Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Luke Walker (ice hockey)


 * 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   redirect to Gordie Walker as the rough consensus indicates. –MuZemike 01:09, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Luke Walker (ice hockey)

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Subject does not meet WP:ATHLETE nor WP:HOCKEY/PPF. Article can be recreated when/if the player plays professional or otherwise achieves notability. By much past prescedence being drafted unless in the first round does not confer notability, nor does playing in a junior level of the world championships. DJSasso (talk) 11:49, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ice hockey-related deletion discussions.  —DJSasso (talk) 11:52, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - This player is notable as a member of The United States men's national junior ice hockey team that won the 2010 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships. The nom may be correct to assert that playing in the junior level of the world championships may not be enough by itself to establish notability, but this player did more than just play in the tournament - he also came home with a Gold Medal. The individual members of World Championship teams are notable. Dolovis (talk) 16:42, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Individual members of the World Championships teams are notable. But he played on the World Junior Championship team. We delete these articles regularely around draft time. WP:HOCKEY/PPF (see point six requiring senior play) was created to show what the prescedence on player notability tends to be. For a junior player we require them to win a major individual award at the world junior championships, as opposed to just coming home with a gold. No doubt he will eventually turn pro and meet the guidelines, but there is no need to jump the gun. There have been cases in the past where players never get to the pros as expected. -DJSasso (talk) 17:35, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * You said it yourself - "Individual members of the World Championships teams are notable." The fact that he played on the US men's junior team does not exclude him from such notability (point six requiring senior play is not on subject). And when you say "we", who are you talking for? I trust that you are not suggesting that speak on behalf of the entire membership of the Wikipedia ice hockey project. You have made your point, and now I hope that other interested editors will have their opportunity to be heard. Dolovis (talk) 18:11, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes the World Championships. Not the World Junior Championships. And yes, when I say we, I mean we as the hockey project have routinely deleted this level of player. You just have to look at the hockey afd log to see that we go through this every 6 months. Once during the world junior championships and once during the draft. That being said I speak for no one. I only speak as to what the project has done in the past. And this is a discussion, as such its not one comment and done its back and forth. -DJSasso (talk) 19:18, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 18:53, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: The article under discussion here has been rescue flagged by an editor for review by the Article Rescue Squadron.


