Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of professional sportspeople convicted of crimes (3rd nomination)


 * 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. Ad Orientem (talk) 02:31, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

List of professional sportspeople convicted of crimes
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Well for the living people on this list, this is a BLP violation. There's no reason to call out private people for mistakes they have might have made which they would probably rather fade into obscurity, and making a point of making sure that these mistakes are specifically called out and tied to their names forever.

We are writing here about people who are essentially private citizens. They are not in politics, or church leaders, or leading important businesses or other major institutions in society, or otherwise public figures. They are guys who can throw a good fastball. It is for that reason, and no other, that they are of interest and have an article here.

So maybe we should leave these people alone.

We don't have "Bassoon players who drive Fords" or "Skydivers who have been divorced" or what have you.

So "Private citizens who have made a mistake, so the Wikipedia has decided to use its position as one of the world's most read websites to scream this at the world so it will follow them forever" is similarly not a useful intersection of two qualities.

BTW "Well, but it's easily findable elsewhere on the internet" is not, never has been, and never can be an acceptable argument for including *any* material in the Wikipedia that we don't want, and I trust the closer will discount such arguments.

Arguments to effect of "Well, but according to the rules of my hobby website, WP:RS and other WP:OTHERALLCAPSARGUMENTS, we are permitted to bully people in this way, so let's" are permissible I suppose, if you want to be that sort of person.

Yeah it's be possible to go thru the list and just remove the people who aren't dead. That'd make the list an even more useless intersection of, now, *three* unrelated qualities (could kick a football / shot their wife / is dead), but that'd be different. But the list has existed for well over a decade and this hasn't been done yet, so that doesn't seem likely, plus the list would have to monitored regularly to make sure that people don't put in live people.

If someone wants to write an article demonstrating that sportspeople are more likely than the general populace to commit crimes or certain types of crimes or something (assuming that they are, otherwise why would we even have this list) and include sufficient refs to articles that show this, OK. But that'd be an entirely different article. Herostratus (talk) 11:14, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. Herostratus (talk) 11:14, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 11:18, 29 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep "I don't think this is nice" is not a reason for deletion. The article is extensively referenced. As for whether the subject is an actual intersection, see the previous discussions. Or to summarize, there are many discussions in media about athletes and criminal behavior, there are none about "Bassoon players who drive Fords" as you say.  Citi Cat   ♫ 19:27, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * "This is not nice", if true, is a good reason for not doing any action. Most people don't go around being unkind to people on purpose for insufficient cause. Some do. We can't help that, but we also don't have to support and enable it. Remember, the Wikipedia is very widely read. Its power can be used to inform and enlighten, but also to bully and harm individual persons who have to limited means to fight back against such a huge organization. I want to err on the side of not doing that, and I hope that you do too.


