Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)

RfC on new Motorsports guidelines

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is a clear consensus that the proposed updated version of NMOTORSPORT is better than the current version and therefore should be implemented. Iffy★Chat -- 17:55, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

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Should the updated WP:NMOTORSPORT guidelines proposed at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(sports)/Archive_44#Motorsport be endorsed and implemented? -"Ghost of Dan Gurney" 04:22, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

• Endorse - Simply put, these guidelines will result in less conflicts where a subject passes NMOTORSPORT but utterly fails GNG, such as the recent case of the AfD of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alan Taylor (racing driver). Under these updated guidelines, such a person would not pass NMOTORSPORT. The old guidelines are archaic and desperately need a refresh. -"Ghost of Dan Gurney" 04:25, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support - The proposed guidelines aren't perfect, but chasing perfection is often a dangerous rabbit hole. They're a substantial improvement on the current guidelines in nearly every regard. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 04:49, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
• Strong support, the guidelines need change and the proposal goes a long way to fixing the problems we have now. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 05:44, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
• Endorse and implement the new guidelines are a substantial improvement. We can always refine further down the line, should the need arise. SSSB (talk) 16:01, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support looks reasonable, and there's already been a consensus for this. Changing the criteria just means it aligns better with who is actually notable under GNG. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:04, 29 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support as a step in the right direction. Further tuning may be required to better align with GNG. JoelleJay (talk) 21:20, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

  Edit to add my !vote should also be considered "qualified", per wjemather. JoelleJay (talk) 22:06, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support per all the above, makes sense. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 10:20, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support and Suggestion I think this adds clarity. The only issue I see is defining "Drivers or riders who have competed for at least one full season in any of the following series..." I would define that as competing in a % of a single season. 51%, 67%, 75%; and say it has to be in a single season - no 3 races one year, 2 another, all adding up to half of some random season. In modern times this isn't an issue, but historically drivers often didn't compete in every race. Look at the 1972 NASCAR Winston Cup Series. The 10th place driver only competed in 83% of the races and the 20th place driver in 54% (and looking at the list, 85-55% was common). RonSigPi (talk) 15:23, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

  One can "compete in a full season" without completing (or even taking part in) every single race. A fixed percentage wouldn't help, as that would 1) not be sensitive to changes in circumstances between different historical eras and 2) favour mathematical nitpicking instead of people actually looking at sources to see if either the "full season" or the GNG-presumption is indeed met. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:15, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

  Beyond RandomCanadian's comments, consider: we're not establishing a threshold of what we think is important. We're establishing a threshold where we feel that a racer can meet the GNG. If we're just picking percentages out of the air, then we're shooting the latter assumption in the foot. Do we actually have any idea? Ravenswing 23:19, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

  My comment was more in line with what User:Wjemather was saying. This is good, but vague. I don't care what % we put it at; it can be at 100% requirement. My comment was more this - if we don't put a %, then what does competing in a full season mean? Without it, we are going to be arguing the Academic Rookie of the Month for a guy that completed in 10 races over 8 years and someone says "well, in 19xx there were 19 races, so cumulatively he was over half, so that is a full season." RonSigPi (talk) 03:35, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

  The simpler solution is to not give a percentage and let sources determine this (instead of editors doing silly maths and missing the point that something requires GNG in any case). If someone competed "in a full season", then one can back this up with adequate GNG-acceptable sources. If there are no sources, then arguing about maths is a pointless argument that will get rejected by competent closers. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:19, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

• Qualified support. While any tightening of the guideline is to be welcomed, this proposal is vague in many areas; i.e. phrases like "primarily-professional", "significant national/international importance", "major road races", "high-profile inter-city races", "major championship in which a large number of the competitors are amateur 'gentleman' drivers or privateers" [why is major in italics?], "significant motorsports record" sound impressive, but they mean different things to different people (some are just a open gate). These things must be clearly defined or there needs to be an exhaustive list of events, etc. held somewhere. The proposal is also extremely verbose, probably because of this vagueness. Any chance it can be consolidated into half a dozen simple bullet points (and a supporting list)? _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 10:46, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

• Exactly, which is a reason I can't find my way clear to support it myself. I was enough of an idiot to put an undefined "Preeminent awards" into NHOCKEY, only to have an editor decide that an "Academic Rookie of the Month" citation from a collegiate hockey league met that definition. (I am not making this up.) Ravenswing 17:47, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - I am not knowledgeable enough about motorsport to be able to adequately judge these criteria, and would rather leave the decision to those more involved, which seems to suggest that the proposal is a good one. That said, this proposal is very... wordy and complicated? Is there any way it could be simplified without loss of specificity? I know "wikilawyering" is a thing for a reason, but it'd be nice if helping out with AfD discussions did not require the level of research a real lawyer goes through before a case. Fieari (talk) 07:39, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

  A big part of the issue is that motorsport is such a broad area that only having one notability guideline for all of motorsport is arguably something of a folly in-and-of itself. It's a bit like having one notability guideline for all forms of football rather than having separate ones for Soccer, Gridiron, Rugby, etc. That's probably something to be addressed further down the line though. The current guideline is demonstrably inadequate (with many individuals who don't meet the WP:GNG meeting it) and seems weirdly Sports Car Club of America specific in its wording. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 10:13, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

  • • Sound observation, there; perhaps we should break these down into discrete competitions such as NASCAR, Top Fuel, Formula One etc. Ravenswing 10:47, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
      • Some of the criteria (4 and 5) apply to multiple series/competitions, so would be more complicated to list individually IMO. The reason it's long is because it's trying to be extensive for 10+ different sports all under the motorsport heading. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:51, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
        • On the grand scheme of things, for notability criteria that could be in place a decade or longer -- as has been the case, after all, for the devolved NSPORTS criteria -- I'm fairly content with the premise that breaking this down into discrete competitions might take someone an extra half hour. Ravenswing 11:35, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
          • Part of the issue seems to be finding editors who are sufficiently familiar both with more niche motorsport disciplines and with Wikipedia policies and guidelines who would be willing to spend time working on guidelines. Based upon the feedback we've received during the course of drawing up this proposal I don't think it would be too hard to derive guidelines for single-seater racing, stock car racing, or rallying, but even with something as broad as motorbike racing I'm less confident. It would certainly be preferable to have separate guidelines for disciplines like drag racing, motocross, or drifting, as they have very little in common with other motorsports. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 13:26, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
            • Well ... I submit that if there are niche motorsports for which there are knowledgeable editors willing to work on guidelines for them, those niche motorsports should not have NSPORTS guidelines until such time as there are. We shouldn't just be tossing untested guidelines up just for the heck of it. Ravenswing 13:35, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
              • There comes a point when it's better to just fall back on simple stuff (WP:GNG, which is anyway the real criterion: SNGs are supposed to be indicative of it, not override it) instead of generating further instruction creep (WP:CREEP). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:08, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
                • I don't understand where it was implied that this list is meant to override the WP:GNG. The problem with the current WP:NMOTORSPORT guideline is that a lot of subjects meet its criteria but do not meet the GNG. The point of the SNG is to indicate which subjects are highly likely to meet the GNG. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 19:19, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
• Provisional but strong oppose due to issues with vagueness of language as identified above; and to the long nature of the list, which suggests that it would be more productive and simpler for everyone to just fall back on GNG, instead of having instruction creep. These issues could be resolved if an approach similar to NFOOTBALL was used (i.e. dropping the "various competitions" phrasing and having a full list in a sub-page somewhere; and maybe listing only the most obvious ones or those which limit themselves to very few entries on the guideline page itself). It might also be worthwhile considering if listing old competitions is really productive, and I am not sure whether all of the entries are really valid indicators of someone "nearly certainly meets GNG, with possibly a few exceptions"; for example Mille Miglia#Mille Miglia winners has a fair share of red links. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:08, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
  • I think that there is a general view that a WikiProject maintained list should be produced at some point, with a more general guideline providing pointers until such time that a list can be prepared. The current issue is that the existing guidelines set an extremely low bar for presumed notability (competing in Trans-Am or any motor race before the Second World War apparently mean a subject can be presumed notable, which simply isn't true) and seem to be somewhat US-centric. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 19:28, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
    • @HumanBodyPiloter5: Iff a proper list of events which qualify for a reasonable presumption can be compiled in due time, or at least a draft of such a list (with the proposed guideline text amended to match, and ideally simplified to avoid instruction creep), that would likely address my concern here (on both points). There's no hurry here and I'd rather we have the final solution under discussion than a provisional one. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:51, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

