Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of largest National Football League trades


 * 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. postdlf (talk) 23:41, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

List of largest National Football League trades

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Wikipedia is not a directory/catalog. These trades are not related to each other, aside from having at least 10 players in them, so this fails WP:NLIST. There is no specific criteria for this. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:01, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:02, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. North America1000 03:03, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. North America1000 03:03, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. North America1000 03:04, 25 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep. I don't see the harm in this - it is true that the different groups of trades are not related to each other, but neither are the individual attempts in the Long jump world record progression. I don't see a policy-based prohibition making this article impermissible. bd2412  T 03:10, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * In the case of the long jumps, though, there's a concrete world record. There is no trade record. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:21, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Whether or not they are related to each other or if there is a record, the key question is whether enough reliable sources talk about the grouping. Surely people can make lots of interesting lists, but we try to objectively filter them on Wikipedia by the groupings that independent sources actually talk about.—Bagumba (talk) 04:19, 25 October 2017 (UTC)


 *  Delete  Fails WP:LISTN in that a "list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources." I cannot find multiple independent sources that talk about this grouping of "largest" trades.  The 18-player trade with Herschel Walker gets mentioned a lot on its own (ergo Herschel Walker trade), but I don't see enough sources that talk about other "largest" trades, where the number of involved people is the grouping criteria.  (Lots of sources on other "big" trades, but based on their subjective impact, but little directly on "largest" or sheer size.) Record books by the NFL are not independent.  I would allow this source of "The NFL’S Largest Trade" from the Pro Football Hall of Fame (even if I'm not entirely sure if they are funded at all by the NFL).—Bagumba (talk) 03:55, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I was able to find this article, this newspaper, as well as this (take that for what it's worth). In addition, quite a number of articles talking about the individual trades talk about them as being "one of the largest trades in NFL history in terms of the number of players involved."  C Thomas3   (talk) 05:54, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info. The first article you identified is also from the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  Per WP:N, we would still treat multiple articles from the same publisher as just one source for notability purposes: "Multiple publications from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability."  The newspaper article you provided from The Indianapolis Star can be viewed by others here (I have access to Newspapers.com.) It's a verbatim copy of the list text provided in the HOF articles, printed in advance of the Ricky Williams trade. Finally, the last one you provided, a 2010 article  from Bleacher Report written by a college student, does not seem reliable.  The site was an amateur sports blog famous for clickbait lists, whose reputation only shored up after being acquired by Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) in 2012, when it subsequently hired some full-time professional writers with traditional journalism background.—Bagumba (talk) 10:47, 25 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep as well. In my opinion the entries on the list definitely pass WP:NLIST. The two criteria that NLIST offers are notability of the individual entries and reliable sources verifying they are members of the group. Certainly the vast majority of players pass WP:SPORTSPERSON in their own right, and they are all verifiably employees (or former employees) of the NFL and members of the NFLPA. The trades themselves also pass both criteria; not all are notable enough for their own article, but they only need to be notable as would be required for the entry to be included in the text of the article, and I would be surprised if any NFL transaction involving a notable player were missing from his article. Regarding their membership in a group, they are all definably NFL trades: each is a transaction among NFL teams involving employees of those franchises. Furthermore, the list itself passes WP:LISTN: an accepted criterion is that it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources (emphasis in original); Googling something like "biggest trades in NFL history" (most lopsided trades, dumbest trades, you name it) brings up a crapton of results from a multitude of prominent reliable sources. These sources all slice and dice this sort of content constantly, especially in the offseason when there's not much to talk about other than player movement. Now this exact list may or may not have been discussed, but certainly trades in general are discussed as a group ad nauseam; what this list does is choose a specific set of trades. And speaking of selection criteria, these seem fine to me, with the exception of the minimum number of involved players/picks. However, that's merely a cleanup issue, as the list already has a de facto criterion of 10 (which keeps the list nice and manageable). I think if we add that to the article, we can probably speedy keep.  C Thomas3   (talk) 04:44, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * You mentioned Googling "biggest trades in NFL history", but this article's title is not "biggest", it's "largest" (i.e. "List of largest National Football League trades"). A search on "largest NFL trades" yields little on the "largest", with most hits having "biggest" in their title. The largest NFL trades just don't seem to be discussed that much as a group.  Sure, ITSTRUE applies to this list's contents, but notability is how Wikipedia distinguishes itself from fan wikis, where this may be more appropriate.—Bagumba (talk) 11:04, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree that the list itself doesn't appear often. But it does get (somewhat briefly) discussed as a group as one of the notable features of the individual trades. See, , , , , , , , , and more. Could it be argued that they are passing mentions? Sure, but it certainly seems to be an integral part of the notability of the individual events, which (at least in my opinion) would lead one to the question "well, what are the largest trades in NFL history?" and thus the desire for the list.  C Thomas3   (talk) 15:57, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Further consensus, 2 votes each so far.
 * Delete per nomination. – Sabbatino (talk) 09:18, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Night  fury  08:40, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete (or trade to the Cleveland Browns for a dozen players at random - a fair deal). Sheer numbers are just trivia. List of most important NFL trades would be viable - see Top 15 trades in NFL history (nfl.com), Top 10 in-season NFL trades (ESPN), etc. Clarityfiend (talk) 06:05, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The Browns would miss the deadline if you tried... Fax machines are hard. Carrite (talk) 20:17, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:54, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   11:50, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Per WP:LISTN, a list is considered notable "if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources". Searches here reveal a number of reliable sources that discuss NFL trades involving the most players. Separate from the Bleacher Report article discussed above, see, e.g., (1) Pro Football Hall of Fame, (2) Akron Beacon-Journal (1987), (3) Associated Press (1989, article carried in numerous newspapers, this one provided as example), and (4) The Indianapolis Star (1999). Cbl62 (talk) 15:07, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Weak keep in light of the sources Cbl uncovered. I was leaning toward delete since all I could find was the PFHOF source that others have mentioned. Lizard  (talk) 15:17, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep Changed from my earlier delete. Meets LISTN based on additional sources cited by Cbl62.—Bagumba (talk) 16:43, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep per Cbl62's sources. Patar knight - chat/contributions 19:49, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep, and a star to Cbl62 for doing the digging on this. I'm surprised, really, but there it is! - The Bushranger One ping only 23:25, 8 November 2017 (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.