Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Youssef Barakat


 * 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   delete. No sources have been found to prove that Lebanese Premier League is professional. King of &hearts;   &diams;   &clubs;  &spades; 23:09, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Youssef Barakat

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Fails WP:N, and WP:ATHLETE, having not competed in a fully pro league, no coverage in reliable sources and no way of verifiying any of the (little) information in the article. Although the Lebanese PL's pro status was debated by the Prod-contesting editor, there is no evidence that he ever even played in it, only that he was at one point in the squad of one team. – Toon 21:11, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football related deletions. – Toon 21:20, 20 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Speedy delete Clearly fails WP:ATHLETE and WP:BIO. No evidence he has played in a pro-league so not notable. 21:36, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - I found that he has played in the Lebanese Premier League (per RSSSF), but I don't know if that league is fully-pro. We have very few English sources for this athlete, so it's difficult to know if he is notable. Jogurney (talk) 21:43, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. GiantSnowman 08:24, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep The article states that the subject has played in the Lebanese Premier League, and Wikipedia's article on that league states that it is professional. Subject therefore satisfies WP:ATHLETE, since even if sources are not currently cited it is likely that they exist. Cynical (talk) 15:26, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Question - can you please point me to where our article states that it is fully pro? I even did a search for the words "pro" and "professional" and it didn't pop up... am I being stupid? Plus, WP:V is a core policy - if you think that "sources are likely to exist" could you perhaps present some? We have looked and can't find any, so I don't know what your assumption is based on. – Toon 16:25, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Answer: Lebanese Premier League 2005-06 "The 2005-06 Season of the Lebanese Premier League was the 58th season of Top-Flight Professional League Football (soccer) in Lebanon." - opening sentence of the article (my emphasis). Just because it isn't supported by sources now, does not mean that the article should be deleted. My rationale for the assertion that sources are likely to exist is simple: whatever its other attributes, this would appear without doubt to be the top football/soccer league in Lebanon, and one would therefore assume that there is Lebanese media coverage out there regarding the league. The fact that we have so far been unable to find this coverage, that it isn't readily findable using Google, or that it isn't in English don't matter. We have plenty of articles which only or predominantly cite offline sources - perhaps if there are any Lebanese users active on enwiki we could ask them? (although perhaps that is better left to WP:CLEANUP rather than an Afd discussion) Cynical (talk) 22:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * reference to professional deleted from league article as that is unsupported by evidence. League season article is pretty much a single editor article lacking peer review or sources. Parent article makes no such claim of professionalism.-- Club Oranje T 11:17, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note for those wishing to assess this issue, the most recent version of the article including the 'professional' claim can be found here Cynical (talk) 14:14, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment - even if sources were theoretically available, we cannot speculate on their contents. We cannot assume that they prove either side of the argument, and since our core verifiability policy clearly states that "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." we cannot keep an article just in case sources exist and happen to back up the stance. It is not whether sources exist somewhere, it is whether they have been found. It is clearly not acceptable to keep an article because there "may" be reliable sources out there that prove notability and back up the assertions made here. What it comes down to is there are no reliable sources present, or have been found by the several users who have looked, to back up the LPL being fully-professional. Given that this is a living person's biography, which can do significant damage to someone's life if some unsourced claims are inserted (which is very likely given WP's current practices), the probably-not-notable should not be kept unless there is actual evidence that they meet our inclusion criteria — which we just don't have. – Toon 15:35, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. The previous editor seems to be confusing verifiability and notability. The question, as far as verifiability is concerned, is not whether "there are no reliable sources present, or have been found by the several users who have looked, to back up the LPL being fully-professional": it is whether such sources exist to verify the article content. Verifiability means verifiability of the article content, not verifiability of notability. The question of whether the Lebanese league is professional or not doesn't have any bearing on the fact that the contents of the article are verifiable, which is the standard for both WP:V and WP:BLP. Please don't let start treating the verifiability and living persons content policies as somehow subservient to the notability guidelines, which are about whether such content should go into a separate article. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:53, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom and others, having not played to required level per ATHLETE or achieved anything special besides.-- Club Oranje T 11:17, 24 July 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.