Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rafael Nadal in 2010


 * 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   no consensus defaulting to keep.

The only policy that has come into play here is WP:INDISCRIMINATE. That has been significantly questioned as a policy reason requiring deletion here (I refer in particular to Lear's Fool's comments). In particular, those citing the policy have not demonstrated that, even if these articles involve excessive listings of statistics, that cannot be fixed by editing the articles. The valid counter-argument in this debate has been that because of the very high notability of the subjects there are sufficient sources to make these articles much more than collections of statistics. Without any policy reason that compels deletion, the retention of these articles is an editorial judgement: are these articles appropriate means of presenting content about the subjects' careers? On that question of judgement there is nothing remotely approaching a consensus either way here. Mkativerata (talk) 06:30, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Rafael Nadal in 2010

 * – ( View AfD View log ) •

I'm nominating this and a number of other similar articles about Roger Federer per the consensus at Articles for deletion/Lindsey Vonn in 2010, which I had nominated previously. The argument I made there applies equally to these articles about Nadal and Federer. If there are any other "Person X in Year Y" articles I think they should be added to this nomination, but these are the only ones I found. Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:34, 21 November 2010 (UTC)


 * See also:

--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:43, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Roger Federer in 2003
 * Roger Federer in 2004
 * Roger Federer in 2005
 * Roger Federer in 2006
 * Roger Federer in 2007
 * Roger Federer in 2008
 * Roger Federer in 2009
 * Roger Federer in 2010 – Go look at this one before you delete or keep because I sourced every match, and this takes away any BLP concerns. BLUE DOG TN 19:52, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions.  --   -- Lear's Fool 03:07, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Spain-related deletion discussions.  --   -- Lear's Fool 03:08, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Switzerland-related deletion discussions.  --   -- Lear's Fool 03:08, 21 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep all. The nomination refers to arguments in Articles for deletion/Lindsey Vonn in 2010 so I will comment on that. Athletes have limited careers and will not get 50 year articles. Tennis is organized by calendar year as in 2010 ATP World Tour. Federer and Nadal are the hugely notable top-2 players in the individual sport which maybe gets the most international attention. They get far more than Lindsey Vonn. Every match they play is reported in many media and they play around 80 per year. Federer is considered the best ever in tennis and won the Laureus World Sports Award for Sportsman of the Year in four of the years nominated for deletion. Nadal is by a wide margin the best tennis player in 2010 (see 2010 ATP World Tour). There is also an already legendary Federer–Nadal rivalry. We have a huge number of articles about team seasons in team sports. See for example Category:English football clubs 2009–10 season and Category:2009–10 NCAA Division I men's basketball season (American college basketball). A very few (maybe a handful) athletes in individual sports may also deserve their own article in a given year or season, and these are two of them. Their years are more notable than a lot of the team seasons in team sports. Every golf round by Tiger Woods fits in List of tournament performances by Tiger Woods but otherwise he might also have year articles. A few boxers are hugely notable but they only have a couple of matches per year so a year article would be meaningless for them. I don't think anybody is suggesting athletes in team sports should get year or season articles when their team already has one (but see Articles for deletion/Sam Loxton with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948 where a lot were kept). The nominator is worried about precedent but these articles should be judged on their own merit and not on a concern that person-in-year articles might become frequent. But outside sports, careers are usually less year-oriented and I don't expect a spread. Very notable people in other fields may get multiple articles in other ways. See for example Category:Barack Obama. Wikipedia has hundreds of thousands of biographies about often lowly notable people so I don't see a few lists of notable sports results as a BLP nightmare. No examples of BLP problems have been given. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:33, 21 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete all. Wikipedia is not a statistics database. Any useful summary information should be in the athletes article or if it is gets too long, a career details article. The fact other statistical articles exist is no reason to keep these, it is reason to consider nominating the others for deletion also. wjemather bigissue 07:54, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete all. The nominator didn't provide examples of BLP problems, because this is a WP:NOT problem, not a BLP one. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. While statistical information could be useful to the fan, it is difficult to argue that it's encyclopedic. There is however a way for the above articles to be kept, if someone is willing to merge all the nominated articles into a single list, removing the statistics content and retaining the text. But until so, I agree to a delete.--resident (talk)  11:14, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. Bonkers. Just bonkers. Vonn competes for what 3-4 months a year. These guys play for 11 months. In order to provide details on years seperate articles must be created cause otherwise the main page becomes too long, and if shortened misses a lot of detail out. They are not stat pages but are pages which are detailed prose about a players year. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KnowIG (talk • contribs) 22:27, November 21, 2010