• I strongly disagree with your reasoning here. Motorsports is a very broad field and the listed criteria do a great job of covering them. While it may not be perfect, it would be difficult to simplify the proposal and still have it be useful. This is a vast improvement over the existing guidelines, and an exhaustive list is not necessary for this proposal to be usable. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 10:35, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

• Question There's a LOT of criteria there; is there evidence that people who meet any of those criteria have, out there in the universe, enough reliable source text that we can use to write decent biographical articles about them? --Jayron32 15:54, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
• Support While I also echo some concerns from above, I think what's proposed is still a way better option than what the current WP:NMOTORSPORT is (in my opinion too vague yet inclusive at the same time). The revised guideline aligns more with the drivers that actually meet WP:GNG, which is a very positive thing. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 11:34, 28 December 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 WP:NFOOTY criteria being changed

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus against There seems to be (nearly-unanimous, despite a few dissenting voices) consensus that this is not a meaningful change, and that the guideline as written does not prevent, in theory or in practice, the deletion of footballers who are truly not notable despite seemingly passing it (this brings me to wonder whether it is possible to otherwise adjust this to make NFOOTY a more accurate indicator of actually meeting GNG, but that is not something I can do much about, and is truly another question for another discussion). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:55, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

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Context: At many recent AfDs, there have been articles deleted despite meeting WP:NFOOTY by playing in one or two games.

Note: There was a previous failed RfC with a similar object from 2019 (Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 31#Proposal - NFOOTY#2 - raising the bar)

Should the guidelines for WP:NFOOTY be changed from Players who have played, and managers who have managed, in a competitive game between two teams from fully professional leagues to Players who have played in at least three competitive games, and managers who have managed at least one competitive game between two teams from fully professional leagues? snood1205 17:36, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Note: I have notified Wikipedia:WikiProject Football of this discussion. snood1205 17:41, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose change - these are arbitrary numbers. The point of 'one appearance = presumption of notability', and the reason that nothing else will work, is that there is a clear and meaningful step up from/difference between 'no appearance' and 'one appearance'. The same cannot be said between 'one appearance' and 'two appearances' (or three, or five etc). NFOOTBALL is fine as it is and AFD is working to delete non-notable players who have a technical pass but fail GNG comprehensively. GiantSnowman 17:44, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related page discussions. GiantSnowman 17:44, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose - why three? What evidence is there that playing three games will guarantee that sources exist to meet a suitable level of sourcing? There's nothing wrong with an article which technically passes FOOTY being deleted because there aren't suitable sources. You can change the number to whatever you like and the same thing'll be true. Blue Square Thing (talk) 17:46, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Bingo. Changing to 2/3/5 will not stop articles still being created about players with only 1 appearance, and it will also not stop players with 2/3/5 apps being deleted if they fail GNG comprehensively (as currently happens!). I see no point to the change. GiantSnowman 17:48, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Strong opposeI do not agree at all. A player can made 3 apps but playing less than 10 minutes. In my opinion, players' notability does depend from the coverage they've received if they've made less than 3 apps Dr Salvus 17:48, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - again, why three appearances? This is no different from the last time this type of change was suggested and rejected. If someone can tell me why three is the magic number I could reconsider.--Egghead06 (talk) 18:01, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• Strong support - Why 3? Why 1? Why anything. Why not scrap it completely. The question being asked is whether the new criteria better matches with notability than the current one. Given that most footballers who have played 1 or 2 games are not notable, then 3 is clearly better than 1. Would 4 or 5 be better still? Probably, but that's not the proposal being discussed. Nigej (talk) 18:07, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, completely arbitrary and puts Wikipedia on the backfoot of creating pages for players getting media attention.--Ortizesp (talk) 18:23, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose I feel like this is misunderstanding the point of the SNGs. They are meant to give the presumption of notability. But if an actual exhaustive search for sources is done, such as in an AfD, and those presumed sources aren't actually found, then despite meeting the SNG, the article subject has nonetheless failed the GNG and that notability requirement is in the end the only one that matters. All of our articles have to meet the GNG, but we give leeway on the presentation of such within an article if they meet an SNG. Because that gives the implication that the sources to meet the GNG do exist somewhere. But, again, if that SNG source presumption for the subject is challenged and, after a discussion and search for sources, nothing of reliable source value is found, then that's it. Non-notable, for ultimately failing to meet our general notability guideline. So I think these AfD results are working just as they should and aren't conflicting with the existing SNGs whatsoever. Silverseren^C 18:37, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Sorry to say, this is not the way most of the SNGs work (although it is the way WP:NSPORTS works). For most of the others, like WP:NPROF and WP:NAUTHOR, the SNGs create a presumption of Notability parallel to that offered by the GNG; please see WP:SNG for additional information on this relationship. (SNGs may also do other things, such as specify requirements above and beyond the GNG, as NNUMBRR and NORG do, or specify what counts as significant coverage in reliable sources for a specific domain, as NBOOK does.) Newimpartial (talk) 18:44, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    • Sure, sure, fair point there. I was only focusing on sports SNGs, since as a sport (an entertainment), the entire focus of their notability is on the coverage of their activities. Lacking that, then they aren't notable. Other types of subjects, such as academics, are notable for the importance of their academic work. So those SNGs function differently, especially since such subjects aren't usually properly covered in media, since academic work isn't inherently meant to be public entertainment. Silverseren^C 18:59, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    • The point is that those who've played 1 or 2 games are given the presumption of notability when all the evidence is that they are not generally not notable. That's the issue being discussed. There's no problem with AfD, the problem is that the articles are being created in the first place, encouraged by the wording of NFOOTY. That's why it needs changing. Nigej (talk) 18:45, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
      • I'm not objecting to that; I'm just trying to break the implicit connection between how NSPORTS works and how most of the rest of the SNGs work. NSPORTS is not a typical SNG, even among the NBIO SNGs, and people often seem to forget that the GNG itself offers only a presumption of Notability; topics meeting the SNG may not merit an individual article. Newimpartial (talk) 18:54, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose WP:AINT broke, don't fix it. If a professional player makes it all the way through to play in a professional competition (ending up in historical club records etc), then he is notable. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 18:39, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
  • The problem is that it is broke. 1 in 7 of all our biographies of living people are covered by NFOOTY, a crazy proportion for something that purports to be an encyclopedia. Nigej (talk) 18:55, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    • That's doesn't mean anything's broken, association football is the largest and most popular sport in the world by far and one of the few that's universally played. It's not surprising, nor wrong that a large proportion of articles are covered by the most globally followed sport.--Ortizesp (talk) 01:22, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
  • I suppose your response is the flip side of the coin as an example of someone who doesn't understand the SNG in question and misapplies them. Your claim is incorrect. If someone meets the SNG, they are presumed notable, but if an exhaustive search for sources fails to find refences to meet the GNG, then the presumption is gone and they are not notable. Silverseren^C 18:57, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
  • And it says "If the article does meet the criteria set forth below, then it is likely that sufficient sources exist to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." The question is whether, for NFOOTY, that is actually true. In my view it isn't and that's why it needs changing. Nigej (talk) 19:04, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
    • You say the issue is that there are too many footballer biographies - I say the actual issue is that there are too few other biographies. Football is the most popular sport in the world by far and therefore has the wikipedia editors and 3rd party media sources to support that. The same cannot be said for other less popular sports and professions. That is not football's fault. GiantSnowman 19:33, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
      • I knew that would be reply. Doesn't convince me (and hopefully, anyone else) in the slightest. Nigej (talk) 19:37, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose the way it's working now (GNG overrides NFOOTY) works well, and is much better than creating an arbitrary threshold. Joseph2302 (talk) 19:16, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Agreed. If anything, an arbitrary threshold might make people more likely to claim that the SNG supersedes the GNG, which is not how things should work. Silverseren^C 19:25, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Didn't we had the same proposal already a year ago or so? If a player makes 3 subs and plays 3 minutes, it's not as notable as a player who plays once but 90 minutes. Kante4 (talk) 19:25, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose While playing one match is no guarantee that the subject will actually have enough to meet GNG, three is no more of a high-bar. We should just drop this criteria and change it to a criteria that falls in-line with WP:AUD and more robust notability criteria. If all a player article has is "played one match for ..." and that is sourced only to some database, the article should be deleted. Walter Görlitz (talk) 21:18, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Just so we are clear, there is no policy basis (and as far as I know, little support) for using AUD-type criteria outside the domain of NORG. Newimpartial (talk) 21:27, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

