricket which went from an amateur sport to the multi-billion dollar industry it is nowadays) - it might indeed be the case that such subjects simply did not attract significant coverage in their lifetimes or thereafter and are thus not notable - if that's the case, then RGW comes to mind. 3) A valid proposal - maybe the whole concept of SNGs should be revisited. Maybe we could have GNG link to a new page, WP:Subject notability guidelines, which would explain the intention (supplement to GNG) and limitations/usage of these; with additional links from that page to agreed-upon SNGs which are fit for purpose. 4) I oppose this per WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY and WP:CREEP - editors should feel free to address a perceived problem in whichever way seems the most appropriate, not have to go through multiple hoops. Usually that involves posting a discussion on the talk page of the affected page (or if it's a wider policy change, at VPP) and advertise it at other relevant pages if necessary. And as said, the problem isn't just with one or two SNGs here and there: it might simply be a waste of time changing them one by one. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:35, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

  For the sports-specific notability guidelines, the only thing that's worked for over a decade is changing them one by one. If the discussion at the notability talk page regarding subject-specific notability guidelines were to be restarted and reach some agreement, that would be great. I would caution that expectations should be tempered, though, given that people have been trying for many years now and I still see a lot of fundamental disagreement at present. isaacl (talk) 04:40, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose removal of all SNGs, but some SGN guidelines could be tightened as per Cassiopeia - this needs to be considered on a sports-by-sports basis. If the cricket SNG is not up to scratch it, change it so it is. Do not attempt to get rid of SNGs as a whole, that is asking for trouble. GiantSnowman 17:45, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support changes per the above. Any SNG that encourages the creation of articles without enough verifiable text to be a stand-alone article need to be overhauled so it is clear that we should NOT be doing that. Stand-alone articles should not be created unless and until there is clear and unambiguous evidence that there exists a reasonable chance that enough source text can be brought together to actually write a good article about the subject. If all that could ever be said about a subject can be contained in a single sentence or paragraph then we don't need a stand-alone article. Information about such subjects doesn't need to be erased from Wikipedia, but where (for example), a person can be noted as having played on a team for a single game, we can adequately cover that information in other articles and don't need to create an entire article where all we can say is "So and so played in one game". This doesn't include people for whom there is other good source text (perhaps even because they only appeared in the one game, i.e. the Moonlight Graham effect), however, if we can't actually write an article about the person, maybe we shouldn't create that article. --Jayron32 18:01, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

  Per Wikipedia:Notability (sports)/FAQ#Q1, the intent is that individual sport SNGs should reflect that sufficient sources exist to write a decent article. If an SNG criteria is too lax, it needs to be tightened or removed (e.g. playing one game in XYZ league). Stand-alone articles should not be created unless and until there is clear and unambiguous evidence ... That evidence is generally meeting the SNG, the whole purpose that SNGs exist. If it's not reliable, the specific SNG needs to dealt with.—Bagumba (talk) 07:46, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support change Change in these guidelines is definitely needed, and I will support any reasonable proposed changes in the hopes that one of them gets consensus, because almost anything would be better than the mass of poorly sourced sports articles we have now. ( especially cricket)Jackattack1597 (talk) 23:08, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose removing all sports SNGs. I've edited in the area of Australian rules football for a couple of years now, and created about 80-odd biographies of new players, covered by the SNG WP:NAFL. It's a straightforward and unambiguous guideline: if you've played or coached a match in the top men's or women's league, you're presumed notable. Yet I always make a point of ensuring the articles include more than enough (non-statistical) sources to unambiguously pass GNG, and I've never researched a debutant who would fail GNG if an article were created.

My point is that NAFL, despite its simplicity, is very good at correctly predicting notability. Much of the above discussion has focused on the persistence of potentially problematic guidelines such as NCRIC as a rationale for removing all sports-related SNGs, but doing so would risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater. – Teratix ₵ 01:38, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose changes We tighten SNGs all the time. If there is one that appears to be lax and you can do the legwork to show its lax then propose changing it. But sweeping everything together is not the way to do it. -DJSasso (talk) 11:51, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose All While some SNG's definitely need to be reviewed and changed, removing them entirely would be a mistake and could lead to the deletion of a lot of articles of older athletes who's coverage cannot be found online. Best, GPL93 (talk) 13:52, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
• Strong oppose, we can fine tune SNGs, but removing them would be the wrong move in my opinion. Also, I have no issues with stubs, and no issues with tons of them being from sportspeople.--Ortizesp (talk) 21:02, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