 * Just want to point out that you're not actually articulating an argument for keeping, nor addressing the arguments for deletion. "Bonkers" isn't a rationale for maintaining these articles, and a closing administrator would likely not give this !vote a great deal of weight.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 07:26, 22 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep. Wikipedia is not an indescriminate source of information, and where articles in this vein present nothing but a raw list or table of a year's results, they should generally be deleted per this policy. On the other hand, some articles about the year in the career of a sports-person are absolutely appropriate for inclusion. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 are all featured articles of the form "Person X in year Y", and surely nobody could argue that they warrant deletion. The difference between an indiscriminate database and a valid article is the presence of sufficient significant coverage in reliable sources to support a substantial prose discussion of the subject.  Each of these articles features a well referenced prose section, and as such there is no reason for their deletion.  -- Lear's Fool 12:41, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Putting aside WP:OTHERSTUFF, all those cricket articles you list are not comparable. They are actual proper articles, while these Federer and Nadal articles really are nothing more than indiscriminate lists of statistics and match results. The prose you speak of mostly summarises a few tournaments and does hardly anything to expand on said statistics. Any true encyclopaedic content (of which there is little) can easily be (and should be) amalgamated into a single section in the main article, or a seperate career article (depending on length). These articles would be more properly titled List of Roger Federer's tournament results in 2010, etc., etc., and then it would be even clearer why they should be deleted.wjemather bigissue 12:58, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sure, but you're not advocating a restructure of the content in these articles, you're advocating its complete removal. If a restructure of this content is your intention (or the intention of any other participant here), there is nothing preventing a bold user from doing the work and trying to find a better alternative, but AfD is not a forum to place a 7 day deadline on article improvement.  These articles meet the GNG with ease: the fact that the prose is a bit formulaic doesn't detract from that.  -- Lear's Fool 13:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * post-edit conflict The point is that these articles are not simply a list of tournament results. -- Lear's Fool 13:25, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I am advocating deletion as they violate policy, namely WP:NOT. And yes they are, in general, simply a list of tournament results. Accompanied by text for sure, but that text merely puts into words the list of results and does nothing to avoid the aforementioned policy violation. wjemather bigissue 13:55, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Pathetic Wjmather to say that the articles listed for ADF are not proper article and are just a list of stuff and to say the cricket ones are. The cricket one is exactly the same just has more headers. You haven't made your self clear, and it's quiet clear that this is would mean that ALL WIKI TENNIS articles fail policy due to being a collection of results. Hell most sporting articles would be up for deletion as well. Do you really want to go there KnowIG (talk) 16:40, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Your argument regarding "most sporting articles" has no basis whatsoever. Your comments also betray the fact that you have not even glanced at any of the cricketer's articles. I meant proper articles in the sense that they contain detailed referenced content which analyses the subject, which none of the articles nominated here do. They are, in the main, nothing more than a list of results and statistics. Remove all that and you have barely enough content for two paragraphs in total. P.S. I'd urge you to strike "pathetic" from your comments. wjemather bigissue 17:04, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Right look here Wozniacki, Phil Taylor, Super Kings I could go on... although they have other bits in there the main bit is basically a list of results in prose. SO therefore the article which are yearly and go into significant detail should stay, unless you want to change every single wiki article on sport. KnowIG (talk) 17:32, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm hearing you, WP:Other stuff exists – doesn't mean it should, mostly it just means they need fixing too. wjemather bigissue 17:43, 21 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep: We allow season articles in team sports, and I see no reason why such articles in individual sports couldn't be notable or well-sourced for preeminent stars such as Federer. Undue weight would certainly apply to journeyman golfers, race car drivers or tennis players, but I'd have to imagine there'd be enough to say about the years of a Federer, a Tiger Woods or a Jeff Gordon to sustain such articles and strip excess detail out of the main articles.   Ravenswing  18:36, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I didn't even make this argument directly in the nom but it's probably the stronger one from the delete camp: how do you deal with the WP:IINFO issue, i.e. the problem of "excessive listing of statistics?" The policy says that "long and sprawling lists of statistics may be confusing to readers and reduce the readability and neatness of our articles." I think that's definitely an issue if we are talking about having a lot of these kind of articles, with huge swaths of content split of into "in year ____ " articles. Also, why would we have these sort of articles only for sports stars and not, say, politicians/legislators who work on a legislative calendar, or pop start who release music and tour every year? How do we determine who is or is not a "preeminent star" in a given sport? Nadal or Federer are, sure, but apparently Lindsey Vonn did not warrant year by year coverage (maybe you disagree). Not trying to badger you here at all, just trying to get a sense of how you think we should deal with these kind of issues going forward assuming we keep these articles. What do we do when someone creates Barack Obama in 2012 or Miley Cyrus in 2014? --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:48, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, first off, I consider the "long and sprawling lists of statistics ..." etc argument desperately uncompelling. Certainly in sports articles - as well as in many other fields of endeavor - statistical tables are expected, never mind appreciated.  