Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not § RfC: Deprecating WP:NOTDIR

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not § RfC: Deprecating WP:NOTDIR. Olympian notability is mentioned there. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:32, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

More eyes welcome on this AfD

Especially as regards non-trivial local coverage of the subject in his capacity as a police chief. JoelleJay (talk) 17:25, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

These new guidelines are a mess

I know i've been away from this page for a bit.. but these new guidelines are a mess... no baseball players are notable but basketball players are notable just for being drafted or winning an award in the fricken G League? Hockey players are notable for being second team conference all-stars in college? There is no consistency here at all or anything that makes sense. Why are second team Big 10 All-Stars in hockey more notable than MLB All-Stars? I guarantee there is more coverage of the second group. Spanneraol (talk) 02:48, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Clearly I've been away from this page too. Last I remember, this guideline had been gutted and everything was supposed to be about actual coverage, not guesses about it. Where did these new things come from? Second team hockey All-Americans? – Muboshgu (talk) 02:54, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Largely because there was a consensus to remove all participation based criteria, and given historic abuse of any criteria added to this guideline editors are reluctant to replace them with anything. I suggest the best option would be to get rid of criteria like Hockey players are notable for being second team conference all-stars in college. BilledMammal (talk) 02:56, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

• You are correct, Spanneaol. Leaving everything to GNG provides no guidance to editors as to which athletes are truly notable. Under the old WP:NBASE, there was a presumption that MLB players (the apex of the baseball world) were notable and articles on minor league players were discouraged. Under the new system, minor and major league players are on the same footing, and it just depends on how diligent someone is in searching for coverage. The reality is that merit-based criteria (e.g., apex players more notable that minor-league players) are helpful to both sides, but the deletionist group will never admit they were wrong, and the result is that more baseball players (especially minor-league players) pass muster than before. Cbl62 (talk) 03:15, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
• Baseball players are notable if they have the significant coverage to pass GNG, just like anyone else. The participation based guidelines where an extremely poor indicator of notability so there was a consensus to remove them as they were constantly used to keep articles of non-notable players whose only claim to fame was that the played in a match where everybody got paid. What I found worse was that it was also used by certain editors in attempts to delete articles of athletes that didn't pass those particular sport guidelines despite them passing GNG with flying colors (for instance minor league and amateur players).

For the record, what is left of NSPORTS should probably be scrapped as it is an inconsistent, useless mess. Alvaldi (talk) 11:32, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

While many participation guidelines were poor indicators of notability, NBASE was actually an excellent indicator insofar as it applied to 20th/21st century players in MLB. I'm not aware of any successful AfDs targeted at this category of players. Cbl62 (talk) 11:41, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I notice, Cbl62, that you specify a timeframe specifically to exclude baseball players Lewis and Jones, which were the catalysts for the overturning of NSPORT in the first place, because they were Featured articles without any actual content to them except extraneous fluff not about the people in question. They utterly failed notability in every possible manner. Silverseren^C 01:43, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

You are correct. SIGCOV can be more challenging when it comes to 19th century players, especially the handful of players for whom we don't even have a given name. For 20th/21st century players, I don't think we've ever seen an MLB player deleted. While we could have used some discretion in limiting participation criteria to circumstances where it was a true and precise indicator of notability (20th/21st century MLB), the mentality at the time of the RfC was to simply nuke everything rather than calibrate more precisely. Cbl62 (talk) 01:52, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I would be entirely comfortable with NSPORTS being replaced altogether by the GNG, but that aside, some observations:

First off, the whole reason criteria was devolved to the individual Wikiprojects/sports was that one size does NOT fit all. Historically, minor leagues in American football/basketball have been weak or non-existent; minor leagues in hockey, baseball and soccer have been strong, with century-plus histories. American college play has been highly notable in some cases (football and basketball, especially) and not in most others, while Canadian collegiate play isn't, across the board. There are sports where being an Olympic gold medalist is no guarantee of being able to meet the GNG, and ones where, in fact, being a second team All-American pretty much is. (Do any of you really think there's an American football All-American from Walter Camp's first picks on forward for whom SIGCOV can't be found?)

Secondly, some of the projects themselves have built in prejudices. The baseball project, for instance, has historically been hostile to the notion of minor league notability, however much numerous minor league teams have played for as much as a century in large metropolitan areas and major media markets.

Thirdly, my answer to the "merit-based" argument is that for the most part those standards are both completely subjective and pretty much untested.