And articles like that currently are frequently deleted at AFD under the current 'rules', showing it works as it stands. GiantSnowman 21:20, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Support. I previously proposed a similar tweak to the NGRIDIRON standard which unfortunately failed to reach consensus. The various sports constituencies would be well-advised IMO to tighten the SNGs to make them better predictors of GNG. If we did so, we would (i) not encourage the creation of so many unworthy articles and (ii) spend less time dealing with AfDs directed at one- and two-game players. That time could then be spent improving the truly worthy sports bios. Cbl62 (talk) 23:57, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose this particular proposal. I don't see the particular benefit of changing from one appearance to three appearances (unless there is some data on this resulting in greater coverage that I am missing). I have no prejudice on discussing the use of one appearance as criteria for inclusion, but I oppose the change from one to three as unnecessarily arbitrary. Jay eyem (talk) 00:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose, unnecessary + slightly less clear. Why should this be different here than for other sports? – SJ + 09:48, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment - I think NFOOTY is broken but the proposal of moving from 1 game to 3 doesn’t solve it. The list of leagues included in the one game rule is entirely too long and I am willing to bet they haven’t all been tested to see if one game in the league actually is an indicator they could meet GNG. If you were a footballer in a top league in England or Italy? Sure, 1 game is likely going to be an indicator the subject would meet GNG for their total career. But I look at leagues like those below MLS in the US and I know that the least of those players don’t get the kind of press coverage likely to meet GNG. My recommendation would be to cut the number of leagues included under the 1-game rule and make the rest subject to passing GNG, or add a more significant achievement to the lesser leagues like a season’s worth of games. I have no confidence anything will change on this SNG though Rikster2 (talk) 12:58, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment How would you determine which leagues would follow the one game rule and which would be outside that rule?--Egghead06 (talk) 13:28, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
  • You go through individual leagues and you do a source search for a decent sample of middle tier and end of the bench players and see what the hit rate is. If less than 95%+ of those meet GNG the league probably shouldn’t be included Rikster2 (talk) 13:45, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
    • I have previously - multiple times - suggested that we move away from 'fully professionalism' as the barometer for notable leagues at WP:FPL, and replace with a 'coverage' one like you suggest. This has always fallen on deaf ears. GiantSnowman 13:50, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
      • It's inertia talking -- there's very deep resistance to change -- and the FOOTY project's by no means unique in this -- and an outside observer might be forgiven for thinking that there's a tacit belief in just about every WikiProject that "our" articles need defending against the barbarians, that AfDs and PRODs constitute personal attacks against the respective projects, and that the projects' status is defined by the number of articles they have. For my part, I could readily live with abolishing ALL SNGs -- despite the chaos it'd bring -- with the GNG being the sole determinant of notability. Ravenswing 15:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
        • I agree 100% about "abolishing ALL SNGs". WP:NSPORT needs deleting completely. Where I disagree is that it would cause chaos. The reality is that many sports already manage without it perfectly well and all the others could too. Nigej (talk) 15:21, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
          • I'm not sure what removing the SNG is hoping to achieve, if you think there will be less football pages as a result you'd be wrong. There's tons of notable footballers who probably qualify for a page now with 0 appearances who are held back through the SNG. The Football project is the largest on Wikipedia for a reason.--Ortizesp (talk) 16:14, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
            • It would stop the "collecting" aspect, where some editors are desperate to create all articles in a particular area (eg everyone who's played a game for Rochdale A.F.C.) irrespective of whether they're notable or not, an attitude that's encouraged by the way many of the sports notability sections are written (eg presumed notable if they've played 1 game for Rochdale). Getting rid of NSPORT would (over time) get editors thinking about whether the article they're planning to create is really notable and whether there's enough content to demonstrate that. And your right, it might encourage articles on players who currently fail NSPORT but who still got plenty of coverage. Nigej (talk) 16:53, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
            • Really? And what do you fancy that "reason" is -- that soccer is the most important endeavor of humankind? That being said, I can't imagine how there'd be a single "notable" footballer held back through the SNG. If a footballer can meet the GNG, NFOOTY's superfluous. If a footballer can neither meet the GNG nor NFOOTY, upon what basis would they possibly be notable? Ravenswing 19:31, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I wouldn't say it's a problem related to how many appearances, rather than the quality of them and the media coverage they are leading to. A five minute appearance in a Premier League game is certainly going to get more coverage than, say, ten games for a League Two club, a full season for a minor US league, or 15-20 games for the Maldives national team. If I were to be asked, I'd suggest widening the current notability criteria to "at least one game in a professional league or a national team" (maybe even as a starter, to make it even stricter) and considerable non-incidental media coverage (i.e., something more than just a passing mention of the player's name). --Angelo (talk) 16:36, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
  • We already have WP:SPORTCRIT but many editors choose to ignore it. Nigej (talk) 16:55, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose as written - I might support something along the lines of requiring 3 (or 5) appearances for footballers whose articles are only sourced to statistical databases. But not this proposal as written. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 17:34, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
  • That's a very interesting proposal to be honest. I think that the only sourced to statistical database will largely clamp down on the type of articles that get create for non-notable players. snood1205 21:12, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't really see a reason for this. The NFOOTY guideline is just that, a guideline. It is not ironclad and can be overturned if there are not enough sources. Best to deal with this on a case-by-case basis at AfD. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 22:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose On the basis that it is still a reasonable criterion for a guideline as moving from 0 to 1 games is a "step-up" of greater magnitude than from 2 to 3 games. Additionally, there is AFD process to delete non-notable players who meet the 1 game criterion but still fail GNG on other metrics. Matilda Maniac (talk) 22:24, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment More to the arguments related to the relationship of the SNG to the GNG. All of the SNGs are basically means of presuming notability for a topic as to allow article creation (and thus visible to all members of the community to help improve) but towards a point where we know, after (infinity+1) time, that there was significant coverage to write a reasonably comprehensive article. (Even NPROF can be seen this way, though its more to point out that a academic's research is often better covered than the academic themselves). If there aren't any sources to support significant coverage in an article, then we shouldn't have such an article, but we give editors the benefit of doubt and the time via the SNGs. NSPORT just happens to be the most explicit about that because the current "played one game" is a very iffy means to judge if significant coverage will come out of that. I don't have an opinion on this specific change outside that it should be reflected for all sports in NSPORT, but it should be kept in mind at what number of games does non-routine coverage usually become assured for a player? --Masem (t) 01:43, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose as there are big differences in how this relates to players' footballing history. For example, a player may have previously played hundreds of games in the top level of football in his country where football is high profile but not fully professional before playing a fully pro game that would qualify for N.FOOTY and therefore there is substantial coverage of them. I know that should be covered by WP:GNG but in practice many football editors defer to the SNG, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 08:29, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I don't think raising the bar itself means anything, because we'll still get GNG wrongly ignored when there's enough appearances (as stated by the main FAQ, NSPORT isn't above it) by editors here, just because of NFOOTY...such as this AfD Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Mikael_Blomberg. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 20:59, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

• I'm also dealing with one of those at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Toby Crabel (2nd nomination), where people keep claiming that the sports SNGs supplant the GNG requirements, which is blatant nonsense that the FAQ specifically says otherwise. Silverseren^C 21:03, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

• Um that AfD is for a tennis player not a footballer, so don't see how it's relevant. Lots of footballers who pass WP:NFPOTY by virtue of a few appearances have been deleted for failing WP:GNG, the fact other sports don't do it isn't a reason to change NFOOTY arbitrarily. Joseph2302 (talk) 21:30, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

• ? I'm just giving an example of people misleadingly claiming that the sports SNGs make the GNG not required, which is false. I voted oppose above, friend. So I'm not sure what your reply has to do with me. Silverseren^C 21:32, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

• Yes but that isn't the case in football AFDs, so not sure how it's relevant to this discussion? This is a discussion on footballers, not on sportspeople in general. Joseph2302 (talk) 21:33, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

  There are still plenty of editors who !vote "Keep passes NFOOTY" (even some who routinely !vote against overwhelming consensus within an AfD) and refuse to respond to or even acknowledge someone noting the correct relationship to GNG. Granted, nowadays there is a strong trend for closers to ignore such !votes, but that doesn't mean they don't still happen (like this AfD where keep arguments are either "meets NFOOTY" or "an interview in a student newspaper at the school the athlete attends is an independent source demonstrating GNG"). JoelleJay (talk) 21:57, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

• @Ortizesp: you were not pinged, but I believe this was directed at you. RE: Amanda Dennis and student newspapers, I have responded in that AfD asking for clarification. Jay eyem (talk) 23:32, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

• I don't agree even with the principle that NFOOTY should be tied to GNG, although I acknowledge that it's a minority opinion at this point.--Ortizesp (talk) 23:47, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose arbitrary number, as stated by others above. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 15:17, 5 January 2022 (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.