Far from being "confused" (an assertion, by the bye, for which I'd love to see some evidence), this is the very information many readers come to find.  As far as what a "preeminent star" is, Wikipedia has managed to develop comprehensive notability standards for many fields; plainly setting standards isn't beyond our grasp.  That this would result in many more articles?  So it would, but that's where WP:NOTPAPER comes in.  Finally, what would we do if someone created Barack Obama in 2012 or Miley Cyrus in 2014?  Hm.  Review them to ensure that they meet Wikipedia policies and guidelines ... and certainly, where these two specific examples are concerned, WP:CRYSTAL?  I certainly agree with you that a legislative calendar, for instance, is as sensible and definable as a sports season.   Ravenswing  11:28, 24 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Careers in different fields are organized in different ways and so should our articles be. Lots of people have many articles about their work, for example albums, books, films, election campaigns and terms, inventions, discoveries, or something else of relevance in their field. Roger Federer in year X is the appropriate way to go into detail of his unique career (so unique that I don't consider this AfD a precedent). There are lots of articles about the work of Myley Cyrus in Miley Cyrus, Miley Cyrus singles, Hannah Montana (including each season and several individual episodes), and Category:Miley Cyrus. If we already have articles about the main works released by a performer in a year then I don't think people will create articles like "Performer X in year Y", and I would oppose it. Regarding your other example, Barack Obama, it appears you have overlooked Timeline of the Presidency of Barack Obama (2009) and Timeline of the Presidency of Barack Obama (2010). But I think it would have been a bad idea to include them in this group nomination. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:43, 25 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Outright Keep: If you keep on citing otherstuffexist argument Wjemather you are in a completely erroneous argument because Federer's page dictated via Size Rule that it was forthright to have been split so does Rafael Nadal's right now, which I will get done eventually when I have time. BLUE DOG TN 03:28, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, Wjemather these are in fact correct to be included on wikipedia because I cited the source for the matches and Notable because they are two illustrious tennis players, and their seasons always receive significant independent coverage in secondary article sources. Plus, they are list of the matches of the two great tennis players seasons, and they have seasons. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 03:37, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Bluedogtn, you are completely misreading what wjemather is saying. That editor is not making an "other stuff" argument, rather they are pointing out that another editor (one arguing for keep) is doing so. And you are not dealing with the deletion arguments, which relate to WP:INDISCRIMINATE and, for me at least, WP:BLP (to address a point made above, I did not point to specific BLP problems in these articles, my argument is that if we have a gaggle of these "Person X in Year Y" articles then BLP problems will be inevitable). Anyhow you are not dealing with the central arguments for deletion&mdash;indeed none of the keep comments really do to my mind. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:28, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't imagine there'll be any more BLP problems than we have now. Whether X editors spend Y amount of time on (say) the main Roger Federer article, or X editors spend Y amount of time on a dozen Federer season articles, it'll be the same amount of time.   Ravenswing  11:30, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Probably not more (or at least not many more) BLP problems, no, but a similar amount of BLP problems that are more difficult to track and remove, probably yes. This is a pretty standard argument that those who take a more hard-line attitude toward BLPs make. Rafael Nadal is no doubt heavily watched, so BLP issues are presumably dealt with swiftly. This is not really the case for marginal public figures, so inserting malicious materials is in a sense "easier" if the person is not uber famous. My argument is that if we start a trend where we have 10, 20, or 30 sub-articles about well-know people we'll end up with a bunch of biographical articles that are watched little if at all. It would thus be easier for someone to stop by and say "In January 2017 ______ was convicted of murder." Is that going to happen often? No, not at all, but it certainly could (scratch that, would) happen and I think it should be treated as a real concern. I think we need fewer articles that can serve as pages that host defamatory claims, and validating this kind of article essentially guarantees we'll have more of them. Clearly most people in this discussion are not convinced by that argument&mdash;most of the discussion has been about WP:INDISCRIMINATE&mdash;but I just wanted to articulate it more fully. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:57, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, but I think that's a terrible reason to be concerned about article numbers. Down that road leads censorship: "No, we need a fixed limit on the number of BLP articles allowed on Wikipedia because we only have a finite number of trusted editors to monitor them."  Centralized control works for the Britannica.  It's the complete antithesis of Wikipedia.   Ravenswing  14:34, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