RandomCanadian's Proposals

Overriden by better thought out and more formal proposals. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:40, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Add specific proposals here. JoelleJay (talk) 16:59, 29 March 2021 (UTC) In order of increasing severity/effort/expected opposition: These were not originally intended as formal questions for voting. Rewrite the introduction to make it clear SNGs are not substitutes for GNG; and adjust the page elsewhere if required. (ex. something like this; although the details can be changed). Deprecate the SNGs which do not in practice provide a correct indication of notability Re-do the whole concept of SNGs; creating a separate WP:Subject notability guidelines page and linking accepted and effective SNGs from there. Deprecate NSPORTS entirely Now of course, non exhaustive listing. Surely others have had good ideas too. And then of course there's the entirely opposite "nothing to fix here" position, but I don't think there's many supporters of that option. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:38, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Support Option 1/Oppose options 3 and 4 and support improving certain SNGs The SNG text needs rewriting to be clearer as RandomCanadian says, and certain SNGs clearly need improving. However, re-doing the whole concept will likely cause a minefield of problems as as shown by discussions above there are so many different opinions on SNGs and how they should be used. Removing NSPORTS entirely again I disapprove of as GNG is far from perfect for proving the notability of sports people as myself and other users have mentioned above. Certain SNGs need improving/tightening though (Cricket, Olympics + others for example) and it should be down to the relevant WikiProjects to work out how to improve them, with the support of the NSPORTS community and not the force of the NSPORTS community telling specific projects what to do and how their guidelines should be, although the wider community should have a say on any new proposals specific WikiProjects come up with. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 17:55, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Are we workshopping or voting here? I would say that we need to have text which explicitly states that SNG's do NOT override the need to have source text about a subject. If the source text doesn't exist, the article shouldn't. I guess this is most in line with 1 and 2 noted above, but I think we need to get together a solid proposal before we just start voting. --Jayron32 18:04, 29 March 2021 (UTC) It feels like a mix of both. I feel like the consensus so far is pretty clear, we'll see if there's consensus about the proper ways forward. SportingFlyer T·C 18:42, 29 March 2021 (UTC) (edit conflict)I was clearly workshopping above (if I didn't say it explicitly now I do); the subsequent !vote notwithstanding. There seems to be overwhelming support for some form of change in the previous sub-section. Now that would take someone sifting through that and determining what kind of changes are most favoured before making a formal question. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:44, 29 March 2021 (UTC) I've now tried to provide a summary of the initial discussion section. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:15, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Support 1/2 Option 3 increases the scope significantly and is unlikely to lead to change, though I support it, and option 4 ignores that SNGs can be useful guides when properly calibrated. I think Option 1 makes absolutely clear the sports SNGs are guides to when GNG is established and do not supplant the GNG, and I support option 2, deprecating the SNGs which encourage stub creation (cricket and the Olympics, and maybe a review of football (perhaps changing that guideline to "fully professional leagues where all players receive or should receive GNG-qualifying coverage".) I also consider "deprecating" to mean updating specific SNGs, where a no consensus result leads to the SNG being removed. SportingFlyer T·C 18:42, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Support 3 and 4. Thousands of articles about players who happen to be professional but lack WP:GNG coverage, and who will not matter one iota 10 years from now, don't need to be in an encyclopedia, which should focus on topics that can stand the test of time. This is especially true for articles that don't do much more than offer some statistics. In my opinion, SNG has succeeded only in causing a proliferation of rather useless pages that won't matter a few years from now. If we keep SNG, then it should specify inclusion criteria beyond GNG, to include sports figures of actual significance and filter out routine coverage that gives only an illusion of actual notability. ~Anachronist (talk) 18:53, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose. The problem is that some sub-parts of this SNG (cricket in particular) are not appropriately tailored as accurate predictors of notability. The solution is to fix those sub-parts, not to undermine the force and effect of the sub-parts that are appropriately tailored. Cbl62 (talk) 19:14, 29 March 2021 (UTC) That seems a lot like supporting number 2. But again we're still trying to find a solid proposal that will attract broad support and fix the problem. Putting off the task to future RfCs to resolve each problematic SNG individually seems like a waste of effort. There appears to be broad agreement that some of them are problematic. Maybe we should figure out a framework as to how to resolve these. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:19, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Except #2, which do not in practice provide a correct indication of notability, is toothless. "correct indication" is purely subjective. I suggest that specific changes to individual sports are proposed. Vague waves will not result in change.—Bagumba (talk) 05:56, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Proposals regarding the subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs) are better discussed in another venue, such as the Wikipedia talk:Notability, in order to gather input from a broader spectrum of those who will be affected. isaacl (talk) 19:49, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Regarding overwhelming consensus: if you haven't already, please read Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 71. As far as anyone has been able to determine so far, there is no consensus yet on any changes to how subject-specific notability guidelines are handled. isaacl (talk) 19:54, 29 March 2021 (UTC) I think the words of Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works should be heeded. "Notability" is not supposed to be a measure of whether someone is worthy of attention or something. It's supposed to be the answer to the question "will we have enough sourcing available from which build a suitable article". So if the issue is more fundamental than just NCRIC and some others, it might be worth asking: what is a "suitable article"? Random off-wiki examples: [1] [2] [3] [4]? Or is a shorter page like [5] suitable for sports figure? All very valid questions. I personally prefer when we're closer to serious, academic writing and not the pop-culture journalism side of the scale. Does not prevent us from having articles on entertainment/sports/pop culture topics - but they really should be more than "x was a y-sportsperson who played for z team". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:40, 29 March 2021 (UTC) It's a good discussion to have—in a broader venue. (And that essay isn't saying that "notability" is supposed to be something; it's discussing what happens right now in practice. If we start discussing the broader issues, all that happens now is subject to change.) isaacl (talk) 20:45, 29 March 2021 (UTC) The issue at hand is specifically the sports SNG, though. I imagine a proposal to get rid of SNGs in a broader forum will go down about as well as kicking a hornet's nest. SportingFlyer T·C 21:22, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Even getting rid of specific problematic SNGs has required, what, a previous RfC with no consensus, and now this... To be exact, I was not suggesting getting rid of all SNGs; merely redefining their use and limitations thereof given the problems here (which are not unique to sports personalities) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:29, 29 March 2021 (UTC) To clarify, then, are proposals 1, 2, and 3 referring to all subject-specific notability guidelines? isaacl (talk) 21:41, 29 March 2021 (UTC) In the current context: 1 and 2 do not. If you ask me: Should we do a wider RfC to get support for 1 and 2 across all subjects; and also 3 (since here obviously is of insufficient scope)? The the answer is a resounding Yes. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:57, 29 March 2021 (UTC) In that case, the proposals should specifically say something like sports-specific notability guidelines. As written, they sound like they're referring to the subject-specific notability guidelines. And then the broader questions raised by RandomCanadian have a narrower scope. I once proposed stating there should be sufficient coverage available to write a biography describing significant aspects of the sportsfigure's life, and it was pointed out that this is a standard beyond the general notability guideline. So within the context of the general notability guideline, "suitable article" is pretty barebones. Coverage that consists solely of "X played Y for Z" is routine coverage. For many sports, the interested editors agree that routine coverage is insufficient to meet the general notability guideline. isaacl (talk) 21:39, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Athletes are (typically) notable for playing sports, so I would expect the coverage of them to cover their sporting careers rather than other aspects of their life. In fact, excessively covering other aspects of their life rather than focusing on what they are notable for probably violates WP:UNDUE. Smartyllama (talk) 22:19, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Obviously I can't speak about all athlete biographies, but most of the ones I've seen provide adequate weight to the athlete careers. (Well, Cassie Campbell comes to mind as an exception, as there are five sentences on her hockey career, with no personal accomplishments listed other than serving as captain.) isaacl (talk) 22:26, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose all If particular guidelines are problematic, adjust them. There's no need to destroy everything simply because we don't like a few guidelines. Smartyllama (talk) 22:16, 29 March 2021 (UTC) We're not at the formal !voting stage yet (and given what others say, that might likely have to happen at a broader venue); but apparently people are taking it like that... How come "if particular guidelines are problematic, adjust them" (quite similar to option 2 in spirit; which might need rewording though so fair point) but "oppose all"? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:23, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Because the solution is adjusting them, not deprecating them entirely. Smartyllama (talk) 22:29, 29 March 2021 (UTC) It's preferable to have no guideline (the fall back then is GNG, which is what SNGs are supposed to show anyway) than a broken one. As I said that seems a minor quibble in wording, and the questions likely will need to be taken to a broader venue. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:31, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Based on the consensus so far, my suggestion for a solution here might be to: Identify and deprecate specific problematic sports SNGs (I'm thinking "deprecate" does not mean "remove," unless we cannot reach consensus on a replacdescribedement guideline within a certain amount of time); Put on the record that mass creation of sports stubs sourced only to statistical databases should be discouraged. SportingFlyer T·C 22:59, 29 March 2021 (UTC) I am generally in agreement with SportingFlyer's point # 1, though I'm not sure (i) what the practical difference is between "deprecate" and "remove", and (ii) how we get there given that the prior discussion on the cricket guideline stalled and seemingly accomplished little (or nothing). As for SportingFlyer's point #2, I am sympathetic, but I'm not sure how one would define "mass creation". Also, if an SNG is well calibrated to GNG, I'm not so concerned with sub-stubs, as those sub-stubs can eventually be expanded through our usual collaborative process into meaningful and encyclopedic content. Cbl62 (talk) 00:59, 30 March 2021 (UTC) @Cbl62: I understand "deprecate" and "remove" are pretty much the same in practice, but I visualise "deprecate" being softer - it would keep the text of the old SNG around while a new one is being discussed and provide an incentive for consensus to be reached (as a no consensus would mean full removal, as opposed to "nothing changes"). I'm also not that concerned with sub-stubs if they can be expanded or if they pass GNG, but when you have a second division footballer who passes GNG, it's a better look to take five minutes creating the article and linking in one or two significant sources than it is to spend 90 seconds creating the article sourced only to a statistics database. I would not move a sports biography into mainspace from AfC if it had only one source to Soccerway or CricInfo or football-reference, especially if it were a BLP; we should discourage auto-patrolled editors from creating these pages directly on mainspace. SportingFlyer T·C 08:33, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Both of these seem fine. The second one could be stronger. I think if we combine my first two proposals (R.C. 2 = S.F. 1; so just need to agree on a wording for that one) and yours we can have something that will accomplish at least a good part in solving the problems yet be palatable to enough editors to pass. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:13, 29 March 2021 (UTC) I consider these not mutually exclusive, to be clear. SportingFlyer T·C 23:17, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Comment Solution should be fixing specific SNG (cricket in particular) by tighten the criteria (I have seen more than 30+/- cricketers with only first names and no last names, which we couldn't even be sure they are the cricketers which we thought they are/were, were argued to death on AfD and they were voted a keeps and one year later those articles were re-AfCed and this time they were all vote deletes). A sub article can always be expanded in future date that is the reason we have sub class in Wikipedia. Cassiopeia(talk) 01:23, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Comment I'm only commenting from my interaction at the larger notability picture here: option 1 may need some tuning given the discussion from 2-3 months ago at WT:N in that at a general level the community consensus between the SNGs and the GNG is not clear. I know that NSPORT here is developed based on the principle of Option 1 - the individual criteria are minimally sufficient to start an article, but the expectation is to get to the GNG, but this is not a position that was shared by many editors involved in the WT:N, with "once you meet the SNG you're fine" approach being very common. I personally think the Option 1/NSPORT is the right way for this, and NSPORT should have the freedom to express this explicitly (particularly for the more "troublesome" criteria that keep coming up) given the results of that WP:N that said that there's not consistency in the SNGs. --Masem (t) 23:49, 29 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose All: For reasons of ... (No. 1) On the face of it, this isn't objectionable, but the NSPORTS guidance already stipulates that the SNGs are, after all, subordinate. What manner of wording do people think would actually get through, 36-pt type screeching "YOU DUMB BASTARDS, PAY ATTENTION TO THIS" ... ? (No. 2) Aside from which "deprecate" means to remove, not to correct, each and every one of you who claims that NSPORTS is broken has had the ability to weigh in on any sports SNG that sticks in your craw. I absolutely agree that some of them are/have been broken, and I've been part of the weighing in. Any that haven't been changed means that there is no consensus to do so, and if you haven't attempted to contribute to the solution, you're part of the problem. (By the bye, precisely how many of you have actually done any legwork to determine exactly how specific SNGs need to be tightened in order to produce an acceptable GNG hitrate? No, I didn't think so.) (No. 3) Does anyone honestly envision this proposal as anything but an epic disaster, as constituents pour in from all over Wikipedia to defend their pet criteria, and to bash those of areas in which they have no interest? (No. 4) I would consider supporting any proposal to set the GNG up as the sole arbiter of notability, Wikipedia-wide. Any attempt to get rid of NSPORTS while leaving the likes of WP:CREATIVE, WP:CORP, WP:PROF, WP:NGEO (the latter two of which explicitly admit that they don't pay attention to the GNG) kicking around to spawn hordes of NN articles of their own is absolutely operating off of an agenda, and neither a pleasant nor a subtle one. Ravenswing 01:33, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Ascribing an agenda when none exists is unhelpful (I'm myself a cricket fan, despite my geographic reality). As I said, these proposals need some further work. Re. specific points: no. 2 - so we agree that some SNGs are broken; and yet we fail to agree on how to replace them. Seems that since there's agreement that some SNGs are inappropriate as they stand, it would be more logical to deprecate those and fall back to GNG until we can agree on a replacement, instead of keeping something patently broken. no. 3 - I was not envisioning this proposal as getting rid of SNGs, I was thinking of this as centralising SNGs and making a summary of their proper usage as a new page, while still keeping the existing guidelines, i.e. applying no. 1 to all SNGs (hence a proposal outside the scope of this discussion, but getting feedback on it here is useful); no. 4 - I have no particular qualms with getting rid of the SNGs altogether (especially if they keep getting used as improper substitutes to GNG); especially the ones which admit that they do not give a flying flamingo about GNG; but I placed it last because I think it is extremely unlikely to pass, given the already significant opposition to even removing single SNGs... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:17, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Asserting an agenda is unhelpful, but there are editors above with the candor to admit that they advocate wiping NSPORTS out while keeping all other SNGs -- including others that are routinely abused -- intact. I stand by my characterization of that. I don't accuse you of doing so. That being said, my take (and correct me if I'm wrong) is that the proposals you set out aren't necessarily ones you might support so much as setting forth the various options. Ravenswing 03:43, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Thanks. Re. your take: correct; I was always aiming for further discussion. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:15, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose All: Second the above what Ravenswing said above - to remove all SNG/SSN would be openning the Pandora's box. Cassiopeia(talk) 01:54, 30 March 2021 (UTC) oppose all or if forced to choose, option 1. I don't think change is necessary.-- Earl Andrew - talk 03:16, 30 March 2021 (UTC) (EC) Support all. 1. The SNG/GNG/N wording clearly remains confusing if there are still any sports AfDs where !voters argue "keep meets N[X]", and especially if any are closed as keep where GNG has not been demonstrated. The language in WP:N is poor as it places GNG and SNG on equal footing -- even though the context is their capacity to presumably meet notability, positioning them as "either/or" here predictably leads editors to believe all SNGs provide an equally direct avenue to notability as GNG does. It then has to be pointed out that N is essentially kicking the ball back to individual SNGs, some of which explicitly supersede GNG, some of which have stricter requirements than GNG, and some of which fully submit to GNG. It then has to be explained that, actually, meeting most SNGs only presumes notability, and you do still need to meet GNG, even though apparently GNG also only "presumes" notability, plus N presents SNG and GNG as non-hierarchical, which they are for certain SNGs, but... etc. etc. NSPORT makes this worse by immediately catering exclusively to the AfC crowd with its first-paragraph bolded instructions perpetuating a GNG-SNG "either/or" relationship -- inevitably necessitating clarification that the criteria for creation are less stringent, yadda yadda yadda. 2. There are numerous archived threads discussing how frequently AfDs in a particular project are either closed as delete at alarming proportions, or are closed as keep without the subject meeting GNG. The criteria for those sports are deficient and must be dramatically reassessed. 3. We have three types of SNGs with three completely different pathways to meeting notability. These should be explicitly distinguished. 4. NSPORT is subordinate to GNG. So why treat it as if it's more than a rule of thumb? JoelleJay (talk) 05:04, 30 March 2021 (UTC) The language in WP:N is poor ...: That's an issue to take up with WP:N, not targetting a specific SNG.—Bagumba (talk) 05:41, 30 March 2021 (UTC) The sports notability guideline does not ask to be treated as more than a rule of thumb. Its third paragraph explicitly says These are merely rules of thumb. isaacl (talk) 05:54, 30 March 2021 (UTC) *Gestures broadly*. Plenty of people here seem to think it is absolutely critical for article creation as an alternative to GNG. That sounds like more than a rule of thumb. JoelleJay (talk) 20:06, 30 March 2021 (UTC) In which case I don't think there's too much we can do to convince them it isn't, except pointing at the existing text; which they're also de facto objecting to changing because it supposedly already makes the point that the SNG is subordinate to GNG explicit (more often, it's just a generic "oppose all per x;" which does not help us determine whether A) they're objecting to the principle as a whole or B) to the specifics of the proposal. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:15, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Yes, as I said earlier, some editors want to have achievement-based standards to determine if a given subject should have an article. The consensus that created the sports notability guideline explicitly disagreed with this point of view, preferring to craft criteria that serve as predictors for meeting the general notability guideline. So as written, the sports notability guideline establishes rules of thumb. This disagreement is one reason for the stalemate in revising the criteria for some sports. (Another one is disagreements on what constitutes adequate coverage to meet the general notability guideline.) There are some sports whose interested editors agree with the predictor view, and have been able to revise the criteria to improve their predictive ability. isaacl (talk) 22:47, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose all Malformed request that is unclear if it's a reform of WP:N itself and its general endorsement of SNGs, a criticism of all SNGs, or particularly an NSPORTS issue. There is an issue with some individual sports, and it's unfortunate those editors have not policed themselves, but that doesn't justify grouping all sports by association.—Bagumba (talk) 05:50, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose all - this is going to be be met with a huge hoard of sports editors disapproval. And it's almost impossible to police. Tennis Project Guidelines for notability have been meticulously debated to make them work. We used NSport as much as we could but GNG is so vague and doesn't always work for each individual sport. Tweaks must be made so that we have an enforceable framework that we can show our editors in case of argument. It isn't 100% and some barely-notable or perhaps some barely-not-notable players slip through, but it is a good working model in an unperfect environment. We have to deal with notability in dozens of languages across the globe, and the tiniest country's press reports. We have to deal with players with similar achievements of today's players but who played in 1890. So we set guidelines of very likely GNG to stop countless edit wars and arguments. We point to Tennis Project Guidelines and NSPORT when new editors have questions. We've been as specific as we can in our project's guidelines so as to leave little wiggle room. If a player in question does not meet Tennis Project Guidelines, but someone insists they meet GNG, it gets opened up for debate to see if they can prove it to all wikipedians. Since we worked so hard on getting the guidelines correct, these debates actually happen infrequently. So to just ditch this system is incredibly wrong imho. I can't speak for other WikiProjects as I have no idea how they set up their own project guidelines, but Project Tennis guidelines have worked really well for our editors. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:11, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Good work, considering this clauses 4,5 and 6 are basically cart blanch to create and keep any tennis bio (since people think Ntennis trumps GNG). Clearly most appearing in lower levels of the nation cups (clause 2) and on the lower tiers are not notable to gain GNG, as having a profile on ITF or WTA or ATP is not good enough (of which there is loads). So I find it amazing that you Fyunck are stating that the tennis guidelines are as good as they can be. Games of the world (talk) 10:14, 2 April 2021 (UTC) Support 1 and 2- although it's true that the SNGs defer to the GNG, and this is stated clearly, the problem is getting the enthusiasts of various subject areas to admit this fact. Not to mention all the closing admins who ignore lengthy and well-researched delete votes, only to throw themselves reverentially at the feet of anyone saying "keep- meets NDERP ~~~~". It's plain that the actual guideline needs to be clarified even further, so that anyone can understand it; even those who don't want to. As for point 2, I think it is feasible to investigate take stock of those SNGs that don't provide a good predictor of meeting GNG. It's not so hard to tell the difference between an SNG being used as a decently accurate predictor of whether sources will be found to exist given enough research, and being held up as an exemption from sourcing requirements altogether. Thus it should be feasible to deprecate the SNGs that are not doing their job, while leaving the good ones be. Reyk YO! 06:21, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose all especially 2 which is, I'm afraid, completely untestable. You absolutely cannot write requirements like this. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 07:03, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Support option 1 is any change is made - just to make it clear that the SNG is a presumption of notability only, and if GNG is not met, players are not notable. There is a large body of AFD consensus that clearly shows that footballers/soccer players who play for a few minutes in 1 or 2 games are not notable, despite passing the SNG. GiantSnowman 09:26, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose all These are just not very good. -DJSasso (talk) 11:52, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose all per The Rambling Man, Djsasso and others. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 16:43, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Support option 2 only, oppose all others. SNGs are an alternative to the GNG. Passing one is enough for notability and you do not need to pass both GNG and an SNG. If there are concerns that certain SNGs are giving unwanted articles a "free pass" (which, for the avoidance of doubt, I have no evidence for or against), then that should be resolved by tightening or deprecating the offending SNGs. Stifle (talk) 15:53, 31 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose all of the above. The GNG is deeply flawed as it usually comes down to whether or not significant coverage has been found. That itself is not a good indication of whether a subject is suitable for an encyclopedia entry. SNGs do not generally defer to GNG - many existed prior to GNG, and objective measures of encyclopedic relevance are much preferable to a flawed measure of how much coverage has been found. If there are issues with individual sports, these should be discussed to resolve them. --Michig (talk) 07:12, 1 April 2021 (UTC) How is the GNG flawed? I don't understand the nature of your objection to it? My question to you regarding your objection is simple: From where do you get the information to put in an article? --Jayron32 13:17, 1 April 2021 (UTC) I explained above why the GNG is flawed. Information needs to come from reliable sources. These don't necessarily need to consitute "significant" coverage to allow verification. --Michig (talk) 17:22, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Fram's proposal