NCYC: does competing in a World Cup race really give notability?

I just created Mees Hendrikx, who meets WP:NCYC but is truly borderline notable (and if people would prefer to move it to draft for now, feel free). It looks to me that many other riders who have competed in a World Cup race will not even be borderline notable, but will fail to meet the WP:GNG completely. Note that according to NCYC, competing in any world cup (at elite level presumably) is sufficient, but that for three of these World Cups, we don't even have articles: UCI Trials World Cup, UCI Cycle-ball World Cup, and UCI Para-cycling Road World Cup. And even for those were we have articles, like the cyclo-cross, it seems that many riders will not meet WP:GNG. Should the "World Cup" be removed from NCYC (for men and women)? Fram (talk) 13:37, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

If NCYC is meant to cover all the events noted at UCI World Cups, I would definitely say that was unsatisfactory. Personally, for individual sports (as opposed to team ones), I'm not keen on having "competed in" as a criteria, unless its clearly a high standard, like playing in the Ryder Cup. "Significant coverage" in individual sports nearly always goes with success, not just competing. Nigej (talk) 16:09, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I actually have the reverse view - someone who plays 15 minutes in one soccer game the English Third Division is likely going to receive less coverage than even the last place finisher (or second-to-last, since the last place finisher often gets more coverage than those just ahead of them, particularly in cycling where the Lanterne rouge is a thing) in a major individual competition like the Olympics or World Championships since the coverage on the former would be on the whole team, not necessarily on an individual who played very briefly and did absolutely nothing of note. Smartyllama (talk) 17:20, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

WP:NBasketball

As per Basketball guidelines there is only limited amount of Professional Leagues and no International Associations included within the guidelines of notability. e.g if the player competed at international FIBA level may deemed not notable, Although he played for National Team.

FIBA International competitions e.g FIBA European Championships, FIBA World Championship.

Also other leagues by league prestige should be included as well. E.G Lithuanian Basketball League, Adriatic Basketball League, etc. as them are deemed prestigious and professional competition, and as per page in a nutshell explains, that any professional level appearance is deemed notable. E.G player appearing in Lithuanian Basketball League, should be stated notable. Paulmafija (talk) 15:22, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

See this discussion from a year ago: Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 38#NBASKETBALL: Adriatic league. Someone said there: "You'd need to demonstrate that anyone that played just one game in the league and didnt play anywhere else has enough significant coverage to meet GNG 95+% of the time. All bios are already notable if they pass GNG, even without NBASKETBALL. Are there a lot of AfDs for Adriatic players?" Also note that WP:NBASKETBALL does not determine who is notable or not, it just says who is "presumed" notable. Nigej (talk) 15:45, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Olympic players (FIBA sponsors that basketball tournament as well) are covered under WP:NOLYMPICS. There are a limited number of leagues under WP:NBASKETBALL because the project has tried to take seriously the idea that any league listed should have the vast majority of it's members (like 90-95%) meet WP:GNG. If you have a specific league you'd like to add, start a conversation at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Basketball and members can help test it. There may be some merit for the FIBA World Cup (though I honestly can't remember a player who appeared in that tournament being nominated for deletion). Rikster2 (talk) 16:16, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I've long thought we should add a few more league to the automatic notability criteria, but it has always been shot down in discussions over the years. Regardless, it is not usually an issue since those players meet GNG anyway most of the time. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 13:15, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Village pump proposal to abolish NSPORT

A discussion is taking place at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Abolish NSPORTS to determine whether or not NSPORT should be abolished. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:58, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Fixing an obvious mistake

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.

---

Since some people are making this unexplainably difficult (hence why ditching the whole of this seems like a really good thing to do): Proposal: replace the following sentence of WP:NSPORTSEVENT

Some games or series are inherently notable, [...]

with the following

Some games or series are likely or almost certain to be considered notable, [no change to rest]

Rationale: simple enough, nothing is "inherently" notable and fixing this little poor choice of vocabulary (which gives a misleading impression) should never have required yet another RfC. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:11, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

• Support as proposer. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:11, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support: Heck, the players are only "presumptively" notable. Ravenswing 14:18, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support. This seems like a reasonable change in the language, but I do believe that it needed to be discussed here before being implemented unilaterally, as it represents a material change. Cbl62 (talk) 14:20, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

  Material changes affect or significantly alter the fundamental meaning of something. This is a minor wording change which should never have required more than a bold edit to fix it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:23, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

You really like to argue. I said "support" ... but procedure is important. Nobody is a czar here. Material changes to long-standing language should be discussed, and if reasonable, there will be little or no opposition. Cbl62 (talk) 14:39, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

• Weak Support These are "almost certain" to be notable in the sense that it's "almost certain" the Sun will rise tomorrow, but it is technically correct. Smartyllama (talk) 14:33, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support. Obvious improvement; as stated, nothing is inherently notable. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 14:35, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support. "Inherently" was a poor choice. Something is only notable because people take notice of it, not because of any "inherent" aspect of the event. Nigej (talk) 14:47, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support. A better description. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 15:49, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• weak support This get's a "who cares" from me. Functionally identical. Hipocrite (talk) 15:56, 20 January 2022 (UTC) (Summoned by bot)
• Support; avoids confusion with the relevant policy cited by the OP. -"Ghost of Dan Gurney" 16:24, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support the principle is that they're likely to be notable, but there could always be exceptions. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:54, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support The principle is sound, though sources should always always always still need to be provided. Using the word "inherently" makes it seem like references aren't necessary for those articles. We should NEVER suggest that. --Jayron32 16:59, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support This is an excellent tweak. valereee (talk) 17:49, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support as "inherently" is too vague. Aasim (talk) 18:18, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support as above. GiantSnowman 21:10, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Support- there is no such thing as inherent notability. Reyk _YO! 21:26, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I've gone ahead and implemented the proposal; this is very clearly snowing. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:40, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Didn't make things "unexplainably difficult" after all. Cbl62 (talk) 21:45, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

No, but it was bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy. I can't imagine myself reverting a pretty obvious change that I myself supported (especially when prior language is 180 degrees opposed to settled policy) just to acquire a cheering section. Ravenswing 22:11, 20 January 2022 (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.

To publish Football player article

There is player Omkar Landge who plays in FC Goa. I already created his draft but it didn't published due to I'm not verified user. Some says pass to you. What should I do ? Khelsport (talk) 16:58, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

• Submit it to Articles for Creation, where a qualified editor will review it for publication. Ravenswing 17:56, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Nutshell

The "This page in a nutshell" currently reads An athlete is presumed to be notable if the person has actively participated in a major amateur or professional competition, surely this should be amended to reflect the change of notability with regards to Olympic (which I am sure everyone would agree is a "major amateur competition") participation? FDW777 (talk) 14:12, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Indeed the wording is a odd, since, generally speaking, notability in sport comes from winning things, which is not even mentioned. Nigej (talk) 14:31, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Pending proposal to declare NSPORTS an invalid argument at AfD

A new proposal is now pending to add language to NSPORT providing, among other things, that "meeting [NSPORTS] would not serve as a valid keep argument in a deletion discussion." If you have views on this proposal, one way or the other, please feel free to add your comments at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Subproposal 1 (NSPORT). Cbl62 (talk) 15:38, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