 * We'll just have to agree to disagree&mdash;which is fine by me!&mdash;but I think you're going down an extremely slippery slope when you mention the risk of censorship. We don't have centralized control on Wikipedia, but we collectively make editorial decisions all the time. We've decided, for a variety of reasons, to not include entire classes of articles that some other encyclopedia project might choose to include. In terms of BLPs, we generally don't have articles on people known for one event. Likewise we usually don't keep articles about minor local officials. Neither of those choices are a form of censorship, rather just general editorial decisions about how to handle certain categories of articles relating to living people. To decide that dozens of articles about one person broken down by years is undesirable in BLP terms would not, I'm fairly certain, lead to setting a fixed number of BLP articles for the whole encyclopedia, or to censorship in order to arrive at that goal. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:17, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment from nom. The difference between this AfD and the Lindsey Vonn one is interesting to me. I didn't really expect a great deal of controversy here given the earlier result--Nadal and Federer are definitely more notable than Vonn, yes, but not so much so that the discussion in these AfDs should be so wildly different. I think we're at risk of creating a double standard here. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:28, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Consensus can change. I was not party to that AfD and neither were any of the others !voting to keep, and we are not bound be its precedent.  -- Lear's Fool 11:43, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course consensus can change&mdash;I'm obviously well aware of that. But it does not change every single day or hour. These two discussions are happening basically at the same time, and one was unanimously in favor of deletion while this seems likely to be heading for a no consensus or possibly even a keep closure, if I had to guess. It's not good for AfDs about two very similar articles to come to totally different conclusions within the space of a week, particularly when it's a "type" of article that might continue to be created (indeed possibly en masse). Understand I'm not even saying I'm peeved that not everyone is agreeing with the prior AfD and with my belief that this should be deleted, nor am I remotely suggesting that you are bound to !vote a certain way. I'm just saying we really should have some kind of standard, guideline, whatever for these sort of articles and unfortunately the AfDs are probably not going to produce much in the way of precedent, rather only confusion. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 22:04, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If you think of teams have season so do players, and I was just extrapolating a good idea on here for groups or teams or franchises to an individual sport like tennis, which has seasons each player participates in. This simply equates matches to games (team sports), which are similar in nature, and allows readers interested in the subject to delve deeper into the content.  That is where both of you and Wjemather miss the whole boat on this matter. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 04:38, 25 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment. I feel the argument I made in my !vote above has not quite been understood (probably my fault), so allow me to reiterate and address in particular the remarks relating to the Other Stuff Exists essay. The point I am trying to make is that there are some "People X in year Y" articles that should be deleted (perhaps the one about Vonn was one, I can't see it as it was deleted), and there are some (Donald Bradman with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948 etc.) that should not.  Simply being about a sportsperson over the course of a year is not sufficient to warrant deletion.  I have proposed a standard to differentiate between these two: the old faithful general notability guideline.  These articles definitely meet the GNG, and so should not be deleted.  That is my argument, and it is not simply that other articles of this nature exist, and so these should too. Regarding the indiscriminate nature of the statistics tables: this is not a matter for AfD.  If editors do not like the large tables at the bottoms of these articles, or they feel that the prose sections are too formulaic they should be bold and remove the tables or improve the prose.  -- Lear's Fool 11:43, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It is entirely a matter for AfD. The only improvement to do be made to these articles is to remove the offending content, and the argument here is that once that is done, all you have are a few sentences that are already sitting quite happily in the parent article. Simply, these articles should not have been split in the first place, and the sooner it is undone the better. <sub style="color:#007700;">wjemather <sup style="color:#ff8040;">bigissue 16:34, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It is not as you see it wjemather because golf and tennis are two separate sports. I am way more familiar with this subject matter than you on here.  I would suggest you take a look at the Roger Federer article size before I got to it 114 KB, which meant it was a candidate for splitting into these articles about players and season, and I know they have seasons like sporting teams do.  Rafael Nadal is presently at 111 KB, which is in dire need of reducing, but I just simply don't have the time right now to do it because of personal issues.  What's the big difference editor, prove your argument other than saying otherstuffexist because I have the rules to back up my stance on these articles as well to keep and make more of them say for Serena Williams. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 19:33, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Way to miss the point. The trouble with a lot of sports people's bios is that they just insist on carrying on playing year in year out, and we have editors who then mindlessly keep adding trivial match details which no-one ever removes. We then end up with bloated articles that are blighted by a rash of meaningless numbers before some bright spark comes along to lazily split into smaller chunks and add more bloat instead of doing the hard work of rewriting and chopping the fluff out.