Replaced by the "revised" proposal section below. It seems more likely to get a consensus without the "non-local" aspect added.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The actual text needs working, obviously, but the proposal is to add one element to the "mathematical", "statistical" requirements all sports have (one match, has participated, one win, ...): a player is presumed notable if they meet that statistical requirement and has substantial coverage in at least one non-local, non-routine source. All the other rules stay the same, but no longer will be stats-only creations be acceptable. Note that this is still a lesser requirement than the multiple sources asked for by the GNG: these would be needed when challenged, but for creation, you would only need one substantial source. Thoughts? Fram (talk) 07:31, 30 March 2021 (UTC) What is "non-routine"? If there's an article about an Australian Rules footie player shearing a sheep for charity, but all other reports are match reports, does that pass? The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 07:56, 30 March 2021 (UTC) That is non-routine, yes. It indicates that the player is known enough to give him attention when he does something besides playing (it would be unusual to get this in non-local news, I guess, although I remember a BBC TV (national) fragment about a curling player on his farm (in Springwatch, I guess). "must provide reports beyond routine game coverage" is already part of the "basic criteria" of NSPORTS, so defining non-routine hasn't been a problem so far it seems (it also returns 4 times in the sections on amateur, college, ... sports). Fram (talk) 08:12, 30 March 2021 (UTC) My only issue is that "local" varies. A player in Melbourne may get non-routine coverage in Melbourne and be notable, I was at an AfD where a player from Šibenik received coverage from the "local" regional newspaper and was deleted. I'd support this if "non-local" were reframed or clearly defined. SportingFlyer T·C 08:25, 30 March 2021 (UTC) See Wikipedia:Notability (sports)/FAQ#Q4: What is your expected timeframe for historical, pre-internet subjects where the sources are offline?—Bagumba (talk) 08:47, 30 March 2021 (UTC) None. If you don't have access to any sources besides statistics, don't create it (as a standalone article, of course the subject can be included in lists). Fram (talk) 09:04, 30 March 2021 (UTC) This is a very sensible proposal. SportingFlyer T·C 09:22, 30 March 2021 (UTC) That contradicts WP:BEFORE (If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a candidate for AfD.) and WP:AFDISNOTCLEANUP.—Bagumba (talk) 10:41, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Also, this has a problem with WP:BIAS, if we're only encouraging creation for countries with good online newspaper archives. A lot of e.g. South African newspapers don't have online archives, and yet there would be lots of national/regional coverage about players. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:57, 30 March 2021 (UTC) How does that contradict WP:BEFORE? For starters, articles which would fail this proposal could be redirected to lists of players (which is a valid WP:BEFORE solution). And of course, if you don't have and can't find indepth sources (with a reasonable search), then the article can't be fixed through normal editing, and there is again no WP:BEFORE problem. WP:BEFORE doesn't mean that "if a source may, perhaps, exist somewhere, it should be kept", and neither does AFD mean "even if a source is found afterwards, it may not be recreated". Fram (talk) 11:18, 30 March 2021 (UTC) If the subject flourished before the internet, do you consider a search of offline sources part of BEFORE or not?—Bagumba (talk) 12:29, 30 March 2021 (UTC) No, searching for such a source is not a part of WP:BEFORE (and before anyone misinterprets this: kudo's to those who do such a source, such sources are perfectly acceptable; just like sources behind a paywall may well be acceptable reliable sources, but it is not necessary for WP:BEFORE to check if there are sources behind a paywall either). One needs to do a reasonable search like everyone with unrestricted Internet access could make; beyond that, if you don't find enough to warrant keeping an article, the WP:BURDEN shifts to those arguing to keep to provide actual sources instead of claiming that they must exist (or worse, that they don't exist but that NSPORTS allowss having a standalone article anyway, which is false already). Fram (talk) 12:43, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Every first-class cricketer whose article is present on Cricket Archive (paywall) will also have a profile on Cricinfo (no paywall). Not a problem. If the only problem people have is WP:PAYWALL, they can always fix the articles themselves rather than take them to deletion. If people want to remove every reference to Cricket Archive, so be it. It's just that when we first started creating and citing articles, the site had no paywall. (And even today, the paywall is so easy to get around...) Bobo. 12:50, 30 March 2021 (UTC) That's not what the above is about though, it is about indepth sources, not statistics (it also isn't just about cricket but about every sport). A "profile" on these two sites is just a database entry. I know that these sites also carry articles, but that's not what you are talking about. Fram (talk) 13:24, 30 March 2021 (UTC) People seem to confuse CI as just purely stats, it isn't. Lots of players how profiles on there and beyond that the site provides a list of matches played by each player too. So if I say John Smith made 43 first-class appearances between 1900 and 1910, I can use their match list page as a source for that (otherwise it would be OR). It isn't simply a runs scored and wickets taken kinda website. If people claiming it is were to go on there, they'd figure that out instead of shooting from the hip. StickyWicket (talk) 13:53, 30 March 2021 (UTC) No idea which people you mean. I replied to the statement that players with a profile on one, will have a profile on the other, and that one of the two is behind a paywall now: all of which has nothing to do with WP:BEFORE. Players who have more than their statistics (and a list of matches played is just statistics) and the bare minimum of personal info (date and place of birth and death), those who have actual articles about them (texts describing their career, their biography, their club career, etc.) are notable under this proposal, so no problem there. But having an entry on either or both sites doesn't as such suffice. Fram (talk) 14:17, 30 March 2021 (UTC) I don't actually think this has anything to do with WP:BEFORE. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think Bagumba's assumption is that this will allow a user to send an article to AfD if it's sourced only to a database site without needing to do a BEFORE search. We are not trying to make it easier for users to AfD articles. What we are trying to do is discourage the creation of articles that can't be sourced beyond a mere statistical directory by adding a wee burden to the creation process, namely identifying a source that's not a statistical directory, especially for users with auto-patrol which means their creations aren't subject to NPP/AfC. If LeBron James doesn't have a page and I create one sourced only to basketball-reference, that's not really a problem. If I create LeBron along with 100 other NBA players sourced only to basketball-reference, even if they all ultimately pass GNG, I think that would be a problem. It's even more of a problem if I'm creating these articles for the members of the 1952 last-place Sildavian Olympic fencing team, who may not even have local coverage. SportingFlyer T·C 15:54, 30 March 2021 (UTC) SportingFlyer: Education outreach aside, the only remedy to discourage the creation of articles that can't be sourced beyond a mere statistical directory is to delete the page (or move to Draft:) or get a WP:TBAN if they are serial creators. Consider the "Stubs" thread (below).—Bagumba (talk) 00:09, 31 March 2021 (UTC) What is "non-local" news? Is that not from the same town, city, state, country? The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 09:43, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Not from the same town/city (for sources specifically aimed at that city, not sources which are called after a city but aimed at a much wider audience, like the FAZ or the NZZ (excluding their "local" or "regional" section, if they have any). County level (for the US), Province level (for Belgium or the Netherlands), ... is still too local, Statewide or countrywide will usually be enough (for countries with some population at least, an Andorran newspaper is basically a city newspaper only). Fram (talk) 10:24, 30 March 2021 (UTC) No, that's just adding another layer to WP:RS which we don't need. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 12:56, 30 March 2021 (UTC) WP:IS already says "A newspaper in a small town might write about the opening and closing of every single business in the town, or the everyday activities of local citizens. An enthusiastic local music reviewer may pen a review of every single person who comes on stage in their town with a guitar and a microphone, whether it is an amateur garage band playing for the first time or a major touring group." and goes on to indicate that subjects which only have such sources should not have a standalone article (though may warrant inclusion in a larger article). What I propose is just making clear that this also applies to sportspeople. Being listed in discogs or musicbrainz or allmusic ("listed", not a full biography) plus having local sources isn't enough for a band: they why should being listed in sports databases plus having local sources be sufficient for sportspeople? Fram (talk) 14:28, 30 March 2021 (UTC) No, there's no need. There seems to be a proclivity to somehow creep-filter a reiteration of basic Wikipedia principles into this kind of thing. RS is sufficient. Besides, if only local sources picked up someone breaking a world record, it would be absurd to discount it. This is just another subjective argument point in the overall process. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 14:36, 30 March 2021 (UTC) That seems contradictory. First you don't believe we should add "non-local", because that's not used anywhere else. When shown that it is already used 5 times on NSPORTS alone, you reiterate that it isn't used in RS. When shown that it is in WP:IS, it suddenly shouldn't be reiterated? You (and plenty of others) have demonstrated that this principle is not well known, so repeating it certainly seems necessary. Abandoning basic principles used for all other topics, just to appease sports biographies, is not adding another subjective argument, it is holding all subjects to at least the same basic standards. As for your example of a world record, any examples of this actually happening? Fram (talk) 14:49, 30 March 2021 (UTC) I think this does have some merit as it seems reasonable that there be at least 1 source other than statistics that can affirm notability. I suppose in theory you could also go a little further and say that 3 line stubs do not meet the notablity criteria. "John Smith is a cricketer born in 1891. He played for the MCC and Middlesex and died in 1943." (or words to that effect) do suggest a lack of notability but if that can be fleshed out more, then you can confirm notability. But I do agree with Fram's proposal because anything else can be dealt with under GNG. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:18, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose as this is really no different to SNGs in practice (at least with footballers/soccer players), but making it so explicit will simply deter editors from creating good content / encourage deletionists to go on an AFD spree. Nobody needs that kind of headache. GiantSnowman 09:28, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose Fram's proposal Per GiantSnowman. For some sports this might work, but as GiantSnowman says it's not much different from what's already there and will likely lead to hoards of extra AfDs. Specific SNGs need improving as has been mentioned above, and the text needs re-writing to be clearer, but the concept doesn't need changing. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 09:47, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Support: This makes reasonable sense to me. And folks, seriously: can we avoid "But what if someone does X????" and "But I participated in an AfD where someone argued DERP ..." arguments? The measure of this proposal isn't going to be whether some whackdoodle can dig out an indepth piece of proper length from a reliable non-local source about sheep shearing, and if we measured the worth of any proposal by whether some idjit is likely to abuse it at AfD, bloody hell, Wikipedia's never going to change another rule. It's whether players have non-routine coverage from other than fawning local sources eager to beat local deadlines. And yes: tightening the rules will lead to more AfDs being filed. So what? Unless you're an AfD regular, that doesn't affect you. And in practice, SNGs have been tightened many a time -- both in NSPORTS and Wikipedia-wide -- and the alleged "hordes" of AfDs have never actually materialized. Ravenswing 09:55, 30 March 2021 (UTC) No we can't and won't. Currently a lot of the various significance criteria are objective, i.e. has played at least one First Class cricket match etc. Suddenly "non routine coverage in non-local news" introduces two purely subjective measures which just totally overload the situation with arguments. It's not a good way to go. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 09:59, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Non-routine coverage is already in NSPORTS as we speak: the proposal doesn't introduce it, it tries to enforce it. E.g. the page currently states, for games, "A game that is widely considered by independent reliable sources to be notable, outside routine coverage of each game, especially if the game received front page coverage outside of the local areas involved ". This doesn't seem to cause any serious problems. The whole of GNG is based on "subjective measures" like "significant coverage". Rejecting this proposal on these grounds seems a bit strange. The current criteria are objective, but insufficient, as many AfDs and discussions have shown. Tightening the objective criteria is opposed by people wanting to keep as many articles as possible, or who argue that e.g. "one" game is clear-cut, but "ten games" is a random choice (and "one full game" for e.g. soccer is also not acceptable, because what about player X who played 20 times as a substitute). The intention is to have guidelines which accurately reflect whether we can write real articles about the subjects, based on reliable indepth sources: not whether we can have rehashed statistics only. For actual articles, you need actual, indepth sources. Yes, there will always be borderline cases, and no solution will magically stop all discussions and AfDs. But the "subjective" criteria have served us well for many non-sports subjects for many years, so there is no reason why they couldn't work for sportspeople. Fram (talk) 10:18, 30 March 2021 (UTC) I think the only way you can stop a flood of AFDs is bring in a grandfather clause (like we have for usernames before the username policy came in). Anything made before the date it comes into force shall have the old rules apply wheras anything after has to fulfill the new requirements. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 10:21, 30 March 2021 (UTC) These articles are already eligible to be deleted at AfD, but they're contentious because there's always a number of voters who say "passes the SNG!" We've had some instances in the past where specific closers are loathe to discount the "passes the SNG!" votes if there's enough of them, even though absolutely no evidence of the article passing GNG exists. In my mind, this doesn't create a new problem. SportingFlyer T·C 10:28, 30 March 2021 (UTC) (ec)Or, as an intermediate solution, present a timeframe for such articles to be improved. The intention is not to AfD 10,000 articles the day after this proposal or something similar gets accepted. But one could e.g. make a special "notability" header, indicating that "this article doesn't meet the minimum requirements as currently written" and give people a year after this banner is applied (with the banner being applied manually and at a reasonable pace, not some bot tagging). If the page doesn't get an acceptable source after a year, it can be redirected to a list in many cases (which means that it can be easily resurrected once someone finds the wanted source), or deleted in the fewer cases where such a redirect is not possible. Simply excluding them completely from the new guideline would create two classes of articles, which seems unfair and confusing. Fram (talk) 10:30, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose per WP:CREEP and WP:NOTLAW. Our policies and guidelines are supposed to represent actual practice rather than being prescriptive laws handed down by self-appointed rulers. The recent FA, Lewis (baseball), demonstrates that such statistical freaks are quite acceptable as content for sports. The proposal is explicitly intended to reverse decades of practice on the project but there's no mandate for such a high-handed and disruptive edict. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:16, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Can you formulate the same perhaps in a civil manner? Or simply in correct sentences? "The proposal [...] has no mandate for such a high-handed and disruptive edict" makes no sense. Do you mean "the proposer" or "this talkpage" or .... ? Of course I don't have such a mandate: if there is some reasoned support for this proposal and after it has been finetuned, it may become an RfC. Actual practice is that many articles technically meet NSPORTS and get deleted or redirected anyway, and that too many editors hide behind NSPORTS to avoid having to engage with the actual arguments in those discussions, i.e. the lack of indepth sourcing. Fram (talk) 11:15, 30 March 2021 (UTC) The irony is that it's the SNGs that are often prescriptive laws handed down by self-appointed rulers. Reyk YO! 11:42, 30 March 2021 (UTC) I can't help but think that if those who were so willing to delete articles were around to help make these decisions while these were the rules we were following, I would respect their opinions more... Bobo. 11:53, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Bobo, would it have really been so much better if I had participated in those discussions when I first made my account in 2007, as a 15-year-old whose sole exposure to cricket was through Hitchhiker's Guide? Why would my opinion then have been so much more "respectable" than it is now? JoelleJay (talk) 20:44, 30 March 2021 (UTC) To be honest that's not really the issue. The issue is that in theory we're all heading towards the same goal but we're doing so with such odd inconsistencies in justification as we can. The response was more to do with "self-appointed rulers". Do we need rulers? Of course not. The trouble is that we no longer tackling the project to the same ends. And that is where the project has fallen apart. Bobo. 21:45, 30 March 2021 (UTC) @Rugbyfan22: Trying to think of the easiest example and the example I'll always use is Gwalior. Played a single Ranji Trophy match in 1943-44, and thus have 11 names in their first-class list to add. These are (number in brackets is number of appearances in first-class cricket minus one if the answer is more than one (ie, they played for more teams than just Gwalior): RD Mathur (0) (deleted via AfD disussion) Balbhadra Singh (1) (deleted via AfD disussion) Roop Singh (0) (still exists although based on same skeleton) Janardan Navle (64) (Test cricketer) DK Yarde (8) (for five different teams, full name not available) SN Kunzru (0) (full name not available) (deleted via AfD disussion) Daya Shankar (0) (still exists although based on same skeleton) Ram Singh (0) (still exists although based on same skeleton) CN Haksar (0) (full name not available) (deleted via AfD disussion) Khanwilkar (possibly Khanwilkar (Gwalior cricketer), depending on how we disambiguate "single-name" names) (0) (full name not available but you could infer this may have been the name he went by anyway) (deleted via AfD disussion) Afzal Ahmed (0) (article redirects to team he didn't play for). Five of these six redlinks were deleted via AfD discussions, and I wrote based on the same "skeleton". To summarize my thoughts, basically, if we're discouraging keeping articles with "zero information", working on "skeletons", and zero sources (even including CA and CI), which have not been "improved" since their creation, as I've said before, we have to start deleting Test cricketers. Let's not be inconsistent. "No first name available" is not a deletion criterion. What exactly are our criteria for randomly sending articles for deletion? In recent times, the answer seems to be "just discovered article exists and I don't like this article"? We're stuck in 1984 and that is not healthy. For nearly 13 years we were absolutely fine getting on with our work and then people randomly start coming along and crowing about how much they dislike the article(s) in question. I think we were doing just fine as we were. If we had just been allowed to get on with our work, and those so willing to delete were willing to co-operate in helping us achieve our tasks, we'd be finished by now. Bobo. 11:51, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Personally I have no indication of what order/criteria Storm is doing his AfDs in. Originally they seem to be have been in alphabetical order with a lot of cricketers starting with A at AfD. It's likely some of those that exist with other appearances and no real other coverage only exists because he or another user hasn't gotten to them. It's a difficult balancing act as I feel that coverage for some of those that have been deleted in the past does exists, and am only trying to come up with some form of solution due to the threat of the cricket SNG being removed entirely altogether. I imagine international cricketers aren't being AfD despite being similar because they are just that, international cricketers and people will have a view, likely based on no policy, that they should be kept for that reason. Also for the final redirect I redirected to Madya Pradesh as Gwailor were absorbed by Madya Pradesh and no Wikipedia page exists for either List of Gwailor cricketers or Gwailor cricket team (which redirects to Madya Pradesh. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 12:02, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Basically, if serial delete-voters had anything to add, they would do so rather than protest such articles exist. Bobo. 12:05, 30 March 2021 (UTC) You're never going to get rids of the types of voters who abide by GNG or the Lambert types who just vote delete, despite having no real interest in cricket whatsoever. A lot of the time those voting/nominating cricketers at AfD have no interest in cricket and are just doing so to follow whatever policy they abide by/worship. I hope you don't feel because I'm suggesting what I feel to be a reasonable change to NCRIC I am one of them. I just don't want to spend 30 minutes of every day for the next months/year voting on AfDs (where quite possibly the could have been BOLDly redirected), and don't want to see those who have created cricket articles (of which I have created at least 30 I'd say) have to continuously see their work scrutinised as not being good enough. If we had an updated NCRIC (which we're miles away from and I won't proceed with my potential change without the support of the majority of cricket article creators) we can at least get to work filling out those that are missing from presumed notable groups, and creating list articles for those that are no longer considered notable if they don't pass GNG. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 12:27, 30 March 2021 (UTC) And by using the words "not good enough", you've hit the nail on the head. There can be no definition of "not good enough". (Please understand that again that's not a personal attack, just a direct quotation). The articles that are "not good enough" include all the one-sentence Test cricketer articles. Bobo. 12:40, 30 March 2021 (UTC) "You're never going to get rids of the types of voters who abide by GNG" - and why would you want to get rid of these policy-abiding voters? The solution to avoiding AfDs and the gratuitous generalisations you are making is to make articles which actually have some proper content. The best counter-argument to "not-notable" and "no significant coverage" is to expand the article - if there's nothing to base that on, well then yes the article needs deletion. If NCRIC and other SNGs are not helping in filtering that, I fail to see why we would not want to get rid of them. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:57, 30 March 2021 (UTC) That's because GNG only exists for the sake of selective exclusionism. If what we need to do is to prove CI and CA are "independent of the subject" and "independent of each other", then fair enough, there are people who can do so better than me. If we need to inflate an article to include pages and pages of nonsense, then I'm sure we can do that too. Bobo. 13:05, 30 March 2021 (UTC) GNG is not there for the sake of exclusionism. It's there to ensure we have articles that can be based on existing significant sources and are not just needless promotion (as happens with other subjects) or subjects which are of no interest to readers (if the only thing we can say about someone is "they played x sports matches", we're not really being helpful to our readers...); but actually contain something significant which is not just sourced to routine coverage. CI and CA are independent of the subject; but it does not change that for non-modern cricketers, they're very often just non-significant statistics. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:09, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Yeah that wasn't brilliantly worded, what I meant was those that use GNG as gospel and completely ignore any SNG whether it be a sports SNG or otherwise. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 14:49, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Support in spirit if not in exact wording. The question is always whether we can find sufficient sources to make a proper article. This is non-routine (well, at least, considering most cricketers are not captains... - even if it is mostly an interview); this is routine. So the only difficulty is defining what is "routine" and what is not. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:43, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose But could potentially support if "non-local" were removed. There is no reason local sources can't be used if they are reliable and independent Smartyllama (talk) 12:50, 30 March 2021 (UTC) I'm open to that suggestion. The problem I see is that local sources in general should probably be disallowed for notability purposes (like it is done for politicians), as local newspaper print the tiniest bits of "news" if they have interest in the village or small region, e.g. printing all births, marriages and deaths, all local kid sports events, the opening of a new bakery in town, and so on and so on. But perhaps that part should be discussed on a more general level, not specific for sports (although sportsis one of the main "local" fillers of such newspapers). Fram (talk) 13:24, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Indeed. Many cricket (and golf, and no doubt other sports) reports in local media are largely written by the clubs in question (I know, I used to write some of them) making independence and neutrality an issue; they then get woven together and printed without attribution so there is no way of making a determination. wjematherplease leave a message... 13:50, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose largely per Smartyllama. Cbl62 (talk) 13:39, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose per Snowman, Rubgyfan, Andrew D, et al. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 16:44, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Support. Why should article creation criteria for sports figures be so much more privileged than those for figures in other disciplines? Especially if they have the same criteria for deletion? The requirements of "non-routine" and "non-local" would already exist at AfD and are standard for creating biographies in many other professions. The proposal is still more lenient than GNG, even though ultimately that is the necessary guideline an article must meet to be protected from deletion. So what on earth would this change other than reducing the number of sports AfD timesinks?? JoelleJay (talk) 20:28, 30 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose Look my biggest problem with this is the non-local part as most of the earlier year players might not have the sources outside of the area where they played especially if they had played 15-20 first classes matches in that period and now you are saying that this need to be factored in, it's going to be a struggle to satisfy this agreement. Maybe the removal of "non-local" might help but I am not really sure this is the right path. HawkAussie (talk) 05:51, 31 March 2021 (UTC) Oppose. My biggest probelm is also with the non-local part. That's very selective. Coverage at the end of the day is coverage, local, national, or international. it's not for us to move the goalposts. StickyWicket (talk) 08:31, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Stubs