To no surprise, an NSPORT proposal that's going nowhere. Yet we'll still have horrible AfDs like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Cook (footballer, born 1885) that was just closed. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 23:33, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Despite an impressive pre-season showing by the Unstoppable Force, my money is still on the Immovable Object. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:36, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it's impossible. A previous RfC at VP arrived at the conclusion There is clear consensus that no subject-specific notability guideline, including Notability (sports) is a replacement for or supercedes the General Notability Guideline. Arguments must be more refined than simply citing compliance with a subguideline of WP:NSPORTS in the context of an Articles for Deletion discussion. It just lacked a clear proposal for what language should be added in the guideline. JoelleJay (talk) 00:05, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

So under that prior RfC, GNC supersedes NACADEMIC as well? Cbl62 (talk) 00:29, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Apparently subsequent discussions clarified a consensus that NPROF and GEOLAND were separate from GNG. The other SNGs never got any consensus for exemption. JoelleJay (talk) 00:34, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

The actual discussion was almost entirely focused on the sports notability guideline. As I recall, Masem expressed the view that all subject notability guidelines are subservient to the general notability guideline. The closer may have keyed off that statement when writing the closing statement, but it was an inaccurate summation. isaacl (talk) 00:37, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

That RfC simply affirmed what was already the consensus in multiple prior discussions regarding the sports notability guidelines, including the original discussion that approved the guidelines. (And the closing statement was inaccurate by referring to all subject-specific notability guidelines, thus triggering later discussions that were based on an incorrect view of consesnsus.) isaacl (talk) 00:14, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I rather like the closing statement. If all subjects (including Wyoming state legislators representing 7,000 people and chemistry profs that 99.99999% of the population have never heard of) were held to the same standard of GNG and SIGCOV compliance, there would be much less of a sense here that NSPORTS is being singled out for disparate treatment. Cbl62 (talk) 00:55, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

So originally I was going to post a response to either this comment or the one in the main thread where you also mention NPROF, but it grew far too large to be appropriate in either discussion, and since it ended up consolidating thoughts I've had for a while on the utility of NPROF, I instead created a minimalist subpage for it here. It's rough and not directly derived from anything written in P&Gs, so it shouldn't be taken as remotely authoritative. But it's at least my personal justification for what NPROF accomplishes and why it exists the way it does, and might even be consistent with the interpretations of major editors in academia like DGG and David Eppstein. JoelleJay (talk) 03:52, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Another attempt to alert specific users (DGG and David) to the discussion? Cbl62 (talk) 04:22, 23 January 2022 (UTC)\

In case it's relevant, I did already see the VPP discussion, not because of any pings. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:36, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, but for the purposes of looking at my NPROF essay... Neither of those users regularly closes or participates in sports AfDs, although DGG left a very neutral, bordering on SNG-supporting comment in the Pete Vainowski DRV, and from our interactions I get the impression David actually has a pretty negative opinion of me. Any chance you could AGF here? JoelleJay (talk) 06:44, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

We're both Davids. And although we've had some prickly interactions, my overall opinion of you is not especially negative. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:46, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

@JoelleJay: I apologize for failing to assume good faith. The attacks on NSPORTS has triggered a somewhat defensive reaction on my part, and I will try to do better in the future. Cbl62 (talk) 07:52, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, I just wanted to note a more recent example of an RfC successfully finding consensus for functionally the exact same proposal I made. JoelleJay (talk) 00:36, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Sure, but it doesn't work as a counterexample to proposals that don't go anywhere, since consensus stayed the same as it had been, and so nothing changed. isaacl (talk) 00:40, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I participated in the original discussion re passage of NSPORTS, and there was no consensus there that "meeting [NSPORTS] would not serve as a valid keep argument in a deletion discussion." Cbl62 (talk) 00:45, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm interested in all general discussions of the notability guidelines, even in topic areas which do not otherwise greatly interest me. I consider we made a mistake when we gradually deprecated the SNGs. Putting everything in the GNG is an unrealistic reduction of the complexities of subjects in the different areas of human affairs. We find ways to evade the worst absurdities by adjusting what being substantial coverage, or, for individuals, used strained interpretations of BLP1E. Using notability based only of media coverage adopts the standards of the pr industry. Notability should mean importance or significance, and be based on the standards of the field being discussed. So JJ can scarcely have been trying to shift the discussion by trying to get me involved, because I think the question should first be, whether NSPORTS is an alternative to the GNG where passing either is sufficient, or a limitation on the GNG, where passing both are required, or my preferred choice, the only standard with the GNG being irrelevant in the field. The one position I would rule out is the direction we seem to be going, that the GNG is the only standard with the SNG existing merely as a guide to it. (And I would say just the same in every area where a rational SNG could be developed). The secondary problem is deciding on the place to draw the line in each specific topic.

Opposition to this in my opinion comes from the unspoken preference for a standard so meaningless by itself that one can construct an argument on the basis of it to include or exclude whatever one might wish to. Many of us think we are good at finding such arguments, and that's why AfD is a game. But it's a dangerously harmful game, for it focuses energies on whether we should have distinct articles instead of concentrating on improving articles. DGG ( talk ) 08:12, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

2021 in review

As evidenced by this week's series of RfCs seeking to abolish or quasi-abolish or gut NSPORTS, there appears to be both a growing anti-sports sentiment and a prevailing opinion that NSPORTS editors are stubborn inclusionists with no sense of what's really notable. My sense is quite different, that most active editors here take notability quite seriously. In order to demonstrate this seriousness, I prepared this "year in the review".

Successful efforts to narrow NSPORT's scope

• An April 2021 proposal to remove Arena Football League players from NGRIDIRON's presumption was adopted.
• An August 2021 proposal to drastically narrow WP:NOLYMPICS received extensive participation and passed. The old guideline presumed notability for all Olympic participants. The new guideline limits the presumption only to medal winners.
• An August 2021 proposal to narrow the scope of WP:NTENNIS (by removing presumptive notability for participation in the Fed Cup and Davis Cup) was adopted.
• A November 2021 RfC to establish stricter language for WP:NMOTORSPORTS was adopted.
• A December 2021 proposal regarding WP:NARENA was adopted clarifying that there is no presumptive notability for such arenas, stadia, and sports arenas, as notability is not inherited.
• In December 2021, an ANI discussion about concerns with mass creation of cricket and Olympic sub-stubs resulted in a community sanction against one editor T-banning the user from creating articles that comprise less than 500 words.
• A January 2022 RfC to eliminate "inherently notable" language from NSPORTEVENT was unanimously adopted.

Unsuccessful efforts to narrow NSPORTs

• A series of proposals starting in December 2020 (and continuing into January 2021) to eliminate or tighten NCRIC resulted in mountains of discussion, but it's unclear if anything changed. Maybe someone can clarify whether there was ultimately some reform.
• An April 2021 proposal to increase NGRIDIRON's threshold from one game to two games did not reach consensus.
• A June 2021 proposal to eliminate provisos creating a presumption of notability based on participation in one game/match (on WP:BIO1E grounds) was defeated.
• An August 2021 proposal by Fram to add a requirement that there be "substantial coverage in at least one non-routine source" was closed with a finding that there was not consensus.
• A December 2021 RfC to increase NFOOTY's threshold from one game to three games was defeated.

Efforts to make NSPORTS even more inclusive defeated

• A February 2021 discussion of presumed notability for assistant baseball coaches was rejected.
• A February 2021 proposal to establish presumed notability for darts players was rejected.
• A February 2021 proposal to add handball to NSPORTS was not adopted.
• An April 2021 proposal to establish presumptive notability for competitors in sailing was rejected.
• An April 2021 proposal to expand NCOLLATH to cover college athletes in Canada, the Philippines, the UK, and Japan was rejected.
• A May 2021 to create a presumption of notability for Sambo athletes did not reach consensus.
• In July 2021, a generalized proposal to establish new criteria for snowboarders went nowhere.
• A July 2021 proposal to expand WP:NBASKETBALL's list of international leagues was not adopted.
• An August 2021 to establish a presumption of notability for players in several "floorball" leagues failed to reach consensus.
• An October 2021 proposal to add presumptive notability for bowlers did not reach consensus.
• An October 2021 proposal to add presumptive notability for sports referees was rejected.
• A January 2022 proposal to expand NBASKETBALL to include the Lithuanian and Adriatic Basketball Leagues was not adopted.

Additions to NSPORTS

• A February 2021 proposal to modify WP:NMMA creating presumptive notability for fighters ranked in the world top 10 was adopted.