 * In this case, if you had trimmed the excessive details that existed before you started, we would not be here now and the encylopaedia would be much better for it. An external link to the player profile on the ATP site is more than enough to enable readers to find out such information if they want it. Instead you have duplicated it by copying every minute detail, and since you keep missing it, in violation of WP:INDISCRIMINATE.
 * In (almost) every article the encyclopaedic content is totally confined to the lead paragraph, and what we have after that is nothing more than a huge list of results in the form of prose followed by the same list in a table. Combine those lead paragraphs together and we'll have a proper career summary which should be in the main article. (P.S. You know dick all about my level of knowledge on the subject matter, so you'd be best not commenting on it. And what the hell has golf got to do with anything here?) <sub style="color:#007700;">wjemather <sup style="color:#ff8040;">bigissue 20:20, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Wjemather is simply wrong again because the content that would go back into the articles are the Yearly Summaries not the lead sections. I am no dick and you are a bully, simply put!  God Bless You! BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 04:30, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course the combined paragraphs wouldn't go into the lead. They would form a proper career summary section. Be nice if you took the time to actually read others comments properly before flying of the handle. <sub style="color:#007700;">wjemather <sup style="color:#ff8040;">bigissue 08:00, 26 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Can I just request (in the best of good humour) that everyone cools down a little bit? I appreciate that there is a strong disagreement here, but both sides have reasonable arguments, and there is not so much at stake that tempers should fray.  Everyone here is debating in good faith.  -- Lear's Fool 15:04, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep all All the articles have enough reliable sources to pass GNG. Armbrust  <sup style="color:#E3A857;">Talk  <sub style="color:#008000;">Contribs  18:39, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This editor was canvassed by Bluedogtn (diff). Also I can't see that GNG is especially relevent to these lists. <sub style="color:#007700;">wjemather <sup style="color:#ff8040;">bigissue 08:00, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Note all he said was go and comment on it, hardly swaying the user in question. And of course GNG is evidently there is enough sources to create the article, plus you say they go into main page but when the main page is to big this is what you do. Clutching at straws IMO KnowIG (talk) 08:35, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * He posted notices to select individuals who he thought would agree with him. That is votestacking. The sources would point to the notability of the player(s) not a particular year of match results for that player. GNG is irrelevant here. If the main article is that big, the chances are it needs a good clean-up first. <sub style="color:#007700;">wjemather <sup style="color:#ff8040;">bigissue 16:11, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * We know that for a fact? (Myself, I don't claim to be a mindreader.) I can think of several cases where I was solicited on my talk page for a deletion discussion and found that I disagreed with the person who did.   Ravenswing  16:30, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I have enough experience of dealing with this editor in the past to make fair judgement. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, lets just call it what it is shall we? <sub style="color:#007700;">wjemather <sup style="color:#ff8040;">bigissue 18:02, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I have been accused on many rule breakings by the editor in question on my talk page, and now s/he is calling me a quack, which is rather repulsive. This user keeps on leveling personal insults and attacks on me because once a wikipedia bully always a wikipedia bully.  Wjemather, now you are just showing your true colors, and take a chill pill again.  By the way you don't own the discussion by commenting furiously and endlessly. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 18:24, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * This is all completely off-topic and I fail to see how this AfD his being helped by your constant whining. I also don't recall your understanding of the English language ever being this bad. Perhaps if I had linked to WP:DUCK you might have got the idea. In the past all I have tried to do is make you aware of various policies and guidelines that all contributors should be familiar with. The fact the you choose to take it as a personal insult is quite obviously not my problem. <sub style="color:#007700;">wjemather <sup style="color:#ff8040;">bigissue 18:40, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * This is an essay and you are using it completely baselessly, which there's not any credence to it because it is not policy or procedure. The other is an absurd definition and should not be used to say dick to someone at all because it is not a Wikipedia civil thing to do. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 19:49, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It was a reference to WP:DUCK. wjemather is apparently saying he/she has seen enough to call your posts canvassing. You were not called a quack. By the way, wjemather's earlier small comment "You know dick all about my level of knowledge on the subject matter" was using the expression wiktionary:dick all: Nothing at all, or very little. You were not called a dick. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:57, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I had not seen the latest post by wjemather and saved over it without getting an edit conflict. I'm not sure what happened but it looks like the issue I didn't trust at Village pump (technical) PrimeHunter (talk) 19:09, 26 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep all - per User:Bluedogtn and User:Ravenswing. There is more than enough reliably sourced information to support these articles, and too much information to include within each player's article.  