It seems the more generic issue is Wikipedia:Stub not being more stringent on discouraging stubs that are only sourced to a name in a listing or a database entry. This is not unique to sports, and can be seen with actors, politicians, etc. If WP:STUB were clearer, there would be stronger basis to move articles to WP:DRAFT namespace and apply WP:TBANs to serial creators of subpar stubs. Without such guidance, it's misguided to lay the blame on SNGs.—Bagumba (talk) 11:02, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

We were creating "sub-par stubs", as I'm sure you call them (that's not an attack, sorry if it sounds like it), for years before any serial delete-voters were around. My issue is not with "sub-par stub creators", but with those who have nothing to add to them and yet protest that they exist. Wikipedia is not paper. We don't run out of paper. I can't even remember the last time I created an article. Bobo. 12:00, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

While it is not paper, Wikipedia should be well organized and easy to use, and lots of tiny articles which contain no useful text is not the best way to organize information. --Jayron32 12:20, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

"Well-organized"? That's why player-by-player team lists should exist alongside the articles themselves. This would make it well-organized. As for "useful text", frankly any text other than facts is unnecessary. Bobo. 12:22, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure I ever advocated for fan fiction about the players in question??? Who is arguing that we fill articles with made-up things? Why would you feel the need to say that "text other than facts" was something being advocated for? I certainly never said such a thing. --Jayron32 12:25, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Not you, don't worry. Bobo. 12:26, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

It was a good thing when Wikipedia was starting and had an urgent need to encourage content creation. The question is whether it is still applicable now?—Bagumba (talk) 12:23, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

There is still a lot of scope in article creation. And I don't believe anyone standing in the way of that is helping the project progress. Bobo. 12:26, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

The goal is to encourage content creation, yet better filter potentially non-notable subjects. Is that "standing in the way"?—Bagumba (talk) 12:33, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, because there is no universally-applicable definition of "potentially non-notable" (I hope you don't mind me quoting you directly), and there is so little done in terms of article creation currently taking place, that you wonder whether that's what they're here for. Bobo. 12:37, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

there is no universally-applicable definition of 'potentially non-notable' : We discuss in hopes of gaining consensus on one. If this is truly a known dead end due to precedent, we should document the findings in hopes of avoiding jumping into the same rabbit hole again. —Bagumba (talk) 00:34, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Being "potentially" non-notable is adding a weasel word which goes completely against the project's principles. Bobo. 08:09, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Bobo192: To be clear, are you saying that the status quo is fine, and there is no potential for improvement? —Bagumba (talk) 11:16, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I am of the belief that Wikipedia should be infinitely inclusive based on subject-specific guidelines. Otherwise, why are we here? That's why there should be no need for "potential" non-notability. Bobo. 11:19, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

So some subjects are inherently notable, independent of GNG, right? And that's reflected in SNGs? —Bagumba (talk) 11:24, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

GNG only exists for the sake of selective censorship. N states that articles can exist based on GNG or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline. Bobo. 11:26, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I believe I understand your perspective now. —Bagumba (talk) 11:40, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Forgive me though, that's not where my argument was supposed to go. My argument was about fostering article creation. Which isn't happening, at least in the cricket project. Bobo. 11:56, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

The difficulty is that a lot of these stubs are created because they "meet N-whatever", with no second thought afterwards. What the notability guidelines should really be is something that helps filter out these articles which are unlikely to be sourced to anything but such database listings - and per WP:NOTDATABASE, Wikipedia is not such a thing: we need to have enough sources to write more than just basic biographical and statistical details. If the existing guidelines are not doing that, we either need to tighten the SNGs, or if that is too difficult, we need to get rid of the problematic ones with "sorry, you couldn't agree on something useful, so go back to GNG". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 12:51, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I wonder how many Test cricketers we would be deleting if we did that...As for "something useful", we've had that for almost all the time I've been here. We've had a simple notability guideline (which we all agreed to even if it were not written down) which people followed because we were allowed to keep achieving the project's goals. To be honest, back then there were so few cricket articles on the site that we were not in danger of creating less "notable" articles! Bobo. 13:08, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

So what? If the only thing we can say is "X played Y test matches", we're not really being helpful to our readers. WP:NOTDATABASE. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:12, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Then we get rid of those as well? Ay caramba.... This is where (not a personal comment) this is becoming ridiculous... Bobo. 13:13, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I think you're missing the point entirely, the information that they played in the test matches is not being removed from Wikipedia. Their names are not being erased from every mention in the encyclopedia. Nothing is being lost. What we are all saying is that the reader is not well served by having that information (and nothing else) in hundreds of tiny, separate articles. For such information, it is better to have it in places like list articles and the like. We're not arguing for some sort of damnatio memoriae where we erase any mention of the subjects in question. Just that creating separate articles for them is not the best way to handle it. --Jayron32 13:59, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Now you can see why those of us who have been around for the best part of a decade and a half can't take these conversations seriously... Bobo. 13:19, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Either, A) yes, we accept that some test cricketers; especially from the pre-professional era; are not notable. Or B) the articles are expanded to demonstrate there is actually some coverage beyond routine statistics. We're not here to catalogue people's achievements. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:21, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

All Test cricketers are notable, from 1877 to present, that is a position that WP:CRIC will not budge from. Given they played at the highest level of cricket, even one-Test wonders will have lots sources on them - Test cricketers who are deceased will have lengthy obituaries in Wisden, irrespective of country. StickyWicket (talk) 14:02, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

If that is true, then it is trivial to find the sources and the SNG that says "all test cricketers are notable" is not needed; it's superfluous because if the sources exist, then the subject passes WP:GNG with flying colors, and we don't need extra criteria to make them notable. --Jayron32 14:09, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

No we don't anyway, they played international cricket at the highest level of the sport, they are automatically notable in their own right. StickyWicket (talk) 14:17, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Ehh, no, that is not how WP works. There's no such thing as being automatically notable. As I said, we're not there to catalogue people's achievement. If they only thing we can say is they played Test cricket x times, we're better off having a redirect until someone bothers to do the hard work of finding proper and significant sources to flesh out the article. A poor article is worse than a redirect to a list, both for readers (information consolidated in one space) and for editors (anti-vandalism, fewer things to keep an eye one, etc). There are about 450 single match test cricketers ([6] - about 200 of them are before the 1950s: considering the amateur nature of the sport up to and a few decades beyond that point, it's not certain they'd all be automatically notable and have received coverage equivalent to their contemporary peers - it might, again, be more convenient for everyone to have a list and not individual articles). Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:41, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Then sadly this project has moved past a point where it is worth anything. How sad this has become. I'm going to go over here [points] and be sad for a while. Bobo. 13:23, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I'll reiterate what I stated somewhere above: There is an issue with some individual sports, and it's unfortunate those editors have not policed themselves, but that doesn't justify grouping all sports by association. —Bagumba (talk) 00:16, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

We'd been doing perfectly fine until recently and that's what makes me so sad. The way we were editing fostered article creation. I know there's a crusade against facts in today's culture, but really, this shouldn't be happening. Bobo. 08:22, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with stub articles existing. Lots of articles start as stubs and grow. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 00:23, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

It's contradictory to 1) say we are happy with the status quo on stubs and 2) decry the existence of permanent stubs. —Bagumba (talk) 00:38, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

The problem is the fact that you have people who just create stubs because they can and don't expand on them. For example the way when I create articles (that is rare now for me) is try to get at least get it past the 1500 bytes part with references so it can not be deemed a stub. HawkAussie (talk) 05:57, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

We're entering into the "stubs are harmful" argument. But "stubs" is just a label that we've decided to apply at random. There is no universal definition of "stub". The articles being deleted right now are short articles which contain all the facts without paragraphs and paragraphs of needless trivia or waffle. Having to read past paragraphs of waffle is tiring. Bobo. 08:22, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

What we call stubs are normal entries in many traditional reference works. Brief entries are best as they can be organised efficiently, are easy to look up and present the key details in a succinct, easily-read fashion. This format was suitable for paper-based works and is now suitable for modern devices such as smart phones and smart speakers. It's the long rambling articles which are more problematic as they make readers wade through huge amounts of irrelevant prose to find the fact that they want. It's like the infobox wars. Most readers and writers accept infoboxes as sensible capsule summaries. The opposition to these seems to be mainly a matter of form over function. We should prefer functional entries as an encyclopedia is intended to be used as a tool, not admired as an artwork. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:32, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

There was a time and a place that I could almost guaranteee that if an article had a sentence's worth of text, and an infobox, such as those articles created by 02blythed, the presence of an infobox would almost make people forget stubs existed. The fact that nobody thought to expand on them and would rather delete them instead says more about them than it does 02blythed. To be frank, that's not much different to what we have today with many Test cricketers. Many of these Test cricketer articles are no better than "cookie-cutter" articles and still don't come under criticism. Bobo. 10:46, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree. I have a "build it and they will edit" view when it comes to stubs - if you create them, other editors will expand them. GiantSnowman 10:55, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Maybe the wish to delete is simply the admittance of having nothing of worth to add. That says more about deletionists and/or exclusionists (ie those who refuse to create in the first place) than it does about creationists/inclusionists. Bobo. 10:59, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Maybe the wish to delete is the acknowledgment of finding no further information that can be added. That might say more about the information available for creation of the article on the subject than deletionists/creationists. I don't see editors on either "side" attempting to expand any of the sub-stubs. Yosemiter (talk) 16:00, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Fram's revised proposal

The actual text needs working, obviously, but the proposal is to add one element to the "mathematical", "statistical" requirements all sports have (one match, has participated, one win, ...): a player is presumed notable if they meet that statistical requirement and has substantial coverage in at least one non-routine source. All the other rules stay the same, but no longer will be stats-only creations be acceptable. Note that this is still a lesser requirement than the multiple sources asked for by the GNG: these would be needed when challenged, but for creation, you would only need one substantial source. Thoughts? Fram (talk) 08:35, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

• Support- we definitely require more than statistical database entries. Some prose and actual biographical information in non-routine sources is necessary. Otherwise, the info should be presented in list format. Reyk _YO! 08:46, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - This still doesn't tackle the concept of Test cricket permastubs which are somehow sneaking under the radar having had zero sources (even to statistics websites) since they were created. If those who were so keen to delete, were as keen to work on these, we might get somewhere. Bobo. 08:51, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