The record of 2021 belies the popular notion that NSPORTS editors are stubborn or reckless inclusionists. To the contrary, most sports editors take notability issues very seriously and have acted with considerable diligence in limiting the presumption of notability. Cbl62 (talk) 03:26, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

A note on NSPORT systematic bias

Arguments have been made that these guidelines help address WP:SYSTEMATICBIAS; that they support the creation of articles about female athletes. The reverse is true; as can be seen in the table below these guidelines focus on men's leagues and men's tournaments, and in doing so make it easier to create biographies about men than it is to create biographies about women, likely contributing to why only 17% of biographies cover women. Further, these guidelines make it harder to delete biographies about men than it is to delete biographies about women, which likely contributes to why 41% of biographies nominated for deletion cover women.

This issue of NSPORT contributing to systematic bias extends beyond specific SNG's, and to NSPORT in general as it lacks SNG's on sports where women's participation and coverage exceeds men's, such as volleyball, netball, and softball.

Number of men's and women's leagues covered by selected SNGs - these cover approximately 52% of sports biographies, and 16% of biographies

SNG	Men's leagues covered	Women's Leagues covered	Notes
NGRIDIRON	5	0
NFOOTBALL	150	9	Listed at Wikiproject Football; note the women's list is marked as incomplete.
NCRICKET	44	7	Listed at Wikiproject Cricket; note that not all top tier cricket tournaments are considered sufficiently notable to provide presumptive notability, with 49% of listed men's tournaments being considered sufficiently notable, compared to 13% of women's.
NBASKETBALL	11	1
NBASEBALL	11	1

Partially, but not entirely, this reflects a disparity in participation and coverage, but it doesn't alter the fact that not only does NSPORT not reduce the disparity in coverage, it increases it.

To clarify: there are two requirements for an article to be created; notability, and editor time. The former is (or should be) based on significant coverage in independent and reliable sources, and any systematic bias that results from that is beyond our ability to address, and so this note attempts to address the latter.

To summarize this attempt, it is easier to create an article that meets NSPORTS than it is to create an article that meets GNG. Because this is true, because articles that are easier to create are more likely to be created, and because significantly more men than women are covered by NSPORTS, we are effectively encouraging editors to create biographies on men over women. BilledMammal (talk) 12:34, 23 January 2022 (UTC) Clarified BilledMammal (talk) 17:56, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Note that this issue also affects how our coverage is weighted towards the global north; in NGRIDIRON and NBASKETBALL, all the listed leagues are in the global north. In NFOOTBALL, 103 out of 159 leagues are in the global north, while NBASEBALL has ten out of eleven leagues being based in the global north.

NCRICKET is a rare exception to this, with 27 out of 50 cricket tournaments being in the global south, although as 70 out of the 91 listed as not being sufficiently notable are in the global south it is likely that issues remain. BilledMammal (talk) 12:34, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

In terms of cricket, the inclusion of leagues was based largely on whether we could with any reasonable confidence expect to meet GNG level sourcing for any article. This is partly why there are fewer women's leagues and relatively more from the global south are excluded from the list. For example, good luck finding much coverage consistently of people playing in the Logan Cup. It's there for some, but not consistently enough for us to have included it. There's also the caveat of Players that have played in tournaments deemed non-notable may still be notable if they can be shown to pass the wider requirements of GNG which allows inclusion of anyone playing in any of the other tournaments if there are suitable sources. Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:16, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

You do realize that there simply are more countries in the global north than there are in the global south, don't you? That's why there are more articles on leagues in the north.Tvx1 22:18, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Global North and Global South - there are both more countries and more people in the Global South. BilledMammal (talk) 19:23, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

• This counterargument would only make sense if there was no link at all between these SNGs and GNG. If we were to do as some suggest and get rid of these SNGs, then what would happen is that editors would only create articles based on the coverage they see, and these are even more biased towards Men's sports and the "Global north" than is recognised in the SNGs. The disparaties that exist are down to disparaties in coverage by reliable sources, not disparaties in the SNGs. As for volleyball, netball, and softball, fix the problem and create an SNG for these sports. Iffy★Chat -- 12:47, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

  My objection to that is noted in the first paragraph; the effort and time required to create an article under one of these SNG's is considerably less than the effort and time required to create an article under GNG. When considered with the focus noted above, what this means is that the effort and time required to create a biography for a man is considerably less than the effort and time required to create a biography for a women.

I agree - and noted - that some of this issue is due to the disparity in coverage, but a lot of it is due to the fact that editors are effectively encouraged to create articles about men over articles about women. BilledMammal (talk) 12:57, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

• Personally I always treat NSPORTS as being equal and applying to both men and women. It's only harder because there tends to be less coverage of women who may be eligible for an article. I do think it would be good if we had an editing contest similar to WP:Atdrag with tangible prizes to encourage the creation of more sportswomen. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 13:39, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
• I've found this quite a difficult area to judge. Clearly there's generally much more coverage of male sport than female sport which naturally skews things. Also it's very difficult to judge any sort of "correct" ratio. Volleyball was mentioned above, and I gather that a lot more women play volleyball in the US than men. But is that true world wide? I'm an ex-volleyball player myself and where I'm from I never found that to be the case. The fact that we've got 3500 (3400+ living) female volleyball players and 3600 male golfers (2500 living) when coverage of male golf is 1000 times that of female volleyball in my neck of the woods, doesn't tell me anything about sex bias, it only convinces me that team sports in general are over-represented. Nigej (talk) 16:05, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
• We all know that coverage of men's and women's sport is disparate. What is your point? Is your "solution" to eliminate NSPORTS? If so, that is no solution at all. The disparity in coverage is, unfortunately, far worse that the disparity in NSPORTS. Moreover, your statistical survey is quite skewed in that it omits many sports where participation by women is much higher, e.g., figure skating, tennis, equestrian sport, and gymnastics. The NSPORTS guidelines for these and other sports have great value in encouraging the creation of articles on women. Cbl62 (talk) 16:53, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

My point is that there are two requirements for an article to be created; notability, and editor time. Because creating articles under NSPORTS requires less time than creating them under GNG, we are encouraging editors to write articles that are covered by the former, and because men are far more likely to be covered by NSPORTS than women, we are encouraging editors to write articles on men over women.

And the statistical survey covers 52% of sports biographies; I don't think it is skewed - compare this to 3.3% for figure skating, tennis, and gymnastics (I don't have the figures for equestrian sport, but I assume it isn't particularly high).

As for what to do, that is a more difficult question, but as part of considering these guidelines it is important to keep in mind the behaviours that they will encourage in editors, and whether these behaviours are desirable for the project. BilledMammal (talk) 17:26, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Including WP:NGRIDIRON in your analysis is dubious since there is no major league for women's gridiron football. And WP:NOLYMPICS is another guideline that treats men and woman equally. While progress is needed, the contention that things would be better without NSPORTS is specious. Cbl62 (talk)

I am curious about the stats. Do you have a breakdown by sport for what percentage each major sport makes up of Wikipedia biographies? Cbl62 (talk) 17:32, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

1. Is it easier to create articles that meet NSPORT than it is to create articles that meet GNG?
2. Are significantly more men covered by NSPORT than women?
3. Are articles that are easier to create more likely to be created?

