Talk:Jeff Saturday

Removal of undrafted from template
At the time of this edit, that information is contested on the template talk page. I removed it for that reason. If you have any comments on it, please visit Infobox NFLactive. Juan Miguel Fangio| ►Chat 07:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot (talk) 19:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

This is insanity.
Do we want an article about this player on Wikipedia or don't we? Do we want it to be complete, to include information about him, about his life, the way he plays football, about the important games and seasons he's played through in his career? If it conforms to the Biography of Living People guidelines, isn't what Wikipedia is not, and is well referenced, shouldn't it be included? Shouldn't ANY article be as fleshed-out and vibrant WITHIN those guidelines as we can make it?

That's what a Good Article is, right? For crying out loud, is this article supposed to be a stub or a biography?

But this isn't a reproach on just this one article, it's also about hundreds of other NFL-related articles on Wikipedia, semi-stubs suffering from the very same malaise as this one.

Because I'd be willing to help write some decent biographies if I have the time and am given the chance. But I don't have that chance if someone or another is going to delete everything right after it's been added. That isn't what Wikipedia is about. That kind of deplorable behavior is not going to add to this wonderful site.

The spirit of Wikipedia's policies are to ensure that high quality articles can flourish, and that low quality articles can be eliminated. The spirit - and the direct language - of these policies is not to strangle the content out of the site just for the sake of maintaining letter-of-the-law continuity. There wouldn't be any content worth reading if the spirit of those guidelines was ignored.

I want to improve this article. It started as a simple look-up; wanting to learn a bit more about Jeff Saturday, it grabbed me how lacking the article was. It was surprising to me that as little as I knew about him, Wikipedia had even less. Major - and widely reported - parts of this player's life were omitted. And when I and others have tried to add those pieces to his page over what appears to be more than a year of edits, that information is swiftly deleted. I didn't come here looking for a struggle. My assumption was that the simple explanation was correct. It was quite simply that no one had gotten around to it yet. It disturbs me greatly that this isn't the case at all. People HAVE gotten around to it, repeatedly. People have tried to add to this article many, many times - some with botched attempts, granted - but even when properly referenced, when they have the truth on their side and the information is factual, they are repeatedly turned down.

If I didn't know better, I'd think it was a conspiracy. Against adding information in general? Targeting this player specifically? Against changing a particular author's format or wording? I have no idea. But it stinks.

The thing is, I know it's not a conspiracy. It's misguided, against Wikipedia's policies, anti-productive, negative, and just plain strange, but it's most likely individual users merely misunderstanding a few ideas or a wordy policy or two and taking things way too far.

Whatever the reason, whoever the user, it needs to stop.

I implore whomever is reading this, please, allow these articles to get better. Everything I've added has been properly referenced. It's been factual, widely reported, and easy to find from reputable sources. Everything I've added has conformed to previously defined formatting and every addition or improvement has a precedent that can be found in numerous other Wikipedia articles in the same category.

All I wanted to do was improve an article that I noticed could distinctly use what limited additional knowledge I had on the subject. That was all. The barriers and treatment I've run into since then have soured my taste for this site. I have very limited time to do any of this. As a working writer on a strange schedule at times, adding to Wikipedia where I could seemed like something nice to do when I had nothing better. But my time on the site has been far more oppressive than inclusive, and if - because of a few misguided individuals - an article about some NFL center can't even be expanded within Wikipedia's own guidelines, then it seems to me that I'd be wasting my time trying to make things better.

Which brings me to the most important question I have.

Is this deplorable nonsense going to stop? Or are hundreds of NFL-related articles on Wikipedia going to remain bleak, miserable excuses for biographies, leaving key, relevant information to the archives of news sites and to the electronic oblivion from whence they came?

- Smike (talk) 10:47, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Smike and Yankees10, I will comment further on the substance of your present slow-rolling edit war over the lead and substantive content of this article after Yankees10 has had an opportunity to provide a substantive response to Smike's comments above. That having been said, I will point out to both of you that 15 of 18 sentences of this article's "professional career" text have no footnoted citations for the facts in those sentences, as required per WP:V, WP:RS and WP:BLP.  Unverified content in the biography of a living person that is not sourced to a reliable source is subject to immediate deletion per WP:BLP.  I have already provided sourced footnotes for the subject's "early years" and "college career" text.  For present purposes, you may both assume that I am challenging all unsourced "professional career" content in this biography per WP:BLP.  As a courtesy to both of you, I am not deleting the text immediately or slapping those annoying little "citation needed" templates on every unsourced sentence in this article.  There are far too many NFL player biographies that are in this mostly unsourced condition, and it's way past time for WP:NFL to start enforcing the real rules.


