Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jackie Bates


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. Subject-specific guidelines such as WP:ATHLETE are secondary to the general notability guideline, and it has been credibly asserted here without credible refutation that the topic meets that fundamental threshold. Skomorokh 04:24, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Jackie Bates

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Fails WP:ATH, which requires subjects to have " competed at the fully professional level of a sport." Practice squad players, by definition, are not permitted to compete. Bongo  matic  03:26, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep - Passes WP:BIO. WP:ATHLETE is not a policy. Google news the guy.► Chris Nelson Holla! 03:42, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Just a note, the burden of evidence is on the person who adds the content to the page, this is particularly true for living people, saying "Google news the guy" is not actually providing reliable sources. If you had provided third party reliable sources in the first place, this would never have gone to AfD (or been proposed for deletion in the first place).  --kelapstick (talk) 18:09, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Just a note, but the AfD process actually requires the AfD nominator to perform a good faith search for sources prior to nominating for deletion, of which a Google News search would be standard to meet the good faith test. As AfD is for removing articles that cover subjects that are actually not notable, and not just removing articles that fail to properly demonstrate it. We have various clean up tags for that. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:54, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I understand that, however when an editor creates an unsourced article about a living person with questionable notability, they should not be surprised when it comes to AfD. --kelapstick (talk) 15:23, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. I don't necessarily think all practice roster players meet content criteria but a search convinces me that there will be enough reliable sources for a V, NPOV, NOR to start an article on this subject. GoogleNews. Double Blue  (talk) 04:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment - Though WP:ATHLETE is not a policy, it should be amended to include NFL practice squad players. As the NFL is the highest level of pro football, it stands to reason that any practice squad player in the NFL is talented enough to play in the CFL, af2, UFL, etc. Practice squad players often end up playing in the NFL in some form or for another league. While many are undrafted players, the practice squad guys are the elite players of that bunch. We're not talking about guys that are signed in April, cut in June and never heard from again. A guy who spends the year on a practice squad, and especially one that spends multiple years on them, should be notable for that alone.► Chris Nelson Holla! 04:51, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree with your bias and facts prove otherwise but that is outside the scope of this discussion. Double Blue  (talk) 06:30, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * We are not talking about importance here anyway, we are talking about notability, the ability to find reliable sourcing to create a fair and verifiable article. Double Blue  (talk) 06:32, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * With respect to the references above, some are references to student newspapers; all (except the roster) they are all local coverage of local events that don't establish notability. See WP:N footnote 6. Bongo  matic  07:48, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Firstly, how would that contradict what I stated?: I believe "there will be enough reliable sources for a V, NPOV, NOR to start an article on this subject." Secondly, "minor news stories" does not exclude local and state newspapers, it excludes passing references. Thirdly, WP:N is a helpful guideline for interpreting our content policies; it is not our content policy. Double Blue  (talk) 08:48, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I am commenting for the benefit of other editors who may wish to opine here, not trying to suggest your opinion is inconsistent with policy or internally inconsistent. Bongo  matic  08:53, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Passes WP:GNG per the sources brought up by DoubleBlue. I told you to not create these one line stubs, Chris because things like this happen.-- Giants27 ( c  |  s ) 18:31, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Very week keep I tend to be a little more strict with what I qualify as "Significant Coverage in a Reliable Source that are Independent of the subject" for minor league baseball/college athletes. First I don't include school newspapers as I don't consider them independent of the subject.  Of the list that DoubleBlue put up I would say that 3, 7, and 8 would fit the bill for me.  Personally I would like to see a stop to creation of separate articles about players that have not played in a major league (with the exception of those that can "walk on water", or have some sort of notability outside of their sport) and have them put into some sort of list that groups similar individuals.  I think that would be more comprehensive and helpful than creating a bunch of articles (that are all BLPs) that are destined to be orphaned for ever with few people watching them.  But that's just my opinion.--kelapstick (talk) 22:37, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - passes WP:BIO/WP:NOTE through multiple, third-party RS. Just needs a "more sources needed" tag. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:54, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. These sources provided above are extremely weak--they are entirely local, sometimes providing only a sentence worth of mention, and contain no significant discussion of the subject. Contrary to the author's assertion that all these practice squad players are somehow automatically notable (he's created dozens or more of them), they are not. The ones I looked at are not notable as athletes, and they do not pass general notability guidelines. This one doesn't. Drmies (talk) 05:12, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Question, what does "local" sources have to do with anything? Trivial coverage yes, but local coverage is not a topic covered by the notability guideline. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:14, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Notability, as far as I am concerned, is a matter of size. The bigger the paper covering some subject, the bigger the notability--that should go without saying. This is not an argument for 'global notability' and it does not mean that local coverage doesn't count for anything; it just means that if there's nothing else, then there isn't much, and here there's nothing else (and even the local coverage is flimsy). Look, this morning I read that Cory Wilkes, who is on the 'practice squad' for Troy University, has to make like Tim Tebow cause they're playing Florida. Nice article (longer than Bates got in his university paper), with a picture (he looks like he's high on being Tebow) and quotes--and no way does this make this nice young man notable. Bongo below makes a similar point; I butted in since I made the original remark. (Bongo, I'll apologize on the talk page.) Drmies (talk) 16:18, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The geographic reach of a source is relevant to the question of whether coverage&mdash;even if in-depth&mdash;is sufficiently independent for the purpose of establishing notability. For example, the reliable (and excellent) Anderson Valley Advertiser has done a series of articles on an assistant coach at a local junior high school. Notwithstanding the existence of that coverage, a large number of editors would not consider the subject to be notable because of the limited interest of the very local source. Not all editors agree with this approach, but many do. It is inconsistent with neither WP:GNG nor Notability (people). Hope that's helpful (not in persuading you of the correctness of this view, but why some people hold it). Bongo  matic  06:28, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I know people like to think notability is global notablity, but the fact remains that neither BIO nor NOTE require this and do not discount local coverage in any way. Now, some local sources will fail as RS, but that's a source by source determination. But the notability guidelines, including the local guideline proposal where the consensus has been we don't discriminate against local stuff, are the places for any local discount, not in AfD where we try to stick with current policy/guideline and apply those to the article in question. Discounting local sources is equivalent to I don't like it. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:28, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * You are wrong. The guidelines provide no precise definition of "independent", so it is within editor's good faith assessment (and I'm sure you always assume good faith) to determine when reliable sources may not be independent. Equating the classification of certain extremely local coverage as insufficiently independent with requiring notability to be "global" is fallacious. Bongo  matic  07:49, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject including (but not limited to): self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, autobiographies, press releases, etc." looks pretty promising to me for a precise definition? But, independent and local are two separate issues (and thus your equating would be your own, so I'm not sure what fallacy you are going for since only you just brought up "independent"). As to independent, you do know the dirty little secret in journalism is that many "stories" are re-hashes of press releases and are not exactly completely independent (something you learn a college journalism class). That's how news organizations find much of their news. You should compare some press releases from say BusinessWire or U.S. News sometime to news articles covering the topic. But in the end, for Wikipedia and notability, that sources are not completely independent really doesn't matter much. The thing is, we are going for notability, as in people have taken note. In the case of any RS type source, unless they are paid (i.e. an actual ad for say a Labor Day Sale), the media outlet decided to go with the story, which is taking note, as they are exercising their editorial judgment on what topics to cover in their often limited space. Otherwise, should we discount coverage on ESPN.com of MLB because MLB advertises with ESPN and they have other contractual arrangements? Should we discount coverage of politicians in newspapers because those politicians advertise for their campaigns in those newspapers? Or should we even discount coverage by the Washington Post if they quote President Obama, as then that would not be completely independent since that quote came from the subject of the news article? Far-fetched, but it demonstrates that much of our sources are not completely independent. That's why for me, independent means "excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject including (but not limited to): self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, autobiographies, press releases, etc." which means local sources that meet that definition are A-OK. Aboutmovies (talk) 10:07, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ←You address a number of issues:
 * Precision of definition. While the definition is precise about what it explicitly states to be nonindependent, it says "but not limited to", opening up the universe to what reasonable people acting in good faith may find to be not independent.