• Reply: Quite aside from that we don't judge sweeping changes to NSPORTS through the sole and exclusive lens of "OMG NCRIC!!!" -- and you'll forgive those who are not knowledgeable about cricket (i.e., most of us) from stomping all over a topic area in which we're unfamiliar -- what about "has substantial coverage in at least one non-routine source" won't tackle those sub-stubs? Ravenswing 22:49, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support in principal. The wording should be consistent with GNG, i.e. "significant coverage in at least one non-routine reliable source that is independent of the subject", and "non-routine" needs to be defined clearly. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 09:15, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose It is apparent that it's the sporting records or statistics that most interests sports enthusiasts. Other biographical details are nice to have but not essential. The recent FA of Lewis (baseball) demonstrably proves that this is acceptable content. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:44, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
  • But people have written at some length about him, even if it is to say that despite his negative records, people haven't been able to find out more about him. He has been the focus of specific attention, not just an entry in a database. Fram (talk) 11:42, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

    Yes, it's pretty misleading to equate this article with the contentless cricketer bios under discussion. The point isn't that this unfortunate pitcher only played part of a game. It's that he played so conspicuously and record-breakingly poorly that multiple sources remarked on it specifically. There's a lot of discussion about how his first name was lost to the mists of time as well. A better comparison would be a fill-in player who got carted around the park at 25 runs an over with multiple sporting publications discussing it, not the single-appearance fill-ins who were so uninterestingly mediocre that they weren't remarked on at all except as statistical entries. Of course, if the cricket Wikiproject ran baseball as well all we'd have on Eddie Gaedel is a statistic on his single plate appearance with all the biographical information omitted as "bumf". Reyk _YO! 12:41, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

The cricketer articles "under discussion" (euphemism central we are) are mostly started and/or contributed to by project members who have no interest in article creation. You would think they'd have something to offer the project in return. Awkward pause. straightens tie. Bobo. 12:50, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

As the author of Lewis (baseball), I can tell you @Andrew Davidson:'s take isn't so far off. Lewis would be considered for deletion; he's been covered in one full-length biography, has been written about in a paragraph by Macht, and has been written about in a sentence off-hand by a Baseball Digest writer. Outside of that, he's not been written about that much. Therapyisgood (talk) 23:00, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per Andrew, and the fact that what might be "substantial" to me might not be "substantial" to you. This will also have zero effect on articles being created. All that will happen is a young player will make their sporting debut, a stub will be created, and then someone will PROD or AFD prior to there being any in-depth coverage (either located or available), then there will be a lot of bickering at AFD for nothing. What's the point? GiantSnowman 10:50, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  There are barely any cricket articles being created right now other than those by AA and Lugnuts. If others had anything to offer they would do so. Bobo. 11:09, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  Bobo, this is not just about cricket, it is about all sports. Fram (talk) 11:11, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  Fixed. Fair enough. Bobo. 11:14, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  "There are barely any cricket articles being created right now other than those by AA and Lugnuts"- there's also quite a lot of English women's cricketers being created too, although almost all of them are C/start class. Joseph2302 (talk) 11:28, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  All new articles for female cricketers for English domestic teams over the last 30 days have been created by a single user. Bobo. 11:41, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  • Would it be better if I use "significant" instead of "substantial"? Because that's used throughout all notability guidelines. And it will have effect on articles being created: with this rule, we can a) redirect such articles to lists while pointing at the guideline which supports this, and b) educate editors on how to go about creating such articles in the future. If push comes to shove, it would even allow us to restrict the most recalcitrant editors from creating any further pages, but let's hope that never necessary. Basically, it removes a layer of wikilawyering from people arguing to keep separate articles without any readily available significant coverage because it meets some statistical standard. "prior to there being any in-depth coverage (either located or available)": if no in-depth coverage is available, then the presumption that arbitrary rule X indicates that someone will have such coverage is clearly incorrect, and the article should not have been created yet. Having a clearer statement in the guideline to point to when making this observation may convince more editors that it should indeed be a name in a list for now, until better coverage exists or can be found. But feel free to post a better proposal to achieve this result. Fram (talk) 11:11, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose definition of a substantial source is not well defined, and leaves this even more open to interpretation. Joseph2302 (talk) 11:28, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
  • A source which has significant coverage, as defined in the GNG. These oppositions start to feel like wikilawyering more than anything else, rejecting standards which have been used for all other articles for years because they are ill-defined, subjective, ... Fram (talk) 11:39, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose WP:NSPORS is a guideline, everybodey should meet GNG, stating that people must have coverage in multiple sources. Stating that 1 source is enough, feels like overruling GNG. WP:NSPORTS must indicate, from a sports-perspective, the people that are highly likely to meet WP:GNG, and so people want an article of that person because what is important: WP:Readers first (including stating This encourages readers to stay, to follow links to more information, maybe even to contribute to Wikipedia themselves.). If a high percantage of people of a certain rule is proven not to meet GNG, the rule should be deleted. SportsOlympic (talk) 11:49, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support, if this is not met, then it sounds unlikely GNG are met. Especially for living people, having a non-statistics source is essential for responsible encyclopedia writing. —Kusma (t·c) 13:12, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support also per Fram. I don't get how all the oppose votes (they're not !votes) are objecting to this. If you have a notable subject which meets GNG, then you don't have to worry about this. What this will do, like all the previous proposals, is to correctly discourage people creating perma-stubs which are not and cannot be sourced to anything but statistical databases; and also remove the wikilawyering from AfDs when this kind of thing is noticed. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:35, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support, per Fram and others. A small step in the right direction. Group/list articles should also be encouraged. Johnbod (talk) 13:48, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support as this also overcomes a minimum that would be expected to be there to avoid speedy deletion (specifically WP:CSD#A7 related to no sign of importance). Every other NSPORT criteria generally is around a factor of importance; this one general one is a claim that is about presumed importance just because they have documented playing a game. Added the requirement for at least one additional source, non-stat base, that shows importance, significantly helps to improve this. I know that this should not be an issue in the long-run, as the claim is that if a person has played a professional game, then more than 99% of the time, there are more sources for that person, but this would avoid mass creation or encouraging stubs without any work to at least expand them. --Masem (t) 13:57, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Weak oppose This isn't wrong, but is redundant with the existing language concerning GNG and just creates additional potential for misinterpretation. Per WP:NOTBURO, this is completely unnecessary as existing guidelines accomplish the same thing. Smartyllama (talk) 14:09, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support This is one possible way to fix the current under-sourced stub problem. I strongly disagree with the assertion that this is unnecessary, since it clearly fixes a problem. SportingFlyer T·C 14:15, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  How does it fix the problem? Right now the process is 1) someone creates a stub article about an athlete who passes NSPORTS but may or may not pass GNG, 2) someone nominates the article for deletion, 3) people at the AfD analyze sources both within the article and elsewhere to determine notability, and 4) a consensus is reached (or it is closed as no consensus.) How would the process be any different under this proposal? Are these articles magically not going to get created? Guidelines and policy aren't magic. Smartyllama (talk) 14:21, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  That process for a single article is not the problem; it is the fact that current criteria encourages the mass creation of articles based on stat tables (as evidence that a person played a game). And dealing with large number of articles via the AFD route is a waste of everyone's time (not only those of the sports Wikiprojects but also at AFD, etc.). It is better to set a slightly higher bar that would 1) reduce/discourage mass creation and 2) even for one-offs, reduce the likelihood they would be rushed off to AFD. --Masem (t) 14:26, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  What's interesting is that I usually run into the opposite problem. 1) someone creates a stub article about an athlete who does NOT pass NSPORTS or Project Guidelines 2) it gets nominated for speedy deletion but the article creator feels it meets GNG rather than NSPORTS and wants a full AFD hearing. 3) people at the AfD analyze sources both within the article and elsewhere to determine notability, and 4) a consensus is reached as very weakly passing GNG even though it fails NSPORTS. That's what I see more often. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:24, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  The common thing is that whether created because the stub's creator thinks they meet NSPORT or GNG, the process of AFD typically finds more sources to validating keeping the article via either route. This is fine and the right way the process should work, but the issue is that AFD is a very low-bandwidth (few editors) process, and the mass creation of stubs that potentially will see AFD is a net negative, as that's a potential plugging of the process. So the proposed language simply puts a small limiter on the rate of article creation that also reduces the likelihood AFD may be required, avoiding flooding AFD with nominations that otherwise likely will end in a keep but will take editors' time and energy to figure out. That onus should be on those creating the stubs to make sure they don't overtax AFD, and by asking for one more source, that helps. --Masem (t) 19:12, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

• I think this is fairly reasonable; importantly, it acknowledges that passing an SNG is an alternative to passing GNG. It also discourages mass creation of permastubs. Stifle (talk) 15:54, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

• WP:NSPORT still clearly requires GNG to be met. This is just to discourage permastubs sourced only to statistical databases. SportingFlyer T·C 15:59, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

• Except that it doesn't do that, if anything it would actually give credibility to the argument that an SNG was an alternative to or over ruled GNG. The whole point of an SNG is to be a guide as to when sources likely exist when they are not readily available, saying you then need a source just to meet the SNG defeats its entire purpose. -DJSasso (talk) 16:05, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Kind of feels like its defeating the purpose of an SNG which is that it is a guide for when sources likely exist to meet GNG. To prevent things like systemic bias against pre-internet era biographies. Now we are requiring a reference on the SNG as well? If anything that actually lowers the bar in that it gives weight to the idea that the SNG overrules GNG when it does not (or as the comment above mine mentions an alternative to GNG). -DJSasso (talk) 16:02, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose For me this take away the whole point in having sports SNGs, which are there to show that coverage does likely exist. As Djsasso says it will likely bias against non-recent sportspeople and sportspeople who compete in non-English language countries or countries where newspapers haven't been archived. What we're doing here is basically creating a GNG-light, and I'm not sure that's really needed or necessary. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 16:13, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  "bias againt non-recent people" - that is probably a legitimate reason why there would not be articles, as non-recent people might not have the same kind of coverage as more modern examples (and information gets lost with time - not our job to right that). Again, the real problem is that if there are no sources about something, we shouldn't just create articles in the hope that some obscure one will be found. People creating articles should do the hard work before creating it and expecting it to be "somebody else's problem". Yes, I know, it's more time consuming to do proper research, but then again (to take other non-sports articles I have worked on: this or this are for more helpful to readers than stuff like this). And WP:Readers first - the point of SNGs shouldn't be them being used as arguments against deleting or redirecting a poor article; and yet that is what they are too often used for in practice. Instead of shying away and saying "well that's not the real problem" (as much as it might not be), we're better off accepting that that is part of the problem, and at least it's one part that can be fixed more easily than the others. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:30, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  Except recent bias is a form of POV editing, one of the worst kinds because people often don't realize they are doing it. It is in fact our job to make sure we don't have a recent bias. It is not a case of right great wrongs, it is a core tenet of what we do here. Yes, people creating article should do as much as they can when creating an article, but for many 1800s sports figures for example that requires going to a specific city and digging into physical newspaper archives. Remember notability is not temporary. So just not having articles because we don't have editors who are able to go to some town in another country to dig through the archives does not mean we shouldn't have the article per WP:BEFORE. The real problem here, as it always is, is some people think perma-stubs are an issue, they aren't. The general motivation it seems behind this perennial debate almost always comes down to people who aren't interested in sports articles saying I don't like them. -DJSasso (talk) 16:43, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

My view still remains that it's the SNGs that need fixing, not the full guidelines themselves. Sure some of the text around the guidelines themselves could do with tidying up to be made clearer, however I feel creating GNG-light for sportspeople isn't the option. SNGs are there to show that sourcing likely exists for a topic. For more historic sportspeople sourcing still can likely exist. Take our favourite current topic of cricket. A test cricketer for England in 1900 will still likely have been covered significantly to some degree in books and newspapers at the time in the same day a test cricketer for England today would do. Just because that information isn't online doesn't mean that the topic isn't notable. Obviously lots of the stubs that are created could be better and would be better with a source of something other than a statistical database, but what you seem to be saying is that the problem is people aren't making good enough articles. Take Hannah Jones (Surrey cricketer) as a random example. This is a large well written article, but of all 13 sources I don't think a single one of them passes GNG and only scraped pass what is deemed a weak cricket SNG (8 matches, less than what's being discussed as a potential cut off of 10). I have no plans to take this article to AfD and don't think it should (and sources may exists), but basically this article in 7000 bites of unneeded waffle on a non-notable person if sources don't exist (no offence to the article creator, I'm just using it as an example here and I could have used other examples). Rugbyfan22 (talk) 16:55, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

• Weak oppose I like the concept, but "non-routine" doesn't feel like the right word. I'm considering "one non-statistical source"; sure it may allow articles where the only coverage is WP:MILL day-of match coverage, but there normally won't be "substantial" coverage of obscure players in a box score / match write-up. (the statistical tables or their writing in prose should not be enough) User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:36, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Support this only for BLPs. For pre-internet era people, it is hard to find sources online especially in non-English countries and their representation is low on Wikipedia. Störm (talk) 01:19, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support. This would strongly increase the likelihood that a given sports figure will pass GNG. If someone wants to create an article on some prehistoric sportsperson whose coverage, if it exists, is somewhere offline they can't access, they can post the name to the appropriate wikiproject in the hope that someone there does have access -- just like editors in almost every other topic have to do. Are bios of notable athletes so much more urgent to create than those of notable 18th-century sculptors (or whatever)? Of course not. The only difference is that athletes have stats databases from which editors can presume notability, pad their creation stats, and then pass along the burden of both determining if the subject is even notable, and actually writing an informative article, to hypothetical future editors. JoelleJay (talk) 03:51, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. As with the GNG, this would come down to whether significant coverage has been found, and many sources, particularly older ones or those in languages other than English, can be difficult to find. Verifiable real-world significance is a better measure, which is what SNGs should provide. --Michig (talk) 07:17, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Playing one single game or whatever mere participatory bar you set is NOT real-world significance. Reywas92^Talk 17:01, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
    • I didn't say it was. That's a matter for the detail of the SNG. --Michig (talk) 17:22, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Michig, I don't really understand this argument. The articles will still have to satisfy GNG if they're taken to AfD, and the expectation is that they will be expanded with SIGCOV eventually anyway. If they don't, then they aren't considered notable for WP, and those who want to keep will still have to present a strong case for BIAS. What's the problem with shifting that discussion to before the stub is created rather than some indeterminate time in the future? JoelleJay (talk) 17:00, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

The subjects of articles will likely need to satisfy WP:N, not necessarily GNG. --Michig (talk) 17:22, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

@JoelleJay: I don't see a problem with having participatory thresholds. The real problem is that some of the "one game" thresholds are not good predictors of notability. The real solution IMO is to adjust the thresholds to ensure that they are properly calibrated. Hopefully, the prospect of this discussion will be an impetus to the subprojects tightening their standards. Cbl62 (talk) 22:48, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

• Weak Support I do like this proposal as at the end of the day, the basis is on the WP:GNG aspect and not the SNG issue. It's a step towards something better instead of just a plan result. The main issue will go back to articles without this easy access either via availability and the possibility of Anglo bias to come into play. HawkAussie (talk) 12:28, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. I appreciate Fram's efforts to find a solution but, after cogitating on the consequences, I oppose this proposal on the following grounds:

1) This proposal throws out the baby with the bathwater. Many sports SNGs are tightly and appropriately calibrated to GNG, e.g., WP:NBASEBALL, WP:NHOOPS, WP:NGRIDIRON, and others. In those contexts, we have a high degree of confidence that the material can be expanded, and stubs sourced to reliable statistical databases are legitimate and valuable steps in an article's incremental development. The real problem is with mass churning of sub-stubs based on seriously flawed SNGs (e.g., WP:NCRIC) that have clearly been shown not to be accurate predictors of GNG. The solution should be focused on the problem.