 * Smike, for future reference, you should also note that no text should be stated or summarized in the lead section unless such facts also are included and explained in context in the main body of the article per WP:LEAD. If the facts that appear in the lead are properly sourced in the main body text, it is not necessary to also footnote them in the lead.  You would do well to read and understand WP:LEAD.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:39, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you! I will definitely carefully examine Wikipedia's intro policy.  As far as sourcing, that's a whole can-o-worms in Wikipedia's NFL section that I don't think can be solved quickly or easily.  And I think that's mainly because much of the information is derived from television and documentary footage that can be difficult to source from the methods I've thus far seen on Wikipedia.  While I have tried to properly source most of what I've added from scratch, there remains an abundance of unsourced material in this and most other NFL articles, and much it is dead true.  And if those verifiable truths are deleted, then that would be quite a shame.  To me, demanding the citation of a proper reference is a far better option than removing the information outright.  The reader can see it has not been verified, and the writers and editors get their opportunity to track down a reference and redeem the omission. - Smike (talk) 18:45, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Smike, NFL.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com and databaseFootball will help verify basic statistics like teams, games played, started, etc. Check the references on the Wikipedia All-Pro and Pro Bowl articles for the applicable years for sources.  Sources for his status as an undrafted free agent, and his individual plays and awards, if any, will probably have to be found in Google News Archives.  There's no reason why this article can't be 100% sourced within 48 hours.  Sourcing often ends content debates, too; sourced material stays, unsourced material gets deleted.  If you need help with the footnotes, please let me know.  I have the page on my watchlist.  After sourcing the article, we can decide what to include and not include in the lead.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:12, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I very well may need some help with the footnotes, as I'm not sure what you're getting at there. But I must say that I do not share your optimism regarding sourcing.  Regarding THIS article specifically, perhaps.  There's really not much here.  Yet I'm quite certain that archived news articles can not fully encapsulate any given players' life and career, and I think there is far, far more visceral information to be gleaned from television and documentary footage when it comes to the NFL.  The thing is, Hulu and NFL.com have stacked up quite the database of NFL Films videos and game footage by now, while Netflix and certain news sites provide even more material.  It seems to me that those sources can provide an enormous amount of information not available in written online material, as that's where I've oft learned the juicy details; where I've learned most of the kind of stuff I'd like to be able to look-up from Wikipedia.  But as far as the dry stuff, yeah, that's usually available in databases and news articles.  It seems to me that what makes Wikipedia special, though, is its unique ability to provide both types of information in the same article: the dry, factual breakdowns, and the descriptive, visceral understanding of who a player really is.  As far as sourcing ending the debate - been there, tried that.  Not only did the debate NOT end, it forced me to escalate it to this talk page in the first place.  I'm really not sure what more I can do, and frankly - your admirable efforts notwithstanding - this is going to go on for a long time if some of those deletionaires don't get their collective behinds in here and start telling me what the Samwise-Gamgee their beef is. - Smike (talk) 16:55, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

High school location sourcing issue
Mindful of the on-going controversy between editors above, we also have a sourcing issue for Saturday's high school, the former Shamrock High School in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia. Shamrock was closed in 1996, the year after Saturday graduated, and the existing campus and buildings were retasked/converted into Druid Hills Middle School. NFL.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com and databaseFootball.com all mistakenly list Shamrock High School as being located in Tucker, Georgia. It is/was not. The U.S. Postal Service mailing address of the campus is 3100 Mount Olive Drive, Decatur, Georgia 30033. The campus is located northeast of Atlanta, north of Decatur, and west of Tucker, in an area of unincorporated DeKalb County. Notwithstanding that the NFL thinks the campus is in Tucker, this is factually incorrect. The former high school may be properly described as being located in DeKalb County, Georgia (physical location) or Decatur, Georgia (mailing address), but not Tucker, Georgia. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 12:28, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120530104036/http://databasefootball.com/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=SATURJEF01 to http://www.databasefootball.com/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=SATURJEF01

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Return to ESPN
I'm not an editor nor expert but Jeff Saturday returned to ESPN this morning on Get Up Ssalava42 (talk) 12:48, 19 September 2023 (UTC)