I don't see a deletion argument beyond WP:OTHERSTUFF, and if we want to go with OTHERSTUFF arguments there are plenty of Team XXX in Year YYY that exist and even received keep consensuses in AfD, and although those are teams, individual tennis players are similar to teams in that those are the units that typically compete in tennis matches. Rlendog (talk) 20:54, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:INDISCRIMINATE is the primary basis for deletion and it is the keep arguments that are based on WP:OTHERSTUFF. As I stated above, sourcing is not the issue. The amount of trivial statistical information is the problem, and none of the keep !voters have addressed it. <sub style="color:#007700;">wjemather <sup style="color:#ff8040;">bigissue 11:12, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I have: my answer is if you don't like the large amount of statistical information, remove it. You don't need to delete the article (which has substantial prose sections) to remove the stats.  If you contend that the prose is too formulaic and statistical, improve it, but we don't delete articles because of bad prose.  -- Lear's Fool 11:57, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but you are merely avoiding the issue. 90% of the prose is a list of match results and the remainder is already in the main article. If we were to fix them the result would be duplication of content, so in this case we do delete. <sub style="color:#007700;">wjemather <sup style="color:#ff8040;">bigissue 12:17, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * But it's not in the main article, at all. The only thing it says is Federer won tournies here here and here which tells you nothing about their season.. Thank God this closes tomorrow KnowIG (talk) 18:51, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * And that is all that is needed in an encyclopaedia. <sub style="color:#007700;">wjemather <sup style="color:#ff8040;">bigissue 18:56, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Funny man. Clearly it is not all that is needed, it is not good to cut most of a career out KnowIG (talk) 20:03, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Excessive statistical detail. <sub style="color:#007700;">wjemather <sup style="color:#ff8040;">bigissue 20:08, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Just to let you know FYI that List of tournament performances by Tiger Woods violates Excessive statistical detail about every tournament the golfer participates in. So, don't call these that, when these don't even touch the level of excess of that article.  This is in no way excess rather appropriate splitting of the main article Roger Federer.  By the way, I have broadband internet connection and Tiger Woods page always times out and takes about two minutes for my browser to display that is why Sizing limits exist to prevent this issue from a happening. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 23:22, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes it does, but that is not up for discussion at present and is also irrelevant here. <sub style="color:#007700;">wjemather <sup style="color:#ff8040;">bigissue 00:00, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

title
I bet most of you opposing this have a problem with the titles rather than most of the content and context of these articles. I would suggest they all be retitled to say ex. Roger Federer's 2010 tennis season or Rafael Nadal's 2010 tennis season, instead of just a blanket Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal in 2010. This is a compromise on my part as a fig leaf to the opposing side. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 23:22, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry but that would solve nothing. The problem is with the content, not the title. <sub style="color:#007700;">wjemather <sup style="color:#ff8040;">bigissue 23:59, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That sort of title might be slightly better since it would exclude non-career biographical info, but as Wjemather said it does not really address the problem. After this AfD concludes I might start a general conversation somewhere about these sort of "...in year X" articles since there's been disagreement in two different AfDs (if anyone has an idea of where such a conversation should happen let me know). --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 00:19, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I think WT:SPORTS would be a good place for it. Armbrust  <sup style="color:#E3A857;">Talk  <sub style="color:#008000;">Contribs  01:22, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If I do start a conversation I'll be sure to put a link to it on the WT:SPORTS page, but this is an issue that goes beyond athletes and would probably apply to a number of bios of living people (politicians and pop stars were two that I mentioned above) so I'd want a somewhat more central place to have the discussion. Thanks for the link though&mdash;people connected with that project should definitely be involved in any such discussion. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:39, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The only known examples have been sports people and Barack Obama in 2009 and 2010 - perhaps the most notable person on Earth in those years. Articles for deletion/Timeline of the Presidency of Barack Obama was a certain keep in early 2009 when it already had daily entries like the current Timeline of the Presidency of Barack Obama (2009). Notability (sports) already mentions season articles. I wouldn't take it beyond Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports) without finding more examples. As I have mentioned, careers and Wikipedia coverage are different in different fields. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:59, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't even know if I'm going to start a conversation or not&mdash;I might get lazy&mdash;but if I do I think it's a mistake to have it only in terms of sports. The whole point would be to have a policy discussion before other articles crop up, not wait and deal with each new category of article one by one. Of course different kind of careers can be covered in different ways, but the whole point would be to see if there are some general principles with respect to these kind of articles. We have a number of general principles for bio articles and there's nothing precluding that from happening here, unless of course there's no consensus as to what they would be. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:37, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Not incidentally, WP:ATH makes no mention of articles about seasons of individual athletes, but rather only for teams. Even then not all teams seasons warrant their own articles. If anything the current guideline would seem to be more supportive of the idea that the articles being discussed in this AfD should be deleted. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:42, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Look I'm not being rude but Wiki is and can be slightly disjointed so you may have to have the discussion on a few areas and cross reference each to get a accuate picutre. Unless I would say is go for the team article consenus and try and change that to a more border convention. If that helps KnowIG (talk) 02:58, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia has enough existing issues to deal with. I don't think we should spend time discussing what to do with hypothetical articles nobody is making now when we already have real articles and don't know what people would write in the hypothetical ones. The nutshell at Policies and guidelines says: "Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are pages that serve to document the good practices that are accepted in the Wikipedia community." See also Policies and guidelines. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:01, 28 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep ALL Federer and Nadal are two of the greatest tennis players of all time, and their careers deserve the necessary detail they get. The list of all matches is the best kept and fast updated list of their matches on the internet. Supertigerman (talk) 00:44, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with you because I think Wjemather and Bigtimepeace are underestimating the vastness of the magnitude, enormity, and propensity of the years in the careers of both Federer and Nadal to the historical record of tennis and Woods’ to the history of golf.  This makes it necessary to allow these pages because as Excessive listing of statistics says clearly to "consider using tables to enhance the readability of lengthy data lists."  The careers of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Tiger Woods all are justified in having intricate details listed about them in terms of matches they play each year in tennis and Woods for the golfing rounds he has in his profoundly historic career for each year.  See did you read rule number three.  I think this rational and disclaimer alone justifies these articles existence.  BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 01:33, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * By the way, Article sizing, makes it difficult at best to put the data on the main pages without making the hideously long to read and would be burdensome and cumbersome, so it is best left to be left on the season pages for the matches played each year. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 01:39, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I should not even both commenting at this point, but it is categorically the case that en.wikipedia should not catalog every detail of the careers of Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. We should not do this for any human being, period. This is an encyclopedia, not a database. Encyclopedias provide readable introductions to topics, not exhaustive coverage. This is particularly true of what is, I have to say, a relatively trivial topic like one dude's tennis career. Federer is perhaps the greatest tennis player ever and he's fun to watch but his career is not at all "profoundly historic," and frankly that idea is ridiculous (the Great Depression or Thirty Years War were profoundly historic, not a nice string of Grand Slam victories). If you want obsessive coverage of every detail of an athlete's career, then do some work at (or start) a specialized sports-related wiki project. Regardless of this AfD, en.wikipedia will never be a sports database, end of story. (Incidentally, Supertigerman did not provide a rationale for keeping the articles&mdash;the fact that this is supposedly the best list on the internet is quite irrelevant.) --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:04, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * But we don't catalog every detail. We make a selection and just disagree about how large the selection should be. I and others think it's OK to make it much larger for Federer and Nadal than for less notable players. We have a table row per match. The official ATP site has a whole table for each match with detailed statistics of serves, returns, break points and more, seen by clicking "Stats" to the right of a match at http://www.atpworldtour.com/Tennis/Players/Top-Players/Roger-Federer.aspx?t=pa&y=2010&m=s&e=0#. I think we all agree that would have been excessive statistics for Wikipedia. For Tiger Woods we show his total score in each round without breaking it down by hole like the PGA site at http://www.pgatour.com/players/00/87/93/scorecards/2010/r028.html. That whole page corresponds to a table row at List of tournament performances by Tiger Woods. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:03, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If that is the case then there would be no rationale for 2010–11 Manchester United F.C. season article either because it is not of an encyclopedia. I think Wikipedia has to decide whether it is a Encyclopedia is general like Britannica or if is is a specialty encyclopedia or not like Encyclopaedia Judaica, which is the crux of this argument you are making.  In addition, I advise you to go look at the second bullet point on here the link I provided in characteristic of an encyclopedia, which is contradictory to your argument made on this discussion thread.  I think of Wikipedia of being ubiquitous in nature allowing for the generalities like you are going for, yet allowing for the specialties that I am advocating for at the same time. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 03:15, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * We're all essentially repeating ourselves and the discussion reached a point of diminishing returns long ago, so I'm just going to be quiet (too late!) and let an admin come and put this thing out of its misery. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 03:33, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Tiger Woods are to be taken as general articles for the general reader to read and under the scope Sports project. On the other hand, Roger Federer in 2010, Rafael Nadal in 2010, and List of tournament performances by Tiger Woods are to be taken as speciality articles for the tennis or golf aficionado, enthusiast, devotee to read, and under the scope of Tennis project and Golf project on Wikipedia respectively. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 03:35, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. I recall that in Articles for deletion/Sam Loxton with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948 there was a worry that keeping these sorts of articles would lead to more such overly-detailed duplicative pages. As predicted, it has come true. If these are not deleted, more such pages will be written, with decreasing value as less important athletes' records are data-mined. Next, sporties will be writing articles on Joe Linebacker's junior year at State. Abductive  (reasoning) 14:05, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You're making a Crystal ball argument under the "future history" area, which is not advisable, plausible, or even justifiable on Wikipedia. These articles are not that and should never be used as a justification to delete them. So, if an individual sports person is "worthy of notice" like these players seasons are to be chronicled on Wikipedia, and if in the future it is justifiable that other great athletes should also have their seasons chronicled on Wikipedia, so be it. These articles are about two of the most successful tennis players of all-time, which they just happen to be playing at the same-time in history.  