2) There are likely hundreds of thousands of existing sports biographies that are sourced only to statistical databases. If this proposal is adopted, and applied retroactively to existing stubs, it would invite a literal flood of AfDs reminiscent of Exodus 10:3–6. (This concern could be ameliorated if the proposal were to be amended to state that it applies only to new article creation.)

3) The proposal represents a major shift in our decades-long approach to sports biographies. Before we adopt such a dramatic shift, a neutrally-worded notice should be posted to each of the relevant sports projects inviting their input.

4) "Substantial" coverage is a vague concept. If this proposal is to move forward, the wording should be changed to our established concept of WP:SIGCOV.

5) "Routine source" is a new and undefined term. The existing concept at WP:ROUTINE refers to "routine coverage" of events, not to "routine sources". Sources are instead governed by our WP:RELIABLE and WP:INDEPENDENT requirements.Cbl62 (talk) 13:11, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Agree with all of this. We should be finding the SNGs that aren't good predictors of notability and notifying the specific WikiProjects of those SNGs to allow them to come up with solutions to better align them with GNG. The Cricket project is currently going through a discussion like this which would better align it with GNG. The proposal is like chopping off a leg because of a broken toe. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 14:15, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

There are several NSPORTS that explicitly are based on a measure of importance and thus likely to be notable, eg those that involve the athlete being inducted into a Hall of Fame or equivalent. Most of the rest are the issue, in that playing in a sport at a certain level is presumed to lead to more sourcing that demonstrates notability/GNG. When articles created on that basis have been challenged at AFD in the past, nearly all the time, that sourcing was revealed and the article kept. So these criteria are reasonable indicators of notability at the end of the day, so these are technically not bad criteria. But they are presented in a manner that notability doesn't have to be shown upfront, and thus allows routes to rapidly create articles off statistics tables or the like. Adding just a bit of effort to show that there's at least some additional sourcing beyond stat tables is pushing some of the work that would have happened at AFD to article creation. I would ultimately agree that it is better if NSPORT's criteria were based on stablished merit (Hall of Fame recognition) or otherwise already meeting the GNG, but I can't see the project stripping all those out without major major problems on past and future articles. --Masem (t) 18:41, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

You have to remember it's only really American sports that have proper Hall of Fames. Judging merit in other sports is much more difficult as different people will have differing opinions on what merit is or should be. I also feel that the proposed criteria has a bias towards current/recent players and Anglocentric players as I have mentioned above. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 19:22, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Merit-based criteria for all SNGs is very much one that favors America and/or Western English-speaking regions, but keeping in mind that the ultimate goal is to make sure that we are driving towards full articles on these people (athletes or not) that incorporate secondary sources at some point, there still will be work on articles created from merit-based criteria to expand out from just that one recognizition. Its just that at the start of creation of such an article, that merit shows importance from the start. That nonAmerican or European regions in sports lack clear ways to show merit is a systematic bias beyond WP's control, but we ignore that becuase we're not requiring "merit" to be the only way to show a topic to be notable.

While we can say, from past experience that showing an athlete has played professionally via a statistic table will nearly always lead to more sourcing given the time and effort to do that, we don't want editors to simply feel they can create stubs based only on that statistic; there has to be more at some point, and due to the recent issue of mass creation, we just want a bit more effort to show some additional sources - doesn't have to meet the GNG at this point but that it does exist - to help. Think of the use of a statistic source to support the SNG criteria as training wheels - it is enough to help support the start of the article but at some point those are going to be removed (we're going to look beyond the statistics to just notability). We want editors to think about getting past those training wheels from the start. --Masem (t) 20:01, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

What you're suggesting seems to be more what SportingFlyer suggested below. I was more willing to support SportingFlyer's proposal minus the part on banning users. Frams proposal is basically just GNG but a bit softer. It can be difficult to find significant sourcing on more historic sportsmen and women and sportsmen and women in non English speaking countries and alphabetical styles different from English. Sources likely exist for them if they pass SNG (yes some of them are lax and need tightening) but it may require time consuming research or subscriptions not accessible to all creators. SportingFlyer's proposal at least gave the option of a match report or short bio from a team a sportsperson plays for as a non-statistical source which then overtime could be added to by others who have access to other sources or sources in their languages. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 20:09, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Cbl62, I don't think @Fram: is proposing to do away with BEFORE, therefore this wouldn't lead to a sudden spate of AfDs at all. It would just take a fraction more work to create an article -- and if other SPORTS guidelines are good at predicting GNG it should be no problem to find one non-stats ref for them. The only issue I see here is in the cases of athletes from places and times that aren't well-covered, but basically every other wikiproject already deals with this by acknowledging BIAS and coordinating access to rare offline resources, so there's zero indication sports projects would be disproportionately affected. Perhaps these projects should instead shift away from the expectation that all athlete bios will be started as KITTENS (are they? do the majority of creators actually make 90-second single-source stubs and abandon them?), or that stub propagation is the only way to build an encyclopedia. JoelleJay (talk) 17:48, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with much of what you said, particularly the need to acknowledge geographic and temporal bias and that a heightened BEFORE standard applies when these factors are implicated. Cbl62 (talk) 18:18, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support This is already a requirement, and it needs to be actually freaking enforced. WP:SPORTCRIT says "Trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may be used to support content in an article, but it is not sufficient to establish notability. This includes listings in database sources with low, wide-sweeping generic standards of inclusion, such as Sports Reference's college football and basketball databases." and the section above it says "In addition, the subjects of standalone articles should meet the General Notability Guideline." Sure, get rid of the word "routine", but it's clear many people are just stonewalling anything because they love their perma-substubs. This is no "dramatic shift", it's applying the same rules that apply to everyone else rather than giving no-coverage athletes a pass. Reywas92^Talk 17:01, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

WP:N states that a topic is presumed notable "It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG)". This proposal basically removes the second part of that statement, which whether you like it or not is a dramatic shift. Sportspeople articles are often created because the pass a sport related SNG and have been created in this way for many years. Also if what your saying in this proposal is already a requirement, why do we need to add this proposal if all that's in the proposal is in the guidelines already. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 17:48, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Reywas92 -- regarding "It's clear many people are just stonewalling anything because they love their perma-substubs." That's simply not true and does not assume good faith. I am not a lover of sub-stubs. To the contrary, I'm the one who initiated the original discussion of the cricket guideline. There IS a problem with the cricket guideline that needs to be fixed, and I went so far as supporting Fram's (I think it was Fram) earlier proposal to suspend the cricket guideline altogether until a more calibrated guideline is crafted and adopted. I still think that's the best solution. An SNG that allows for mass creation of sub-stubs for non-notable persons (and which can never be improved) is a problem that needs to be fixed. Cbl62 (talk) 18:18, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

• Note: I added a neutrally worded notice of this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#Proposed change in sports notability policy. I suggest this notice (or something similar) be posted at the other impacted wikiprojects. Thoughts? Cbl62 (talk) 18:34, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support: "This is already a requirement, and it needs to be actually freaking enforced." That sums up my POV admirably. Ravenswing 22:45, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. Best sorted at individual projects, rather than by people who have no interest in the topic they're trying to establish policy for, and once done will never return to [insert project]. StickyWicket (talk) 13:58, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

  That would be great, if the individual projects could get their stuff together and actually fix the problematic SNGs. So far, the only place where that happened was a well advertised RfC at WP:MILHIST (where the decision was just to get rid of it entirely). If there's no other fix forthcoming, then a more robust solution that will both more forcefully enforce the existing guidelines AND hopefully put into motion the remaining reluctants seems entirely called for. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:39, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

The cricket project is actively discussing proposals at the moment. The Olympic SNG has been another one discussed as a problem, and there have been others mentioned. I'm sure others in this discussion will be able to need more that need work, and then could perhaps start discussions with the relevant projects about improving their SNGs if there is a consensus over a particular SNG being weak. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 19:00, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

@Rugbyfan22: Where is that discussion taking place? Is the project close to reaching consensus? Submission of a new guideline calibrated to GNG will go a long way toward resolving the concerns leading to this discussion. Cbl62 (talk) 02:03, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Cbl62 The RfC is here, it proposes changes to both WP:NCRIC (this guideline) and CRIN (related project-level essay). –dlthewave ☎ 03:25, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Dlthewave beat me to it but yeah that's the link. I'd also say it proposes change to WP:OFFCRIC (another project-level essay) that's an aide to WP:NCRIC in a similar way to how WP:FPL is an aide to WP:NFOOTY. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 13:22, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

The cricket project has been "talking" for over a year about reforms, and it's patently obvious that there's a large constituency (if not a plurality) who want none. "We don't need to do anything because they're talking" is a poor way to go about things, at this stage. Ravenswing 18:32, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

I disagree. If you've read the discussion you'll see that there is an appetite for change and improving the guidelines. Of course there will be some that will oppose, as there will be for any discussion that happens on Wikipedia, but it's looking likely that something will change, even if it's not the proposal I've suggested. I don't think anybodies saying we don't need to do anything because they're talking either. If there's a suitable change that would be likely to work then that's a good thing. Personally I quite liked SportingFlyer's proposal minus the user banning bit and thought it would help. I'm slightly against Fram's proposal because of the effect it would have on historic sportsman as I've mentioned above. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 18:56, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

It seems strange that we have both NCRIC and CRIN. The normal process would be to upgrade the project-level advice page to Guideline status and label it as such, perhaps with a summary at NSPORTS, but in this case it seems that the official guideline is a condensed version that directs editors to the essay-level page for further detail. If CRIN truly is the guideline, it really shouldn't be edited "in-house" by project participants without wider community input. Wikiprojects have no special authority to create guidelines and I'm afraid that attempts to do so are leading to practices that create conflict because they don't reflect the wider consensus. –dlthewave ☎ 05:41, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the relationship between NCRIC and CRIN is confused - and, as I've said a number of times, CRIN is bloated, rambling and was edited without discussion a number of years ago in order to push a specific user's POV. It needs to be substantially cut down in order to make is usable as a explanation of what we mean by NCRIC. Or getting rid of entirely. I've made some specific suggestions at the current discussion at CRIC.

The advantage of having CRIN in a useful format, is that people who have some knowledge of cricket and who have considered the sources that are available can produce some helpful guidelines. That's where wikiprojects have their strengths. Blue Square Thing (talk) 09:28, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

@Ravenswing: There is more initial agreement about the current proposals put forward by Rugbyfan22 than I've seen on any other set - and that includes here. It's a sensible compromise in my view and will help provide an initial line where notability can be judged. Of course, a pile of people might object to it. In which case, people here need to do something about it - and that's been utterly lacking as well over the last year or so. I've avoided much of the discussion because, frankly, I'm fed up with going round in circles. We have a detailed proposal at CRIC. It's pretty decent but needs some ironing of details. It would be a move forward and has more support right now than any of the proposals here. It's worth a month more of everyones time. Blue Square Thing (talk) 09:51, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support and Require the author to include a substantial source at the time of article creation - The current practice of writing poorly-sourced articles on the presumption that substantial coverage probably exists somewhere, and then expecting other editors or AfD participants to find those sources, turns WP:BURDEN on its head and creates huge piles of notable and non-notable articles for others to sort through. If you can't find substantial coverage but you suspect that sources exist that you don't have access to, don't create the article. Wikiprojects are great places to ask for help with these potentially-notable topics. This might require a broader discussion of our creation/deletion processes, but I would also strongly support an explicit ban on creation of stubs sourced only to databases/lists/tables and a new CSD category that allows deletion on sight with no WP:BEFORE requirement.

Unlike other SNGs like WP:ACADEMIC, this guideline does not supersede GNG, and it seems misleading to include the "presumed notable if . . ." statements in each section. In my experience it's counterproductive to have "guidelines that aren't actually guidelines", even if there's a disclaimer at the top of the page, since they're easily misunderstood or misrepresented.

One final note: There've been a few "Wikiproject X is unlikely to agree to Y" comments. Keep in mind that Wikiprojects have no special authority over their topic areas; guidelines are approved by the community and do not need a project's stamp of approval. –dlthewave ☎ 01:57, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

I also want to add that I don't think individual mass-article-creators are the root problem or deserving of blame here. They're generally working in good faith under the blessing of a large portion of the community, and I hope that clarification of the relevant guidelines will help prevent bad blood between folks who interpret them differently. –dlthewave ☎ 02:22, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support. It is logical to assume that if you can find 1 substantial source then the topic is likelier to meet GNG than if you can find 0. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 13:55, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose This would likely open up many articles on athletes who played before the digital age for deletion. It's not uncommon for the only easily available sources to be the routine coverage for these athletes. Best, GPL93 (talk) 17:08, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support - The issue here is mass article creation. It's a really bad problem in general on wiki, particularly with Geostubs that often contain simply wrong data, but sports is also a huge problematic area. I do not understand the rationale behind allowing editors, without first seeking consensus, to got through a statistical database and create, through WP:MEATBOT-style editing, many thousands of articles all sourced to a single source, all of which are one or two sentences plus an infobox - what exactly is the value-add in that? The data is already on the database they consulted if anyone wants to access it. They are not collating that data with anything else. It is simply not possible to collate the information of e.g., a long-dead South African test cricketer from the 1920's who played a hand-full of tests and did nothing else of note in a meaningful way to allow the creation of a meaningful article. This is not creating articles but simple data-entry. That it is being done manually and not by a bot is worse in my view, as it means human error is a factor - I would be happier if it was being done by a bot.

AFD/PRODs are explicitly NOT a solution for this kind of editing. The gargantuan task Carlossuarrez46 created for the California stub clean-up team is a shining example of why this doesn't work - a system where it takes a week and perhaps a total of 30 mins-1 hour of work to delete an article simply cannot handle people creating an article every 90 second for 1-2 hours each day. After a year of multiple editors PRODing/AFDing Carlos's stubs (all based on bad sourcing) they have barely made a dent in them.