 * Independent and local are two separate issues. Per "but not limited to", your statement that "local sources that meet the definition are A-OK" is qualified by the judgment of editors that coverage in such sources is independent of the subject. In a local paper, reasonable editors in good faith may argue that topics of solely local interest are covered because of their proximity to&mdash;i.e., nonndependence from&mdash;the sources rather than because of the notability of the subject (coverage of the local high school quarterback, say). See above comment on the Anderson Valley Advertiser as a specific example.
 * Other forms of nonidependence. The fact that the guideline ostensibly permits (though the "not limited to" proviso gives room for editors to argue) lots of stuff that you and I don't think of as independent is not a reason to abandon a genuine investigation of independence in other contexts. Personally, where the only coverage in reliable sources that themselves are independent of the subject consists of rehashed press releases, I argue (occasionally successfully) that those are not independent. As to whether publications that accept political advertising can provide independent coverage for the purposes of notability, it should be on a case-by-case basis for the same reason (I think that people who attain the highest elected office in a country are specifically considered notable). I won't address the question as to whether such sources are reliable for the purposes of verifiability, as that's not related to the issue at hand.
 * If you don't feel this way, that's fine. But in order not to see how logical reasonable editors acting in good faith might see things like this is inexplicable. Bongo  matic  10:40, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Interesting. You tell me "You are wrong", and I then demonstrate a different opinion backed by reasonable interpretations. Which then you take as "inexplicable"? So, you can call me wrong, but I can't argue different, and that is some how a violation by me of good faith? Interesting process there. But to be perfectly clear, other editors are free to put forth all sorts of theories, which in the past have included ones where if someone does not pass WP:ATHLETE then they cannot be notable despite that BIO says otherwise (and ATHLETE is part of BIO). Other editors are then free to discredit those theories, but it must be done through logic, which is what I have presented.
 * As to your contention of "opening up the universe to what reasonable people acting in good faith may find to be not independent". Actually, not quite. In law we use what we call statutory interpretation, which is quite useful to use when parsing rules, which we have here. One key rule is that when you have a list of something, it is not superfluous. If we actually open it up to ANY argument that something is not independent, then the examples given become superfluous. Instead how we read that is like this: Here is a list of items that we know are not independent, but there may be others, please use the commonalities of these listed items to guide you, as new things such as Twitter and Facebook can develop and we need to be able to plan for those without coming up with a 500 example long list; thus things similar to these examples are what are not independent. And here, what are the commonalities? Things directly related to the subject or closely related, but this isn't closely related in geographic terms, but closely related as in the source and the subject matter have a direct reason to promote the subject matter. For instance, a story in a company's newsletter about Bob the janitor would directly promote the company and help the image of the company because Bob is so awesome that the company must also be, which is why PR people put out crap like that. That's why advertising is listed, but nothing about a news story in a newspaper (local or national) where the subject matter is also a paid advertiser (for instance movie reviews next to the ads by the movie studios). Further, and this is key, if we go with your theory, it also makes the local interests proposed guideline superfluous as well. As in, there would be no need for that proposal if the community agreed with your theory. And if you check the talk page of the proposed guideline you will see a consensus against any sort of limitation regarding local sources. Not to mention, again, that no where in the notability guidelines does it say anything about limiting sources to non-local, and trying to get around that by trying to question the independence of the sources is just too much of a stretch (especially as I have noted that no source is immune from these issues). But feel free to disagree. Aboutmovies (talk) 20:56, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. The subject had an unremarkable college career and is paid to be an extra body on an NFL practice field. There is certainly no consensus that these things confer inherent notability. I think we can parse the definitions at WP:NOTABILITY, WP:BIO, and WP:ATHLETE all day long, but in the end they are all just guidelines. In my opinion, the overall volume and depth of coverage does not indicate that the subject is (yet) notable. Location (talk) 23:56, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep I am persuaded that the coverage identified by DoubleBlue is sufficient to meet WP:N and establish notability. Davewild (talk) 17:54, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.