If I were you, I would take a look back at what the discussion said on the article that you cited that was kept, which is the same rationale that should inevitably be used to justify in keeping these. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 20:26, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * By the way, Joe Linebacker does not play in an individual sport that has season, so that argument is false and baseless on the merits. Because Nadal and Federer play in an individual sport like tennis, which has season's just like team sports say American football 2010 Michigan State Spartans football team, so the proverbial Joe Linebacker's stuff would be if he was "worthy of notice." BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 20:49, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Sam Loxton with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948. Seems to me this is about an individual on a team. Abductive  (reasoning) 22:20, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think it is just because it pass the notability test, so do these, which is the standard for inclusion on Wikipedia. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 23:13, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The article you cited is a ONE TIME EVENT, which means this was a anomaly, and he became notable for this event alone. This is in no way a correlative to the articles here in question because they are season articles not just a one timer thing like you are a quoting. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 00:36, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * All the more reason it should have been deleted, then. The way sources treat sports is quite generalizable. They go into detail in a very primary source fashion which lacks the real analysis required to be a secondary source. "Joe Linebacker made a tackle which changed the outcome of the game. {All actions by players affect the outcome.} He attributed the tackle to God/luck/Jesus/training. {They always do.} In the end the score was 29-17, with 345 yards rushed. {Statistics.}" This is exactly the kind of material that does not belong in an encyclopedia. Abductive  (reasoning) 01:29, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This search alone justifies the creation of this article under BASIC criteria, and I can definately find secondary sources for Federer's matches for 2010 and probably all the way back to 2003. So, it is just to have them regardless if you consider sports just a mere general subject matter, some people all their lives are sports because the eat, sleep, and breathe sports like I do tennis. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 02:44, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In other sports, the NBA has about an 80-something game regular season and the MLB has about a 150-game plus regular season, which in tennis a match is like a game to a tennis player, and Federer and Nadal usually play somewhere in between the NBA and MLB standards. It is kind of like the NCAA Tourney, but every week, which I don't see us wanting to delete those articles now do I. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 02:51, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete all Such article forks constitute excessive detail and focus on minute details. We should not devote 10 pages to Nadal's career. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  21:20, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Excessive detail is not a reason for deletion, and where is the minute details. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 21:29, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. We may not be a paper encyclopedia, but we're not expected to note every minute detail that ever happened. Wizardman  Operation Big Bear 23:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Wizardman the source per match that I supplied is only to prove the match took place, which I don't include it on wikipedia, so I make it into a reference to solve the BLP issue. You are going off the deep end if you think it is a minute by minute article, I only put the score of the match not the minutes, but if you want I could delete the proof of the match at all took place.  On the other hand, I could take and find articles through google archive search if you want me to.  Oh, by the way that is not a justification for deletion, you have to show why it violates one of the reasons, which is clearly not done by your comment. BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 23:13, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Just as a ending note to the closing admin, I just want you to think of what deleting these articles would do to Roger Federer's main page first and foremost. If you must delete, I will need copies of the articles to put the main text back into the article, but it would definately take it back over 100KB just to let you know.  No one has been able to answer me that question.  I am asking the closing admin to give me a response to that, and where I went wrong if I really did or not.  Thanks, I am out! BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 00:07, 1 December 2010 (UTC).
 * I just want to lastly let you know that I did the split wrong first, but I reworked it, and this is what I came up with at the end of the process. First, I took all of the career info off and created a career bio article with no summary on the main page of Federer and other tennis players.  I took and did this way by putting a quick one paragraph summary on the main page and took that and did the leads for the season articles.  I grouped them into groups of four to show some separation of the career, and its stages.  I put the old text, which is the yearly summary now on the season articles on the season articles, just for your information.  I found that RCRC created the list of all of Federer's matches on Wikipedia here, which was displayed here.  I took and used this and make it into a usable framework.  I just want an explaination of what was my mis-doing and what I need to do to make the solution if mine was not good enough.  Thanks! BLUE <sub style="color:#FF0000;">DOG TN 00:24, 1 December 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.