FRAM's proposal at least assures us that we will no longer have articles that consist of nothing more than statistical trivia copied out of a database. FOARP (talk) 19:01, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. Having read and considered all of the above, I find myself in full agreement with the comments by each of Andrew, GiantSnowman, Masem, Djsasso, 力, Cbl62, StickyWicket and GPL93. These comments are sensible, realistic and in compliance with the site's editing policy. As cricket seems to be the main target here, I have also studied the proposal by Rugbyfan22 at WT:CRIC and I find myself in support of that too. As far as this entire discussion is concerned I can only reiterate the view of StickyWicket who said SNG is best sorted at individual projects, rather than by people who have no interest in the topic they're trying to establish policy for, and to which they will never return once done. No Great Shaker (talk) 19:26, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support I don't think it goes far enough but any change from the current situation in the direction of WP:GNG should be encouraged. Polyamorph (talk) 21:24, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per Djsasso, Cbl62, and GPL93's reasoning and arguments, and instead focus on reforming and improving the actual problem guidelines (like the cricket one) so that they calibrate better to GNG. Ejgreen77 (talk) 21:39, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support - Yes, I think it should be made clear that substantial coverage beyond a quick mention or statistical data ought to be required to achieve notability. I support this above measure, despite feeling that just one substantial source isn't good enough. I would rather use the three-source criteria, with substantial coverage in more than one reliable source for any sports-related biographies. Otherwise, we'll have too many articles that can never be more than stubs without any truly useful information. The proposal above is at least a step in the right direction. I'm also open to the possibility of eliminating the criteria for sports notability entirely and just using the easy-to-understand GNG formula. StoryKai (talk) 18:30, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
• comment - this may have been discussed above, but how does this proposal really change articles being created with just a source to a stat page, or no sourcing? All this does is mean that the subject would have to have such a non-routine source exist. That is already the suggestion of these SNGs that they would meet GNG if you searched enough for them. I don't see how this tackles badly/poorly sourced articles that are created. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:04, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose All this would do is introduce a bias against pre-internet sportspeople and lead to masses of AfDs. As Cbl62 says, the solution here would be to sort out the SNGs that fall short of the GNG standard (e.g. WP:NCRIC) rather than to undermine the SNG system entirely. Microwave Anarchist (talk) 19:22, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support It's in a way disappointing that it has to come to this. Because guidelines and policies like WP:GNG, WP:NOT, WP:SIGCOV and WP:ROUTINE already make very clear that notability and suitability for inclusion in Wikipedia is judged on significant coverage and not purely on merit (i.e. appearing in a match or tournament table). Yet these are continuously ignored and articles created and saved at AFD's purely and merit and not notability through abusing SNG's. Thus making this change has simply become necessary.Tvx1 19:28, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
• Comment What does "non-routine" mean? If a book covers (includes a write-up for) all biographies for a certain team, would that be a "routine" source? Therapyisgood (talk) 20:04, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

  Routine coverage generally covers things like game accounts and routine game interviews, transaction announcements, and purely statistical sports biographies. A book with in-depth biographies would likely not be a routine source, though its independence and non-promotional nature would have to be evaluated as well. isaacl (talk) 20:21, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

  There have been past discussions about clarifying what constitutes "routine" coverage that should be discounted, but they have not led to consensus. WP:ROUTINE covers such things as "planned coverage of scheduled events" and "sports scores". In addition, most everyone agrees that listing in comprehensive statistical databases and short "transactional announcements" (i.e., player x traded, signed, released, or placed on injured list) are routine and do not bestow notability. In-depth sports coverage from newspapers and books is fine and counts toward a GNG analysis -- subject to other guidelines such as WP:INDEPENDENT and WP:RELIABLE. In between, there is a large gray area that is debatable. It's similar to the "in depth" issue in any GNG analysis, where reasonable minds often disagree on how many words are enough. Cbl62 (talk) 22:33, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

  Routine coverage also covers team rosters, match cards, rankings etc. Everything that is not in-depth. Tvx1 14:48, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose not sure why we are the gatekeepers of pages, I don't think it hurts to have stubs. If we really wanted to flesh every single page out there could we? Yes, but I don't think that's the point of Wikipedia. And even if you did, I'm sure people will find a way to half ass that. If you don't like the stubs, make more of an effort to flesh out pages, it's that simple.--Ortizesp (talk) 21:00, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per StickyWicket and Microwave Anarchist. (1) Each sport is different. Individual sport projects can change their SNGs if they want or as needed. We don't need to add a guideline that applies to every sport. (2) This would just introduce a bias against pre-internet sportspeople. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 21:23, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

  I think people are confusing recency bias (something which is not unique to WP - historians and academics have access to far more sources, primary and otherwise, surviving from the most recent centuries than they have from further back) and recentism (in all likelihood many things which appear to be important now will in the end not have much beyond relatively short bursts of attention and will fade in the annals of history as another insignificant pop culture thing). A lot of things for which we get coverage today in the internet era simply would not have had the same coverage in pre-internet days. This is sometimes caused by factors other than just the new possibilities internet (this is not limited to sports, either). So again it is a wider question. But that, at least in my opinion, doesn't change that we shouldn't be creating articles which will have no significant content, no matter which things where achieved by that person. If the sources are hard of access, then get them before writing the article. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:48, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

  @RandomCanadian: we shouldn't be creating articles which will have no significant content - I dont think the assertion that these articles will have "no significant content" is a fair one - the work at Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/The 1000 Destubbing Challenge shows that a one line stub based on a statistical entry (e.g. Colin Cook (footballer), Eric Johnstone, Trevor Lawless) can be transformed into a decent length articles if one has access to appropriate sources. And we shouldn't be creating articles which will have no significant content is just WP:IDONTLIKEIT - stubs are perfectly valid articles. Sure, it would be nice if they were expanded, but having stub articles isn't inherently a problem. Microwave Anarchist (talk) 07:53, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per above. It would create more problems than it would solve and pre-internet bios would be a huge problem. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:53, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose due to (but not limited to) "non-routine source" being a completely subjective term. Dmoore5556 (talk) 23:43, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

  WP:SIGCOV is clear what constitutes routine and non-routine. If need be we can link to that. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:48, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose, would significantly increase gender gap in sports-related coverage I imagine women's sports have been covered significantly less in mainstream news than men's. This change would significantly exacerbate the gender gap in sports-related biographies. Setting a mainstay for these, such that anyone is notable who played in at least 1 game, no matter what, no matter if the coverage exists outside a database or not (yet), would provide recognition for women's sports. Also, pre-Internet coverage is a significant concern. If you play in a professional-level game, you should be notable enough for a Wikipeida entry. The notability generates from having played in a professinal-level game, not whether someone has covered it or not. Therapyisgood (talk) 23:52, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Keep in mind that the current criteria, showing that one game was played, is known to only be a "placeholder" while fully demonstrating the player meets the GNG at somepoint; if that can't be shown, then this guideline appropriate calls for merging or deletion. Thus, this has zero impact on the gender gap issue because that already starts with the systematic bias of poor coverage of women's professional sports pre-2000ish, which is something we cannot overcome. This would not change that at all. --Masem (t) 00:27, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

If anything, loosening the criteria would increase the gender gap by making way more male players notable (both historically, before women's teams existed, and currently, due to there just being more men's teams in general). JoelleJay (talk) 05:13, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose - There's nothing wrong with having stubs, and this proposal would only serve to make Wikipedia more Anglocentric and widen the gender gap due to bias in what sources choose to cover. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 09:42, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - I don't see how introducing vague new guidelines will improve the project. I want to spend my time on wikipedia editing articles not endlessly debating deletion discussions.--EchetusXe 10:48, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - do not see the need for this, or the logic that certain things are "routine" and others not. Player movements being news shows that they are indeed notable, as are "routine" match reporting. The fact that some people don't like that sports are popular and to them mundane things make the news is a separate matter.Skeene88 (talk) 12:23, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose in isolation: We have hundreds, probably thousands, of musician/actor/politician articles that are the equivalent, a list of their recordings/appearances/elected positions with no biographical content, often not even a date of birth. Sometimes they may be written as sentences, but they are still very limited in scope. Maybe Wikipedia should insist that any autobiographical article should have enough content to be a biographical rather than a record of professional life, but until it makes such a determination for everyone, I see no reason why sports articles should be subject to it. Kevin McE (talk) 13:38, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• Comment It seems like a lot of people on both sides of this don't understand what "routine" sports coverage is and isn't. WP:ROUTINE says coverage of sports matches or other regular events like player movements are routine with regards to the notability of those events. That is why we don't have articles about individual matches unless they are significant events like championships or have lasting impact like the first match ever broadcast on TV. It does not say it is routine with regards to the players or teams involved in those events, and in fact WP:ROUTINE explicitly only applies to events, not people or teams. While we shouldn't have an article on every single sports match, trade, or transfer, the fact that those events typically lead to coverage of the participants is not routine with regards to the notability of those participants. Smartyllama (talk) 13:54, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree that WP:ROUTINE applies on its face only to events. That said, it's been common practice in AfD discussions to refer to passing references in game coverage as "routine". In truth, people are really mixing two different concepts. The concept that really applies is WP:SIGCOV. Passing references to a player in a game report lack the necessary depth to qualify as SIGCOV. However, sports coverage can qualify as SIGCOV if the requisite depth is present. Cbl62 (talk) 14:49, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

It's no true that people are completely exempt from WP:ROUTINE. It even includes a people related example. Just appearing in the result of match or competition or a team roster is simply routine. That's not significant coverage.Tvx1 14:54, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose - Would be a regressive step in my view.Fleets (talk) 15:46, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support - why are people so worried about article creation requiring a source that shows the subject meets GNG? If the SSGs legitimately have done what they are supposed to do in setting the bar at individuals who will very likely meet GNG, why would this be a problem? Rikster2 (talk) 16:04, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

SportingFlyer's proposal

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.

---

None of these proposals so far directly address the issue:

1. Creation of stubs
2. Sourced only to statistical directories (we're not talking movies or actors, but being sourced only to IMDB applies)
3. Which, when challenged, fail WP:GNG at AfD.

As Bagumba noted in the now-hatted discussion, there are three options: a) AfD the article; b) move the article to draftspace; c) TBAN the article creator.

Therefore, I propose adding the following to WP:SPORTCRIT: When creating articles, users are strongly encouraged to use sources other than statistical databases to demonstrate notability. Users which continually create stub articles sourced only to database sources may be subject to topic bans, especially if the articles are about BLPs, or if the articles consistently fail WP:GNG after a WP:BEFORE search.

The wording could be improved, but I think the general principle is clear. SportingFlyer T·C 12:30, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

This does happen in sports, but it also applies to actors, politicians, etc. If a statement is to be made, it should be generically about all stub topics, not limited to sports.—Bagumba (talk) 12:38, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I generally agree, but the specific problem here is sports-related. I'd hate to see this fail to address the sports problem because we couldn't gain site-wide consensus for actors, et cetera... SportingFlyer T·C 12:40, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Topic-ban an article creator for creating articles which foster further editing? That's everyone's fault but the article creator. This will not help further article creation or improvement, and will turn away established users and potential article creators in the future.. Bobo. 12:45, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

You're assuming that these articles actually foster further editing. A lot of the cricket stubs have been sourced to stats sites for over a decade, and when we look for additional sources, there aren't any. SportingFlyer T·C 12:54, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

That's not the fault of the article creators that the articles haven't been edited in ten years or more, though, is it... if perpetual AfD nominators had anything to offer, they would do so. Bobo. 12:56, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) First, if the articles had passed WP:GNG on their face when they were created, or passed WP:GNG now, they wouldn't be at AfD now. Second (and I thought this was clear, but perhaps not,) this is intended to apply to future conduct, not past conduct. SportingFlyer T·C 13:00, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:NOTCOMPULSORY, editors are free to volunteer in whatever way they see fit. We don't tell people what to do (though we occassionally might remind them what not to do).—Bagumba (talk) 13:04, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Does that include AfD nominators, and those of us who feel that this statistical data would be better presented if it were consolidated into larger lists? Or are we expected to listen to an endless stream of accusations that we can only be skeptical of these articles because we can't edit for shit and are up to no good? I'm getting a little sick of that scurrilous commentary, though not as much as if I thought anyone actually believed it. Reyk _YO! 13:42, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

It goes without saying that there first needs to be community consensus that creation of said articles is, in fact, disruptive.—Bagumba (talk) 12:59, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

There's a lot of merit in this point. As I noted above, these stub articles are created as the rate of about 1 every 90 seconds, 40 and hour. The reality is that the mass AfDing of these is a near-impossible task, something that no sensible person would embark on. As such, the flaw in the system is nothing to do with NSPORT, although NSPORT is used as a sort of justification of the mass creation of these stubs. We have a system where the creation of the article is trivial, any moron can do it, but the removal of such a stub is 100 times more difficult, and that's where the problem lies. Nigej (talk) 19:05, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

• This is the best suggestion so far - but still not good enough. It needs to be clear that users who continually create non-notable stubs will be topic banned - not just stubs per se. GiantSnowman 19:08, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  Even then, that isn't something that belongs in an SNG, it belongs in a policy on stubs. Which it would never get consensus to be included in. -DJSasso (talk) 19:32, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. It isn't your place to create guidelines to ban anyone from the cricket project for creating articles, which don't violate guidelines and are therefore not disruptive. StickyWicket (talk) 19:18, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Could potentially support if it read something like When creating articles, creators are strongly encouraged to use sources other than just statistical databases to demonstrate notability. Articles may also still may be deleted or merged if they fail WP:GNG after a WP:BEFORE search. I'm not sure guidelines here should be attacking users in such a way, and if it is a problem they should be included in a guideline relating to stubs or article creation and not sports SNGs or SNGs in general. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 19:27, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose TBans for creating legit stubs is ridiculous. Really quite a bad proposal. -DJSasso (talk) 19:28, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

  The point is that they're not "legit stubs", they satisfy NCRIC but as to WP:N (which is what matters) 99% fail miserably. Nigej (talk) 19:47, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Can we stop saying they are 'just' cricket stubs please. Stubs are a problem in large number of other sports including Olympians and footballers. In terms of cricket passing GNG also i'd say its far less than 99% failing. Other sources just aren't being included because under current guidelines they don't have to be. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 19:52, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree that's it's not "just" cricket, but it seems to largely a sports issue. Some doctor could create doctor-articles for every doctor in the UK or some genealogist could start creating articles for everyone in the 1911 census (I could write an automated script myself) but somehow the creation of pointless stubs is something that particularly appeals to the statistically-minded sports fan. I'm inclined to think that creating an article on every doctor in the UK is likely to have a higher hit-rate (ie %age passing WP:N) than creating articles for every cricketer that passes NCRIC; they'd certainly be much more interesting. Nigej (talk) 20:03, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