And finally ... editors descended on NSPORTS and made changes like eliminating participation standards because sports-oriented editors were digging in their heels at every remove and resisting correcting abuses. It is frigging farcical that at one point, one biographical article in seven was of a soccer player. Between bits like that and the rampages of the Lugnutses and Dolovises, we should be less surprised that non-sports editors stepped in to start the reforms we weren't accomplishing, as that it took them so long to do it. Ravenswing 12:20, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Update on the soccer biography situation. When I looked 3 years ago we had 153,000 living "Association football players" out of 970,000 living people (15.8%). Just looked and we now have 174,000 living soccer players out of 1,070,000 living people (16.3%). So it won't be too long before we have 1/6 of our biographies of living people that are notable because they kick a round ball around some grass. (for all living sport competitors we're up slightly from 46.4% to 46.7%) Nigej (talk) 13:34, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

(shakes his head) Simply absurd. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if non-sports editors descended en masse and imposed notability guidance more restrictive than the GNG. The 2022 RfCs were warning shots that NSPORTS regulars continue to ignore at our peril. Ravenswing 14:11, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Do we have other mass creators in the soccer area? I had thought we had got rid of Lugnuts and any others who mass created stubs without significant coverage. (I, for one, have made sure always to follow notability in my creations since 2022 and haven't done a stub article in nearly two years) BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:16, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I suspect not. Just look at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Football articles by quality log to see the massive activity in this area (this is just the talkpage assessments in the project). Looking at the latest daily "Assessed" section I find Aaron James (footballer, born 2005), Benê (footballer, born 1971), Cosmin Bucuroiu etc. 25 of these every day adds up over the years. Nigej (talk) 15:35, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I've always thought this has become a load of garbage since it was demolished in March 2022. I actually used to use it to try to improve / keep articles, now those who do so are chastised *unless they use it to delete content* – the criteria are just in shambles and make no sense (NBA minor league all-star > NBA all-star???) – what makes even less sense is that meeting the criteria is completely irrelevant – they will still be deleted if no significant coverage is found – and sadly this page is still used about 21 times a day by different users (I pity those who are confused as heck by the complete disorder of notability guidelines for sports). At this point, as I remember one user say, we've over-pruned the tree so that there's just one twig left, let's put the remaining twig out of its misery. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:13, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Also, we got rid of all the criteria that made since under the guise of "all participation criteria must be removed now because none are accurate notability indicators!!!" but I still see some standing: e.g., National Football League (American football) players are not given presumed (or should I say, siginificant-coverage-is-likely-to-exist-treatment) notability, but those in the Irish NFL are? See also Cricket: Have played at the international level for a Test-playing nation; Cue sports decides their own notability?; Curling: Have won a World Curling Tour event or participated in a Grand Slam of Curling event.; Golf: They have competed in the Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup, Solheim Cup, or similar international competition; and Tennis: Have competed in the main draw in one of the highest-level professional tournaments. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:23, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I would say that the 2022 RFC only addressed the participation-based criteria without thinking through what remains of the SNG (and I think why some editors want to scrap the entirety of the SNG).

Nothing is preventing the community from rewriting and reorganizing the SNG to make it work. - Enos733 (talk) 15:28, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

And I have started a complete rewrite of NSPORTS here. Suggestions welcome. For the record, I did start with incorporating some of the logic of NCORP. - Enos733 (talk) 22:33, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

The community is what prevents the SNG from being re-written to work - nobody on a certain side of the debate (which has a large amount of members) will accept any re-writing of the guidelines unless that re-writing is demolishing NSPORT - for example, if you look at every proposal for any additions to this guideline since it was gutted in 2022 you will see all of the ones without total GNG compliance are rejected, and all the ones with total GNG compliance are rejected - there is no way to win and no way this can work anymore - I even got immediately reverted when I did what seemed like a simple improvement of the wording. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:13, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Regarding curling: in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 49 § Curling, I believe only a couple of people who do not regularly edit curling articles participated, one who commented generally on participation criteria without, as far as I can tell, examining the specific circumstances of how the curling tournament hierarchy works. Most of the discussion was between a prolific curling editor and me, the other participant who doesn't edit curling articles regularly. Unless more editors are willing to participate, and to examine particulars for the sport in question, establishing consensus can't happen. isaacl (talk) 15:43, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Oh there is massive hypocrisy and discrepancy here - some popular sports (soccer primarily) have had their guidelines completely removed, yet other sports retain participation-based criteria. It's a nonsense. GiantSnowman 21:03, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

We should probably just remove all of the sections on the individual sports just leaving the broad overview sections. Spanneraol (talk) 21:18, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree. I was involved heavily in the discussions that overhauled NSPORTS and those that came after it, but cannot recall why some survived. GiantSnowman 21:19, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Others survived because they were not based on mere participation for one match. Cbl62 (talk) 01:14, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Golf and Motorsports still have the participation criteria in their sections... and why do Basketball minor league all-stars get listed? And the non-participation criteria for baseball and football were scrapped as well. Spanneraol (talk) 02:16, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I disagree with the A-bomb approach. There are still useful criteria for some sports. I, too, am frustrated with the nuking of WP:NBASE and WP:NGRIDIRON, but we shouldn't let our frustration lead us to nuke the rest of the sports world as well. Cbl62 (talk) 01:10, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