If the answer to all of these is yes, then in the specific area of WP:SYSTEMATICBIAS, Wikipedia would be better off without the aspects of NSPORTS that result in #2 being true - though whether Wikipedia would be better of in general is a different question. As for including NGRIDIRON, the point is that it contributes to the fact that significantly more men are covered by NSPORT than women. Finally, in regards to the stats, I've been using the figures here. BilledMammal (talk) 17:39, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

We disagree as to whether coverage would be better for women without NSPORTS, but I do appreciate your sharing the stats. It would be interesting to see these stats broken down by sex. @Nigej: Do you know of any breakdowns by sport and sex? Cbl62 (talk) 17:57, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

@Cbl62: For the sports you mentioned: "figure skating, tennis, equestrian sport, and gymnastics" the numbers are male: 2000, 5700, 2100, 2900 female: 2300, 4300, 800, 3300 (based on categories like Category:Female tennis players), so roughly 53%, 43%, 28%, 53% female. Totals for all sports will be massively skewed by sports like soccer which has 10,000 female out of the 200,000 total (ie 5%). Nigej (talk) 18:04, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you, Nigej. So women do quite well proportionately in figure skating, tennis, and gymnastics (I expected it to be higher in equestrian), and I think NSPORTS helps in that regard. And, yes, soccer skews everything. Cbl62 (talk) 18:09, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't know if it helps, but it doesn't do harm. What does harm is the aspects that are wildly disproportionate (NFOOTBALL, NGRIDIRON etc) and it is possible that due to that harm Wikipedia would be better off without those specific SNGs. BilledMammal (talk) 18:14, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Has it ever occurred to you that there are certain sports that simply have fewer female competitors than male ones? Let alone notable ones.Tvx1 22:09, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I haven't explained myself well. That is true, and that is not an issue. What is an issue is if we make it easier to create biographies of a men than it is to create to biographies of women, as by doing so we encourage editors to create the former over creating the latter. BilledMammal (talk) 22:25, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

We don’t. Our guidelines are in balance with coverage in reliable sources of males and females.Tvx1 03:16, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

I'd ask you to go over the three questions provided above; if the answers to those are all "yes", then we do. Whether this negative outweighs the positives of the SNG's is a different question, but that question won't change the fact that we make it easier to create articles about men than women beyond the external differences such as coverage, and by doing so create a disparity in coverage beyond what exists in reliable sources. BilledMammal (talk) 03:29, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Not to mention that the women's gridiron league that probably generated the most coverage for its players was the league formerly known as the "Lingerie Football League". Gridiron not only has far fewer women players, its sad that its most covered league was basically pay-per-view entertainment more in line with WP:NENT than NSPORT. Yosemiter (talk) 22:35, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

These are living and dead, which partly explains the equestrian (90% of the women are still alive but only just over half the men) Nigej (talk) 18:18, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

@BilledMammal: I answer these

1. Is it easier to create articles that meet NSPORT than it is to create articles that meet GNG?

   If the NSPORT SNG is accurately calibrated, it should be equal. The SNG by default should be able to GNG (which is true for most, but I do know there is disagreement on certain sports). The problem some have is that certain sports stubs are created without any immediate evidence (non-stats sites) provided, thus leaving others to either expand to prove GNG or doing a proper WP:BEFORE to and AfD/prod.

2. Are significantly more men covered by NSPORT than women?

   I'll fix this for you: Are significantly more men covered by NSPORT reliable and independent media than women?

   Yes, many sports have both a greater quantity of coverage and from better quality of sourcing for men's sports than non-men's sports. There are also usually a much higher number of men's leagues and players in the world in a given sport than women (which is a different set of bias). If there is systemic bias, then it is in the media we are given and we reflect that per WP:RGW. If we take WP:NHOCKEY as an example, the Hockey project has extensively looked into player coverage in the top level amateur and recent pro women's leagues. It showed that most mid-level players did not generate much coverage outside of blogs and school newspapers (about 2/3 might meet GNG, but we could not determine a set of standards that did not look like a bunch of gender-biased qualifiers). Making "special rules/guidelines" simply to make more women have "presumed notability" is just as problematic as equal rules as it would outwardly appear that we, as a group, are holding women to a higher bar of accomplishment when really it is the other way around: media only covers the higher bar of accomplishment. For now, it is what it is, and the only thing we can do to change it is to continue to support the non-men's leagues so that it will be apparent that people do want coverage of said leagues and players.

3. Are articles that are easier to create more likely to be created?

   Probably yes, because there are clearly defined rules of thumb for newer editors to have guidance on. Only have "special rules/guidelines" would alleviate this problem (see above statement).

Not sure this helps, but in short. If the NSPORTS SNG seems biased, it is probably reflective of the GNG itself. It is not meant to be exclusive. Yosemiter (talk) 22:30, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

The problem some have is that certain sports stubs are created without any immediate evidence (non-stats sites) provided, thus leaving others to either expand to prove GNG or doing a proper WP:BEFORE to and AfD/prod. - this is the aspect that I am primarily addressing, as this issue encourages the mass creation of such articles on men, without encouraging any similar mass creation for women, and in doing so means that the disparity in coverage on Wikipedia is greater than the disparity in coverage in the broader world.

And to be clear, I don't believe that the correct response is to encourage any such mass creation for women, I believe the correct result is to discourage the mass creation of such articles in general - we'll still end up with more articles on men than on women, but at least our policies aren't exacerbating this disparity. BilledMammal (talk) 22:48, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I personally don't really disagree with you on that point, although I would argue it's not "easier" with an SNG, just more defined or "clearer". As a community, we have put restrictions on a few editors that were prolific stub creators because of not using sufficient sourcing, thus creating more work for others (a type of WP:DISRUPTIVE editing). The counterpoint usually used to that is when the stubs are questioned, folks can often find the sources to back up GNG, even if the article creator themselves did not. The argument should be where is the line between disruptive creation of stubs and helpful creation of stubs if they will end up meeting GNG either way? Usually it's if someone is making hundreds (or thousands) of stubs for players just because they met the SNG, not just a few. (And I have also seen mass creation of women's players, simply because they felt that the current SNG is biased for following GNG and that GNG is inappropriate for minorities and inherently biased. They are not wrong, but also not right.) Yosemiter (talk) 23:08, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Male sportspeople get a lot more coverage than female sportspeople. Since coverage is at the heart of the GNG, the GNG has more of a problem of systemic bias than this SNG. --Michig (talk) 17:43, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't think I made my initial point well; I have tried to clarify. BilledMammal (talk) 17:56, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

No neither has that problem at all. If there is a difference in the quantity of coverage for male and female competitors in reliable sources in a particular sport, Wikipedia just needs to reflect that. We need to be in balance with the real-life situation. Wikipedia is NOT the place to right great wrongs. It is not our duty to generate a false parity.Tvx1 22:02, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

It is not a "great wrong"... that comes too easily exaggerated off too many tongues these days. We need flexibility in older records because sources are not as easily come by. We should not apply the same standards to things that happen today where sources come out of the woodwork. You don't make things up, and you use sources, but using data for a Wimbledon Champion in 1900 where the best records have been destroyed through time, should be more accepted. Today a high school tennis player can get written up in a newspaper, but they aren't more important than a tennis champion should be. This is where SNGs shine and help out women a great deal as a consequence. We are talking about a small article, not resurrecting the mass extinction of the dodo bird. Older women's tennis articles will almost always have less info than their male counterparts. Even recently the Men have a minor league tennis organization where winners of events only pretty much always have a lock on notability. men also have a minor-minor league where you aren't notable even if you win. The women only had the minor-minor league set up but had payouts in their top echelon that equaled the men's minor league. The WTA just failed to qualify them as minor league. Our guidelines simply struck a minimal balance. It's not righting a great wrong, it's simply fair and just, takes up minimal space and effort, and has worked pretty well. Turning Wikipedia into a strict computer generated yes and no pile of articles seems wrong to me. I saw the same thing with article titles because a few people don't want to allow flexibility, but that ship sailed. Maybe this one will too but I'll still think it's wrong. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:21, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

It's not about righting wrongs. It's about having sensible criteria for when a subject merits an article, which for sportspeople should be based on the significance of their sporting career, which will be determined to some extent by how much their career has been noticed, but that shouldn't be the be all and end all. People write a lot about things that don't really belong in an encyclopedia, which is why GNG is such a clumsy, ill-considered doctrine to follow, which also casts a shadow over many SNGs because of the insistence by some that SNGs must indicate that GNG is likely to be satisfied. --Michig (talk) 11:18, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

• Here's my answer, and my perspective includes being someone who's actually been not only a regular attendee of women's collegiate and professional sport (something I wonder how many proponents of BilledMammal's POV can claim), I've been a print reporter for the same. And with that, feh. SYSTEMICBIAS isn't a guideline, a policy or any sort of mandate. It's an opinion essay. And if it fuels (frankly) bullshit like some of these assertions, it's not worth much even as that. BilledMammal comes up with statements, for instance, such as "NSPORT ... lacks SNG's on sports where women's participation and coverage exceeds men's, such as volleyball, netball, and softball." I notice that BilledMammal carefully left out sports such as gymnastics, figure skating, tennis, golf and athletics, where women's participation and coverage are at the least strong and in several of them exceed men's ... and where there ARE SNGs. And gosh, yes, the "global north" (which encompasses nearly ninety percent of the world's population) likely gets more press coverage than the "global south" ... unless one is ready to fudge the boundaries to better fit their amour propre.