 * Delete per WP:ATHLETE and WP:HOCKEY/PPF. Both of these guidelines clearly show that an athlete who plays at a junior level is not notable per WP standards.  Let's WP:CHILL on this article until he graduates to a senior level of play.    Snotty Wong   prattle 19:22, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. Junior players can be notable if they win a significant individual award, but this subject has not met that standard.  Being a member of a world junior championship team isn't enough for an article.  Once the subject either wins a significant amateur award or plays professionally, then the article can be re-created.  Patken4 (talk) 20:14, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete: Fails the standards of WP:ATHLETE and WP:HOCKEY/PPF, no evidence that the subject passes GNG. Playing professionally is notable.  Playing on an Olympic team is notable.  Playing in the junior leagues is not.   Ravenswing  20:57, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Playing on a World Championship junior men's team should be notable. Dolovis (talk) 22:44, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * And you are certainly welcome to make that argument on the talk pages of the relevant guidelines to see if you can bring consensus over to your views.   Ravenswing  17:29, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Now I expect that some editors will argue that all hockey players have web pages devoted to their stats, and that may even be true - but more than that (and what pushes it over the top for WP:GNG) are the articles published in the newspapers where Walker is the main topic. This is more than what is required for GNG, as GNG does not require the subject to be the main topic of the source material. Countless other articles with trivial and more mentions can be found, but it is not necessary for this discussion as the threshold for inclusion has already been met. Dolovis (talk) 21:16, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Gordie Walker (father) (if it can be verified, ortherwise delete). Currently fails athlete in my interpretation. Ottawa4ever (talk) 21:49, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Redirect per above statement by Ottawa4ever. Redirect preserves article info for future when/if the subject plays professionally/becomes notable. Bhockey10 (talk) 07:20, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep Has won a notable award. 2010 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in which he earned a gold medal.[3]  Winning a gold metal at a notable sporting event, makes you notable.   D r e a m Focus  04:32, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * No it makes the team as a whole notable, not the individual. Notability is not inheirited. -DJSasso (talk) 11:26, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * No, the individual members of the World Championship team are notable. Because it is a team of made up of all-stars from many different teams, the team itself is not notable; but the players are. This is not a children's team, it is made up of men who are 20 and under. Dolovis (talk) 20:48, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Correct, but due to the age restrictions on playing. ie no one older than 20 can play, it means it is not the highest level of amateur competition available which is what is required by WP:ATH for amateur athletes. The highest level is the World Championships (senior version) and the Olympics because anyone of any age can play in that tournament including juniors. -DJSasso (talk) 21:07, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - Whether or not a member of the Gold Medal winning team is notable, Luke Walker meets the inclusion criteria per WP:GNG. Walker has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. He is therefore presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article:
 * [] (full article on Walker published in independent newspaper)
 * [] (full article on Walker published in independent newspaper)
 * [] (webpage devoted to information about Walker)
 * [] (webpage devoted to information about Walker)
 * [] (webpage devoted to information about Walker)
 * [] (webpage devoted to information about Walker)
 * [] (webpage devoted to information about Walker)
 * Only the first two qualify as coverage of him, as stats sites are considered not good enough to establish notability of an athlete. The first two fall under WP:BLP1E in that it is one media blast about his going to the US national team. WP:GNG does actually require the subject to be the main topic of what is being covered, it can't just be a passing mention. It has to be a full blown article about them. And there has to be multiple ones about multiple events. And generally local media coverage is not considered good enough either (which the first two are), otherwise millions of high school athletes would be allowed articles. -DJSasso (talk) 21:20, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Your argument boils down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. You agree that the first two articles qualify as coverage of Walker, and you also agree that these articles are not "passing mentions". Your non-argument befuddles me. There are multiple accounts (do I need to post more links? Here's another:  ) and you can not disregard the articles just because they are not in a national newspaper like USA Today. If that were the policy then few articles would qualify. There is no wiki-guideline that says "local media coverage is not considered good enough", and in any event, since the coverage is included on the Internet it makes it more than regional coverage. Concerning your reference to WP:BLP1E, I can not locate the policy that you are alluding to. Perhaps you can supply a quote for me. GNG is clear on what "Significant coverage" means, and it is clear that Walker meets this criteria. As for the inclusion of “millions of high school athletes”, (1) WP:NOTPAPER, and (2) each article needs to be individually reviewed to see if it meets a criteria for inclusion, but I think that it is safe to say that you may be exaggerating. Dolovis (talk) 21:48, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I never said it needs to be in a national paper. I said that papers local to the individual are generally not considered good enough. In other words a player who lives/plays in Kelowna, BC is going to have news stories about them and that there is a perceived lack of independence to papers covering local citizens so in other words they fail "significant coverage in multiple independent sources". So articles that would not have that problem would be any paper not from Kelowna. So say a local paper in Kingston, ON. WP:ATH is a pretty good bright line test of what is needed for a player. Yes GNG overrides it usually, but this individual has yet to meet it. An example of the local concept is politicians. Most local politicians have huge amounts of coverage in their local newspaper(s), but don't qualify for an article on wikipedia unless they do something that put them in the news in other cities. -DJSasso (talk) 23:00, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a .sig I use on VBulletin-based forums that runs "It's not that we don't understand what you're saying. It's that we don't agree with what you're saying."  (1) Those websites shouldn't even be cited as an attempt to establish them as reliable sources - why are they raised in this debate at all?  (2) The first one is a relatively trivial mention from a website; do we even know that this was published?  (3)  The second cite is of respectable length ... and it comes from a newspaper from a town no larger than the neighborhood in which I live.  Go find us a couple sizeable articles in the Oregonian and we'll see.   Ravenswing  08:16, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
 * As requested by Djsasso, this is an article on Walker from "OurSports Central", an international sporting news organization that is not from Kelowna. He's notable per GNG. Dolovis (talk) 22:46, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
 * OurSportsCentral only sends out press releases. Look at the bottom of the link "The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.".  Sorry, this link doesn't show GNG, just that the Portlant Winterhawks composed a press release about one of their players.  Patken4 (talk) 23:27, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
 * How about trying "newspapers, books and e-books, magazines, television and radio documentaries, reports by government agencies, and scientific journals," as GNG states? We are just not going to accept Some Website Somewhere as a reliable source.  Honestly, this AfD isn't any sort of contest, and no prizes are given out for "winning."  Like (I daresay) other editors, my opinion on this will budge if I see articles of substantial length which are about Luke Walker.  Like (I daresay) the other Delete advocates, I'm not changing my opinion for websites, blogs or press releases, however many of them come out.  By the bye, did you stop to examine these hits you're dredging up?  The alleged Oregonian article is almost a word-for-word copy of that press release.  That alleged local article is largely a paraphrase of the same.  Given that, I can't see that there are any legitimate cites for this subject.   Ravenswing  13:42, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
 * comment Those links help article building and information but most of the stat pages don't equal notability. With the popularity and ease of webpage building, mite through Adult rec leagues have pages with player stats. Bhockey10 (talk) 07:20, 4 July 2010 (UTC)


 * This article says he won a gold medal. Did everyone on the team get a gold medal, or just this one guy?  He gets ample news coverage anyway, as Dolovis pointed out.  He was also chosen by a major Hockey team, the Colorado Avalanche, to play for them.  Should we delete an article just to recreate it after he starts playing?  That'd be stupid.   D r e a m Focus  08:16, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: You're aware, of course, how many 5th round draft choices never make it to the big leagues. I can't count how many people have argued against WP:CRYSTAL over the years at AfD, convinced that those people would of course Make It ... only to have those subjects never be heard from again.  Yes, indeed, Walker would qualify for an article should he play in the NHL.  But going back to the 1999 Entry Draft, only 5 out of 31 ever played so much as a game in the NHL.  In 2000, it's been 10 of 36.  In 2001, 9 of 33.  Fifth rounders are, in fact, longshots, and what would be stupid is to create an article for a player who probably will never qualify.   Ravenswing  10:22, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. All 22 members of the team won gold medals, not just Walker. Patken4 (talk) 13:35, 5 July 2010 (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.