To be honest, Cbl62, I initially really liked the idea of NSPORT - and I was a big supporter of it - however, since its nuking in 2022 it pretty much worthless - nuking "the rest of the sports world as well" wouldn't be much of a difference, really - we still delete articles on Olympic medalists and we still delete articles on those who pass the remaining criteria - getting rid of the whole thing would probably be beneficial at this point as the only thing it does nowadays is confuse / frustrate newcomers and those unfamiliar with sports when their NSPORT-passing articles are deleted. BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:18, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

It is not worthless. It is a tree that has been trimmed severely, but the roots are still there, and the time will come when the climate will be more conducive to regrowing old branches. Keep the roots intact. Cbl62 (talk) 01:40, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I remember that RFC that led to everything being nuked.. every time a suggestion was voted down the people pushing it kept adding new options until the whole thing was so unwieldly and impossible to follow that those opposed to the changes got confused and stopped participating.. it was a clusterfuck.. i don't know how it ever got consensus. Spanneraol (talk) 02:16, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

The original proposal was to nuke NSPORT altogether. That proposal failed. The follow-on proposal to eliminate participation guidelines did pass. Cbl62 (talk) 02:38, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

The RFC was mostly to get rid of the "did it for a living for one day" criteria which most would agree was too loose. And nobody has substantially tackled the immensely complex job of coming up with an SNG standard that is one level tougher than that. Which leaves GNG. Just briefly mentioning an abstract discussion, because the ratio of coverage to the notability of the wp:notability ecosystem is so high in sports (because the coverage is itself a form of entertainment) the potential to flood wikipedia with non-notable sports figures. But IMO neither of the extremes is happening for new articles. (NPP observations including of myself) Instead maybe an evolving defacto standard seems to include a work-based consideration. If there is a new article where the editor has included a couple sources that are just a step above database type sources, and includes a few paragraphs of prose then IMO it gets in without needing to strictly and fully meet GNG.

IMO the other high quantity type that I think is still in the question zone is one where it is one of the infinite possible multi-criteria combinations. E.G a stats-only article "the 2012 season of the portion of XYZ team's games in the abc region" I sure wish that the SNG folks would create criteria for these. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:57, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

SNG as far as I'm concerned is out of question for this discussion for this topic if we're talking about reforming N:SPORTS in my honest opinion, because chances are it will get rejected. Ivan Milenin (talk) 01:39, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Notability of Winter Sports athletes

Are there special notability guidelines for Winter Sports athletes? BurningKestrel (talk) 11:05, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

• Only for figure skating, ice hockey, and curling. Cbl62 (talk) 11:34, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  Would it make sense to have guidelines for the FIS-disciplines too? The are organized very similar to each other, so you could make a general guideline, like "all athletes that scored points in the world cup are notable" or something like this. BurningKestrel (talk) 20:26, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  Do those athletes generally pass WP:GNG? Alvaldi (talk) 20:35, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  I dont know. Its just how they do it in German Wikipedia and I have no other idea. It would mean that they were in the Top-30 of a race in the highest "league" BurningKestrel (talk) 22:42, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

  FIS = International Ski and Snowboard Federation. If they've won an Olympic medal, then WP:NOLYMPICS would apply. Cbl62 (talk) 22:00, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Suggested change to N:TRACK #1

WP:NTRACK #1 says "Finished top 8 in a competition at the highest level outside of the Olympic Games and world championships. Individual events in these championships must contain either several heats or extended fields (e.g., European Athletics Championships, Commonwealth Games, or any of the 6 World Major Marathons)." This was written back when Olympic participation gave a presumption of notability. So now, a top 8 finish in the Commonwealth games gives a presumption of notability, but a top 8 finish in the Olympics does not. I would suggest a change to "Finished top 8 in a competition at the Olympic Games, world championships, or the highest level outside of the Olympic Games and world championships. Individual events in these championships must contain either several heats or extended fields (e.g., European Athletics Championships, Commonwealth Games, or any of the 6 World Major Marathons)." RonSigPi (talk) 11:36, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Given the consensus about the Olympics (i.e. medalists being presumed notable) I'd have thought it would make sense to combine #1 and #2 of WP:NTRACK, restricting both to the top 3. Nigej (talk) 18:53, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that is a correct basis. Athletics is a marquee event of the Olympics, so i don't think the consensus on the Olympics is relevant to group Athletics with Modern pentathlon and Tug of war. To me, the way it stands makes sense - top 8 (size of sprint finals) for major competitions, podium for regional and small elite field events, and gold for youth/junior. However, the major competitions expressly exclude the highest events, presumably because they were previously addressed. So I am just trying to fix what appears to be an inadvertent inconsistency/something not updated when the previous change occurred. If you want to downgrade the World Marathon Majors and European Championships, then have at it; but I am looking to correct what I think is a clear error on its face and not open up a whole can of worms here. RonSigPi (talk) 00:03, 25 November 2023 (UTC)