 * Now, you can make an argument that this list is nice – not harmful to anyone. That's a different argument, and if you can make it, please proceed. And there are many discussions in media about many things that we don't have articles on.Herostratus (talk) 11:35, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * To put it another way, your argument is "I want to delete this because I don't like it". What wikipedia policy are you saying this violates?  Citi Cat   ♫ 17:15, 30 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep. Pro athletes are not "private people"; they are public figures. And public figures who commit crimes draw media attention, e.g. Baseball Players Who Did Time in Prison. However, I'm going to remove misdemeanors (i.e. drunk driving alone). Clarityfiend (talk) 19:31, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. Well reported. Hyperbolick (talk) 21:39, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep I don't see any valid rationale for deletion from the nom. Everything in the article is sourced. For the individuals I checked, their biographies also contain the information too. Anything unsourced can be removed.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 07:25, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * My rationale below cites a policy and a guideline. Do you consider that rationale to be valid? SpinningSpark 09:52, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. An unrelated cross-categorization that fails WP:NOTDIR criterion #6.  It also fails WP:BLPCAT: Caution should be used with content categories that suggest a person has a poor reputation (see false light). For example, Category:Criminals and its subcategories should be added only for an incident that is relevant to the person's notability; the incident was published by reliable third-party sources; the subject was convicted; and the conviction was not overturned on appeal. (my emphasis)  If this were limited to sports-related crimes it might comply, but as it stands, it is verging on the kind of celebrity fancruft that belongs in the tabloids, not here.  And before anyone points out this is not a category, BLPCAT also says These principles apply equally to lists, navigation templates, and Infobox statements... SpinningSpark 09:44, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * The policy you are referring to clearly states it is regarding reputation - that is, lists of this type must be based on sourced, factual information. In fact it specifically states that "crime" categories must only include people convicted, which is exactly what this list is.  Citi Cat   ♫  17:55, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Please don't cherry pick, that is not the part of the policy I highlighted that it fails. For the most part, these crimes are not "relevant to the person's notability".  They are mostly not related to sport. Spinning</b><b style="color:#4840A0">Spark</b> 23:47, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I disagree, the scope of the article is serious crimes, I think being a public person committing a serious crime is in general a significant part of their notability.  Citi Cat  <sup style="color:#000000;"> ♫ 01:12, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You think wrong. BLP, NPOV, and RS are three key rules here. "I think being a public person, we don't need sources to write about her" or "I think being a public person, we don't need to take neutral stance on her" relate to RS and NPOV pretty much how your statement, which to my eyes devolves to "I think being a public person, we can overemphasize her criminality if we want to" relates to BLP. BLP, like those other two, is (like it or not) an absolute iron core attribute of the Wikipedia, so... Herostratus (talk) 23:05, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Absolutely never said that, I feel like you are just making a straw man argument now. You said you don't feel the crimes they are convicted for are part of their notability, I said I disagree. I think these are both positions that can be argued. So you replied that I am saying we can "overemphasize their criminality", and even worse - "being a public person, we don't need sources to write about her", which is absolutely contrary to everything I have said, and also the strong emphasis in this article on following rules regarding sourcing.  Citi Cat  <sup style="color:#000000;"> ♫ 16:34, 2 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment from nom. I'd also like to add that there are a lot of intersections that we stay away from because they are either toxic original thought or egregiously POV: "List of socialists who have been convicted of assault". "List of feminists who have made rape charges that were dismissed". "List of Republicans who have been convicted of fraud". Most people aren't against athletes in that way, but some are -- they feel that the attention and riches showered on them is toxic to society, and would like to point out that they are often thugs rather than paragons. Probably this list wasn't made by someone of that mind, but the effect is the same as if it had been. Herostratus (talk) 11:35, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
 * You're still making up intersections that aren't commonly used. Like I've said, this *is* a commonly used intersection in the media and scientific study. Search google for "connection between athletes and violence" (without quotes) and this is just from the first two pages         Citi Cat  <sup style="color:#000000;"> ♫  17:15, 30 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Alright! Now we are getting somewhere. Those links are interesting and enlightening. Judging by them, there are indeed people who don't like athletes, and apparently athletes are more likely to be criminals, or something. Or might be: "Evidence is inconclusive regarding whether athletes are more likely to commit violent acts against women" and so forth -- that is from Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law (which Harvard publishes). So true or not, it's something that notable people have claimed, researched, and discussed (and refuted, or tried to).


 * So this changes the thrust of this discussion in a couple ways.


 * First, if we want to publish material along the lines of "Some people think that athletes are more likely than the general population to commit crimes, or certain types of crimes, and there is data supporting this", the way to do that is NOT NOT NOT to present a list of anecdotes. That's not how we do it; we wait for other people do that and use their synthesis as our refs. (That is, that's what we're supposed to do -- a number of our lists really are original research, but it's not so bad cause they aren't pushing a larger point and/or dragging anyone thru the mud, so enh.)


 * Second of all, the way to do it is to provide refuting data if there is any. You have to give context here. I believe there is data refuting the athletes-as-thugs trope in the refs you provided, and surely elsewhere. If we're going to document an alleged phenomena, we definitely want both sides.


 * So within that context it might be possible for this list to exist, either as part of, or as a separate article supporting, an article like Criminality among athletes or something. You could even start with this article, but you'd need, at the least, to add to it and change its name. (Even then, the "list" is providing by implication one side: "Wow, look at all these athlete thugs!", so I'm unsure if it'd be appropriate; it's debatable.)


 * (An example is, say, Magical negro and List of Magical Negro occurrences in fiction. The list alone is not very useful and enlightening -- "encyclopedic" -- by itself. Together, the two articles support each other.)


 * So the TL;DR I get from this new info is:
 * 1) "Criminal athletes" actually is a thing.
 * 2) That being so, the data in this list is legit something that, arguably, could be a useful data point (in a different article).
 * 3) On the other hand, that being so, the list is probably not defaming people at random. It's doing so on purpose, out of vindictiveness and/or to prove a point. That's... not better? Herostratus (talk) 14:16, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Defamation is "the communication of a false statement" (bolding mine). These aren't imaginary crimes. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:44, 2 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep. Stated above that this list is a BLP violation. However for many of these individuals I can go to their own articles and read exactly the same details of their crimes such that the info is already on Wikipedia. All this does is listyfy those individuals and their crimes.--Egghead06 (talk) 14:31, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
 * "What this does is listify those individuals and their crimes" is exactly the problem. Herostratus (talk) 19:55, 1 October 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.