That's your opinion. I'm sure there are many readers who are interested in these sports statistics, and many who couldn't care less about articles about doctors. You have to remember that sports is highly statistical also. Using your doctors example we don't judge doctors on number of operation/operations per day etc but sports people are judged on statistics and times. Often a lot of the extended text in sportspeople articles are trivial information or just fancruft. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 20:09, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Main difference is here that sportspeople are known, because they are known because they entertain people, and there is a daily coverage in almost all media sources. This is not the case for doctors. Almost all people can name 3 sportspeople but not 3 doctors. SportsOlympic (talk) 20:24, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

UTC)

Note: I can’t find that an article of every doctor can be created. See also Wikipedia:Notability (doctors). SportsOlympic (talk) 20:30, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

You're missing the point, which is that I could create such articles very easily, but deleting them via AfD would be very time-consuming for you. Nigej (talk) 20:38, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Except that they are legit stubs, BLP policy only requires one source back up something in the article to avoid deletion by BLPPROD, it doesn't even have to be an in depth article. Therefore, a reference from a stats site is enough to make a stub legitimate. That isn't to say its notable. A creation of a stub can be legitimate and later be found to not be notable. There is no policy that allows for banning an editor for creating a stub in good faith. -DJSasso (talk) 20:14, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

We will have to disagree about the "legit" aspect. Indeed I could easily create a stub about myself, or my father, with a suitable reference from a local newspaper (or similar) which would ensure that BLDPROD would not apply. However I'm not a complete idiot (and thankfully not many other people are complete idiots either) so such creations are rare outside the sports area. Nigej (talk) 20:24, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Very clearly a difference between good faith and being disruptive. But even in your example we wouldn't topic ban you from creating articles on whatever subject it was that you or your father would fall into unless you kept recreating it over and over (at which case the block would be for being disruptive, not specifically cause you created a stub). We would delete the article which is what Afd/Prod are for. -DJSasso (talk) 20:28, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

However one person's good faith is another person's disruptive. Nigej (talk) 20:40, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Which sums up exactly why something like this shouldn't be in an SNG. Incredibly hostile for something that people can easily disagree on. -DJSasso (talk) 21:34, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

The specific point of this proposal is to specifically address non-notable stubs being created en masse because the community didn't agree mass non-notable stub creation was disruptive at an ANI last week. No one should be topic banned for creating a poorly sourced stub, it's doing it over and over and over again, and the fact a good portion of the stubs fail discussions at AfD, which is the problem that's trying to be addressed here. This consensus appears to have changed since I made the proposal, albeit not in this particular discussion. SportingFlyer T·C 00:59, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I will repeat what I've said from elsewhere. People are suggesting topic bans for article creation? It's not the fault of the article creators that articles have gone unedited for 12 years, 15 years or more. Are you really suggesting topic bans based on content created over a decade ago? And now that it's genuinely been suggested that we start getting rid of Test cricketers (yes, I know what you're going to say, it just happens to be the area I'm most familiar with on the project), it makes me think that perhaps it's not the article creators who are to blame... Bobo. 03:17, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Rugbyfan22, Fram, please let me repeat what I said without using that example, so that you understand I mean it independently of that area, I believe retroactive topic bans based on article creation are greatly harmful and are only going to inhibit article creation in any circumstance. Replace the topic I use with any other topic which receives a great mix of coverage/scrutiny. People will become nervous with regard to creating further articles on any given topic. Bobo. 03:48, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose requirement creep. A source is either reliable or not. Comparisons to IMDB are unhelpful as IMDB is widely accepted here as unreliable. Threats of bans in guidelines is also incredibly hostile and unhelpful. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 20:41, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. IMDB lists everyone who has had a role in making films, however significant or otherwise. It's not comparable to websites that allow verification that a subject's career meets inclusion criteria. Creation of stubs that comply with existing guidelines (whether those guidelines need to change is a separate issue) is not really a great problem unless they fail WP:V. --Michig (talk) 07:24, 1 April 2021 (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.

Sailing proposal

Ok be nice I have always stay out of wikipedia policies but they are getting quoted at me so I thought I should address the issue. Sailing is a very diverse sport with many pinnacles some arguably greater than the Olympics. Other pinnacles that are equivalent include Round the World Race, Freestyle Windsurfing, Speed Sailing, World Record Passages. I note many significantly less global sports have individual policies here but sailing at present relies on the standard criteria for Olympic Sports. I have drafted with wiki sailing project which would be a good starting point for consideration and adoption. I have tried to keep this as closed as possible so things remain notable but open it up beyond the Olympics.

Sailors are presumed notable if they have

1) competed in the Olympic Games or Paralympic Games,

2) won a World Sailing recognized World Championship

3) competed in a World Sailing Special Events

4) competed in the Vendee Globe or Barcelona World Race or it predecessors

5) set a World Record recognised by World Sailing Speed Record Council (WSSRC)

Nations participating at an individual Summer Olympic or Paralympic Games

Classes/Disciplines at individual Summer Olympic or Paralympic Games

Events at individual Summer or Winter Olympic or Paralympic Games and Vendee Globe

Title Overview Pages for World Sailing recognised World, Continental, special events and WSSRC Records

I am looking forward to constructive comments and the wording and finding out if approval here is enough to change the notability requirements. Yachty4000 (talk) 00:52, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

In all honesty, all that should be done away with. Notability is not about achievement, but about significant coverage in secondary source. All the above only assures names appearing in result tables or starting lists which fall under WP:ROUTINE and do not attest notability at all.Tvx1 20:07, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Question regarding NBASKETBALL

Hi. Under this SNG, it lists specific leagues which qualify for notability, but one thing I noticed is that it does not include notability for players who may not have made one of their leagues, but have made their national team. Basketball is a pretty popular sport worldwide, and other sports have varying degrees of inclusion for playing on a national team (e.g. Baseball, Badminton, Ice Hockey, Women's Rugby Union). I'm usually not one for broadening sports SNG's, but this seems an oversight in this case. Thoughts? Onel5969 ^{TT me} 19:12, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Can you give some examples of biographies (with articles or without) who would be affected by this change in the SNG? User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 19:15, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

My guess is not all national teams receive coverage of a level which would guarantee the GNG to be passed. I wouldn't have any issue adding national team in a major tournament to the SNG under the assumption that the players in the tournament will likely pass GNG, but this is an assumption on my part. SportingFlyer T·C 11:18, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, not all national team members are notable in my opinion. Olympic players are presumed notable per WP:NOLYMPICS. Possibly World Cup and continental qualifying events (like EuroBasket) could be added if research concluded that players in these events were found to be highly likely notable. I have a hard time seeing anything below that being added. Rikster2 (talk) 13:14, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

It really shouldn't be about making a team or competing in one event at all. Leagues don't qualify for notability, sources do. Making a team roster falls under WP:ROUTINE and does not provide notability.Tvx1 20:10, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

It's by design. No evidence that a national team player regardless of actual event or player's country will have sufficient coverage to meet GNG. This has not been a big issue at AfD, nor do we need to green light stub factories for this. GNG is a sufficient fallback.—Bagumba (talk) 06:05, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Wikiproject notability pages

I rewrote a couple of sentences to clarify that Wikiproject notability pages have WP:ADVICEPAGE, not guideline, status. I hoped this would be noncontroversial since it was correcting a small error and not changing the substance of the guideline, but I'm happy to discuss any concerns here. –dlthewave ☎ 02:47, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I guess WP:ADVICEPAGE is better and stronger than WP:ESSAY. Advicepage is more technical and instructional where Essay is more opinionated. But a project guideline based on WP:ADVICEPAGE is still quite powerful in handling situations. The tools they give are usually formed by meticulous input from many editors with consensus, and are based on NSPORT and GNG. Unlike Guidelines they are created by dozens of more specified editors like Geography editors or Physics editors consensus, rather than an encyclopedia wide consensus. Guidelines simply can't handle everything, being so general in nature, and wikiguidelines also get overridden by consensus. None of these Guideline/Advice/Essay articles are as strong as something that is Wiki Policy. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:59, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm not hugely concerned about whether to call it an advice page, project page or essay. My main concern was that before I made changes, the WP:CRIN project page opened with "This is the expanded detail of the agreed guidelines, that are summarised in the Cricket section of the Notability (sports) guidelines" and the WP:NCRIC section on this page stated "The criteria have been taken from WP:CRIN, which should be consulted for details.", implying that the project page was the "official" guideline. It's reasonable for the project to maintain a supplementary essay but we need to be clear and factual about which is which. –dlthewave ☎ 14:58, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I'd agree entirely with that - and I suspect the other people currently involved in trying to come to a consensus over a way forward on NCRIC at the cricket wiki project would likely be to agree as well. CRIN, as it stands, has significant issues associated with the way it was written and the lack of any discussion of much of its contents. Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:13, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, CRIN is a mess and needs a massive sort out once notability discussions have finished. All CRIN really does to NCRIC now is just add a bit more details onto what's at NCRIC and likely it will be cut down so it's just that. A lot of what's there is an overkill of information or jargon that most readers wouldn't be able to understand without cricket knowledge. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 16:41, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter what the project page opens with. ""This is the expanded detail of the agreed guidelines, that are summarised in the Cricket section of the Notability (sports) guidelines" is perfectly fine as long as at the top of the page or sections it has a template that says this is not a guideline, but rather an essay or advice page. In fact what you put on the project is overkill. The template is right at the top big as life. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:21, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Proposal to tighten WP:NGRIDIRON

Recent discussions demonstrate the need for all sports projects to look closely at their notability guidelines to determine whether the bar for presumed notability is properly calibrated to WP:GNG. Much focus has been given to the cricket standard which clearly needs fixing. In the spirit of good faith, and in hopes that other projects will be encouraged to do the same, I have also looked at WP:NGRIDIRON (the sport that I follow most closely) to see where it should be tightened. Accordingly, I propose two modifications to NGRIDIRON:

• (1) Remove Arena Football League. Some have argued in the past that "arena football" is a "different" sport than normal gridiron football. The reality is that arena football is a minor league version of American football for players who simply can't make it in the NFL. If an Arena Football League player is truly notable, including from his collegiate career, that can be demonstrated by presenting WP:SIGCOV establishing such notability.
• (2) Double the threshold from 1 game to 2 games played. I have worked on several hundred biography articles on pro football players. There are many, many one-game wonders on whom I've conducted in-depth searches to find SIGCOV. Sometimes I find SIGCOV. Other times I don't. My experience shows that a presumption of notability is not appropriate for these one-game players. If a one-game player is truly notable, that can be demonstrated with SIGCOV. (Frankly, I'd be OK with a slightly higher threshold than two games played, but incremental progress is better than no progress.) Cbl62 (talk) 23:18, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support 1; weak support for 2. I think I have mentioned several times that it appears Arena only gets minor coverage on players, with the possible exception from players in the post-Warner to pre-first bankruptcy years (so about 2000–2009). I have seen very little, if any, coverage of non-skill position players in the relaunch years, and that sort of kills the one appearance argument for that league in my mind. I would think one "modern" NFL game would get a fair amount of coverage (would meet SIGCOV anyways as you point out), but I would understand if pre-Super Bowl era leagues (and possibly USFL) one-timers were less than GNG-worthy covered. Are there any specific examples you had in mind for #2? Yosemiter (talk) 23:51, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

As far as examples, I haven't created a list, but I've been going though AAFC players and have decided not to create articles on a number of one-game players where I simply couldn't find any SIGCOV. In general, there's tremendous variation based on position played. A QB, RB, or WR with one game is much more likely to receive SIGCOV than a lineman. Cbl62 (talk) 00:00, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support 1; oppose 2 I saw some articles and other Wikipages that said the Arena League was a major league. I agree with Cbl as I think calling it major was WP:OR. If we up the NFL standard to two then it could set a bad precedent to up it even more games. I know this is leading to a slippery slope argument but if we make it two then it opens the floodgates for SIGCOV to be the only guideline that matters.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 00:03, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• Comment. I agree that something needs to be done about the Arena League. I have long thought that the main Arena Football League needs to be split into two articles, Arena Football League (1987–2008), and Arena Football League (2010–2019), much in the same way that we have American Basketball Association and American Basketball Association (2000–present). Despite sharing the same name, the post-2009 arena league was owned by a completely different ownership group, and operated on a much smaller scale then the pre-2009 one did. The likelihood that players from the post-2009 league will pass GNG is very small, and we certainly should not be granting 1-game auto-notability to those post-2009 players. As for the pre-2009 league, 1 game is also probably too low. Would, say, 50 be enough? Frankly, I don't know.

As far as the second part goes, I would oppose raising the limit for NFL players, but would be open to increasing the limit for players in other leagues. Like Cbl62 said, is there going to be SIGCOV for every 1-game USFL or AAFC offensive lineman? Possibly not.

I also feel it's worth pointing out here that the gridiron project, to it's credit, has never made it a point to try to write an article about every single player who could be theoretically notable under WP:NGRIDIRON. If you go back and look through early season team rosters from even the NFL itself, you will see plenty of redlinks there. That's because the gridiron project has never made it a point of emphasis to try to write an article about every single player who could fall within the scope of WP:NGRIDIRON (unlike, say, the baseball project, which went so far into the weeds that, at one point, they were trying to write full articles about players with no known first names, and the most common last name in the English language. Just sayin'). Ejgreen77 (talk) 06:25, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• Weak support 1, oppose 2 NFL players who even play a single game are typically notable. Perhaps you can find a few exceptions, but the criteria to create an SNG require the vast majority of cases to meet GNG, not every single one, and the vast majority of players who played at least one game in the NFL meet GNG. As for the Arena Football League, that's a different story. I don't think players in that league are almost certain to meet GNG, especially in the post-2009 version. I think limiting Arena Football League notability to the pre-2009 version might be a reasonable compromise, since players in that league are typically much more notable than in the "new" version. Smartyllama (talk) 13:46, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support both I think #1 is obvious. For #2, I would not mind if WP:NGRIDIRON was specifically re-written to encourage what takes place over at association football: Have appeared in at least one regular season or post-season game in any one of the following professional leagues: the Arena Football League, the Canadian Football League, the National Football League, the 1960s American Football League, the All-America Football Conference, or the United States Football League. Players with a small number of appearances (e.g., one game) may be deleted if no significant coverage of the player can be demonstrated. Players who play in minor or semi-professional leagues (such as af2) are not presumed notable unless they meet another criterion, such as notability arising from their college football days. This section does not apply to assistant coaches or coaching assistants. (Struck out the arena league, additions in italics.) SportingFlyer T·C 13:58, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support both, and SportingFlyer's comment. Johnbod (talk) 14:01, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - I had been working on an analysis for Arena Football League players being removed from NGRIDIRON, but Cbl62 beat me to the punch with their proposal here. You can view my research into the 1987 through 1989 seasons here. At the moment, I'd support the first proposal here, given what I've found so far from the AFL, but oppose the second proposal until evidence can be provided. Eagles 24/7 (C) 14:33, 6 April 2021 (UTC)