The trouble is that by expanding the Olympics up to 8 you're the one opening up a can of worms. If athletics why not swimming? I wouldn't necessarily be against increasing it to 8 (or some other number) if evidence was produced that those up to 8th are highly likely to be notable. As ever with the Olympics it's the early ones that are likely to be the most problematic in this area. Nigej (talk) 18:10, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

For a similar recent discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 55#Fixing WP:NATH inconsistency. It seems to be acknowledged that there is a "bug" in the way these guidelines are written, but not a lot of agreement about how to fix it.

For the record, nearly every Olympian has already been deemed notable in practice, even those that don't make it out of the first round (excluding those that DNS) -- I chose a random event to check and you can observe how every 200m sprinter without exception has an article from 2020, 2016, 2012, 2008, 2004, 2000, 1996, 1992, 1988, 1984, 1980, 1976, 1972, 1968, 1964, 1960, 1956, 1952, 1948, 1936, 1932, and 1928.

You have to go all the way back to 1924 to find a single athlete without an article. Shouldn't the guidelines reflect current Wikipedia practice then, and just say that every athletics Olympian who registers a mark since 1928 can be presumed notable? To still comply with the Olympian RFC, we can say that simply participating isn't enough -- an athlete has to qualify by posting a mark, i.e. the "free wildcard" entries that some countries use in the 100m can be excluded from these guidelines. --Habst (talk) 14:26, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

I think we've had that argument before too. The counter argument is that if they all meet WP:GNG anyway (and future athletes likely will too), why do we need anything in NTRACK for these athletes. Nigej (talk) 14:31, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

And back to my comment above, questioning if they all meet GNG anyways then why have SNGs, that is a much bigger discussion that what I raised. I don't even raise increasing to "all Olympic/World Championship participants," just top 8 like the lesser competitions like the Commonwealth Games. Considering the following examples if this were in other sports:

• In cycling, winning a 1.1 race presumes notability, but a World Tour event does not.
• In golf, winning an PGA Tour Champions event presumes notability, but a PGA Tour event does not.
• In tennis, winning an ATP Challenger event presumes notability, but an ATP 250 event does not.

This point is not that other sports influence here, but that in all those it would not make sense to have the lesser without the greater. Well, that is what we have here. I suggest we fix to top-8 since it appears it was an inadvertent loss from removal of all Olympian/World Championship participants.RonSigPi (talk) 21:25, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

@Nigej, one reason to have a point in NTRACK for Olympians is because we do see comments like these in deletion discussions, this one is just from today: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Clive Sands

In this case, the athlete is acknowledged to meet WP:GNG, but because he doesn't meet WP:NTRACK specifically (because NTRACK doesn't have criteria for Olympians), he was voted to be deleted. That isn't even a wrong vote to make -- it is the policy's fault, not the user's. --Habst (talk) 13:43, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Interesting that at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 53#Proposed amendment to basketball guideline, the point was made by some (as I recollect) that if every NBA player meets GNG (and is likely to in the future), why do we need to say so here at NSPORT? If people are voting to delete articles that pass GNG, then that's another good reason to delete NSPORT in its entirety, since it only seems to be causing chaos and confusion. Nigej (talk) 14:14, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

The better course would have been to pass the proposed amendment to the basketball guidline, which met our standard of likely to pass GNG by as clear a margin as imaginable (100%). The whole idea of the SNG is to provide guidance so that nominators can see the guidance and thus avoid wasting everyone's time with unnecessary AfDs. Maybe one day the tide will turn and the community will realize the wisdom of having such guidance -- not in the same flawed form as before but in a form that actually and reliably tells us which groups of athletes will virtually always pass GNG (e.g., modern era players from the NBA, Premier League, MLB, NHL, NFL). Cbl62 (talk) 15:09, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Proposal for new notability guidline

WP:VPP#Proposal for new notability guidline may be of interest to anyone watching this page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:51, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

WP:NATH problem

Why does WP:NATH number 1 say "outside of the Olympic Games and world championships"? How does an athlete meet notability standards from the Olympics or world championships? I'm confused. —Lights and freedom (talk ~ contribs) 18:14, 20 December 2023 (UTC)