  I could pick nits and poke holes until the cows come home, but here's the bottom line. Once we start ditching neutral, objective notability guidelines with the purported goal of righting great wrongs, where does it stop? Okay, half the planet's population are women. So stipulated. China, for instance, has nearly 20% of the world's population. Is BilledMammal willing to agree that 20% of all biographical articles be reserved for mainland Chinese? (Toss in India, and those two countries are over a third of the world's population.) Africa's got a similar percentage ... should we reserve 20% of biographies for natives of that continent? A quarter of the world's population is Muslim. Should we have a religious test, as well? How about an ethnic one? How many world leaders are black? And by whose count? Barack Obama was widely touted as America's first black president, but in truth he has just as much white ancestry as black.

  And so on, and so forth. Women have no better claim to demographic equality than those of any nationality, ethnicity or faith. And who's going to keep score? Never mind sort out the increasing number of trans and gender-fluid/neutral athletes and other public figures. The resulting firestorm would make ANI look like a garden party. Ravenswing 23:56, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I think you have misunderstood what I am discussing - I am discussing how our policies encourage the creation of articles for men over women, by making the requirements less stringent for such articles. Yes, the disparity exists, but the issue here is that we exacerbate it by setting our policies up in such a way that this is encouraged.

And 90% of the population is not in the global north - 75% of the population is in the global south. See Global North and Global South. BilledMammal (talk) 00:02, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah ... that'd be the "... unless one is ready to fudge the boundaries to better fit their amour propre" part. I completely reject such a completely racist set of boundaries influencing ANY discussion of Wikipedia guidelines or policies. Ravenswing 08:50, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

If reliable sources describe the Global North and Global South concept as racist then I would suggest you add such sources to the article, as currently it makes no mention of such claims. BilledMammal (talk) 09:38, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh for crying out loud -- is your intent to brawl for the sake of brawling? This is not about correcting mistakes in that article, and you ought to know it. This is whether your use of the concept holds water. My reason for thinking that the concept is innately racist is at a casual glance of the map, which very conveniently defines the "south" as everything south of the United States and Russia, except for sliding curious anomalies such as Australia, New Zealand and French Guiana into the "north" -- in other worse, the boundaries of "north" and "south" are defined more or less by whiteness. Ravenswing 17:16, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Not at all, although if you want to say that the concept I used in my analysis is racist without sources, you have to expect me to object to that. And you missed the "curious anomalies" of Singapore, Macao, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea. 19:25, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

The concept of the Global South is in no way racist - I'm frankly amazed that you never came across the Brandt Line in high school geography lessons. Perhaps you're old enough that they were called Third World Countries.

I felt it was interesting to consider the way in which different sports are represented with respect to what is essentially their development status. Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:43, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

And we have told you umpteen times that your assertion is wrong. These guidelines are no intentionally set up to make creation of articles dealing with males easier. There is no pro-men program being wrong here.Tvx1 03:24, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

And I don't believe they are intentionally set up in such a way. However, the inadvertent but functional effect of these guidelines is to make the creation of articles dealing with men easier, and we need to consider this functional effect and factor it into our considerations and decisions. BilledMammal (talk) 03:32, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

It seems you are against GNG then. If people put in the work to make an SNG that regularly meets GNG, and sources that meet GNG happen to have bias, then you think you think we should throw that work away? It's not our fault, or our responsibility, to fix what outside media covers. There are some sports, right now anyways, where there are 10x-100x more pro men's players than women's players in the world (gridiron, football, hockey, and basketball just to name a few). We can not fix that here by deleting the SNGs. Yosemiter (talk) 04:36, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

No. While GNG does result in a gender disparity, it only does this because it reflects the gender disparity in coverage and there is nothing we can or should do to correct this. These SNG's magnifies the gender disparity by making the average requirements to create an article on men less than the requirements to create an article on women, resulting in the disparity on Wikipedia being greater than the disparity outside of Wikipedia.

You can argue that this is acceptable, that the benefit of this is greater than the cost - but I'm not sure I would agree, particularly since the benefit is significant numbers of micro stubs, and the cost is contributing to systematic bias, in addition to the harm this causes to Wikipedia's reputation. BilledMammal (talk) 05:32, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

And as you can see, there are quite a few editors who don't agree that this damages Wikipedia's reputation, that any fix you propose would reduce the number of microstubs, that "systemic bias" (or your definition of the same, anyway) is an evil which we must combat at all costs, and that imposing anti-"systemic bias" policies would create problems worse than you decry. Ravenswing 08:50, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

If deleting the SNG doesn't effectively change the inherent systemic bias in the GNG for a topic, then it's not a change at all (and some might call virtue signalling). It would just be throwing baby out with the bath water. Additionally, it would create chaos as each individual sports wikiproject would (and already has) come up with its own "rules of thumb" that would in effect act as a stand in for "presumed notability". At least by having it all in one place, we can monitor each other's assessments here. We shouldn't be hiding the bias by kicking it down a level, we should be highlighting how to counteract it (although, this would also look bad as it would look like we are holding minorities to a different standard). When it comes to bios, history is systemically biased in nearly all regards. It takes time to fix, but it shouldn't be hidden or ignored. Yosemiter (talk) 13:56, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

My point is that this creates bias beyond that which exists in the coverage, as (assuming it is effective as a notability guide) it doesn't result in more men being notable, but it does result in it being easier to create articles on notable men than notable women, and as a result the ratio of articles on men to articles on women is greater than it should be. BilledMammal (talk) 19:30, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

• There's one area that relates to categories, not NSPORTS, which I'll mention, since the topic is being discussed. Most sports have pairs of categories like male/female tennis players, male/female gymnasts, etc. However that's not universally the case. Some sports have a presumed assumption in the category structure that players are of one sex (generally male). Soccer is like this. We have the (oddly named) Category:Women's association football players but nothing corresponding to that for men. So while Roger Federer is in Category:Swiss male tennis players and Fara Williams is in Category:English women's footballers, David Beckham is in Category:English footballers. A few sports have 100% of one sex (I think netball is an example) so they don't need such a structure but it might be worth sports in this boat reviewing this aspect. Nigej (talk) 07:13, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

I did a study of 1,000 random articles. And I divided every biography category into recent (active at their noted thing in the last 15 years) and non-recent. I considered a test of male/female bias to be recent non-sports bios and those were about 50/50 men/women. Both sports bios categories heavily male dominated, but for the older category this is even more so. And, while not directly relevant here, sports bios were over-represented, being 31% of all wiki bios.

BTW, from my NPP work, the main "way in" for nearly all sports bios is the SNG, and specifically the "did it for a living for one day" criteria. My guess is that the SNG is problematic but not sex-biased. Collectively it mostly just goes by the number of professional athletes collectively over the last 75 years which is heavily male-dominated. If you go one step deeper and analyze how it tracks GNG, my guess is that it does. GNG itself probably needs to be calibrated for sports. This is because, for this field uniquely, coverage itself is created mostly a form of entertainment, and so creation of such is less an indicator of notability. North8000 (talk) 20:19, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

• I tend to agree with you. I've come to the conclusion that the "did it for a living for one day" criteria are a fundamental issue, and mainly relate to team sports. Most individual sports are more based on the "won something fairly big once" sort of criteria. I've not found much evidence that its sex-biased. I suspect the biggest problem related to sex-bias in the sports area is the sex of the editors, which is clearly male-dominated, probably even more so that male-dominated participation or coverage. In my own area, golf, I've focused mainly on the men's game but recently more on the "ladies", and I've found that there's actually a surprisingly large amount of coverage of the women's game in old newspapers. So in this area I suspect the issue is more related to the interests of the male editors, leading to an imbalance in our coverage. Nigej (talk) 20:46, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

• I for one would strongly oppose an apartheid-like regime (yes, hyperbole) under which athletes are treated as second-class persons or untouchables (yes, very bad and now mixed metaphor). I sympathize with and support efforts to reform those parts of NSPORTS that are not sufficiently calibrated to GNG, but then imposing a different GNG rule for athletes is "a bridge too far" (or adding to the metaphor spree, a "double whammy" -- though not the third through sixth linked definitions which have unexpected sexual connotations). SIGCOV is SIGCOV, and reliable sources are reliable sources, whether we're analyzing athletes, entertainers, business persons, poets, or military leaders. Cbl62 (talk) 21:09, 24 January 2022 (UTC)