Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Sports notability guideline

Explanation
Does the page WP:NSPORTS meet the global community expectations? Burning Pillar (talk) 22:26, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Survey

 * Yes Is there something you wish to have changed?  d.g. L3X1  (distant write)  23:50, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, these are guidelines, not policy, they do not trump GNG, they help non-experts sort out what is or is not notable within a field.  Montanabw (talk) 04:24, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * First, if you fail GNG and pass such a sub guideline, are you notable or not? Particularly when some of those guidelines are super-inclusive? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:42, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The sub-guidelines are merely for the presumption of notability. A subject that passes WP:NSPORTS is presumed to pass WP:GNG. Which means it usually will, but not always. A subject still needs to pass GNG to be considered "notable." Lizard  (talk) 05:47, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Not that I necessarily agree with this poorly-constructed RfC, but your whole post highlights the core of the problem. Passing NSPORTS means you are only presumed to pass GNG. However, plenty of people who pass various NSPORTS criteria don't actually pass GNG. There is the presumption of in-depth coverage, but the reality is for many of these people, the kind of coverage that passes GNG is just not present anywhere. Nevertheless, people continue to insist on making the argument that passing NSPORTS is equivalent to passing the GNG and therefore we should keep all those articles, regardless of the lack of sourcing. I have seen so many contested PRODs and keep votes at AfD that consist of "keep, passes NSPORTS" and nothing more. No sources located, no indication of passing GNG, nothing. That is not an appropriate rationale, and yet people treat it like a golden ticket. Passes NSPORTS, gotta keep it. Obviously there is a problem with the way that NSPORTS is phrased (it needs to be way clearer that passing NSPORTS isn't a free pass through the GNG) or there needs to be a serious tightening-up of the criteria for NSPORTS. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 09:06, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Survey
RemoveArena Football League; this league did not get much attention for most of its existence, and having played one or two games in the long time when the article itself says that it was relatively unknown... WP:GNG will probably not be met.; Remove"Any other top level professional league", for the same reason: they might be relatively unknown, and less important players will probably not meet the GNG.Burning Pillar (talk) 12:19, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion
Players just playing some games, e.g. 6, 10 or such; do they really all generate enough WP:GNG based coverage(which excludes broad databases(WP:INDISCRIMINATE and routine news coverage(WP:NOTNEWS)?Burning Pillar (talk) 12:19, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Survey

 * Oppose - it's fine as it is, we've reached this position after years of tweaking and it works. GiantSnowman 15:53, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion
Let's take a look at Devante Rodney and assume the professional career ends now. I see statistics databases and routine news coverage. That's it. I think there is a problem: Few games in a professional league are probably not enough to get enough attention to meet WP:GNG, especially if the league is not the highest league. Also, let's think about tier 1 international matches: There are large nations and small nations. Everyone who played for the Team A of Brazil is probably notable. I am less confident in someone who played in one or two tier 1 international matches for the Luxembourg national football team. The List of Luxembourg international footballers stops at 30 appearances, for example.Burning Pillar (talk) 12:45, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * To address the first point raised, footballers whose careers top out with only very small number of FPL appearances are rare enough that it's not really worthwhile formulating policy around them. In vast majority of cases debut is sufficient for creation, and in the rare cases where things don't pan out, articles are typically deleted despite technically meeting the guideline. (See Articles for deletion/Dimitar Ivanov (footballer, born 1991) for example.) Sir Sputnik (talk) 16:50, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Survey
I'd say "1. Has appeared in the AFL Grand Final, or has appeared in a match at least three consecutive seasons of the Australian Football League(AFL). 2.Before 1990, appeared in a match in at least three consecutive seasons of the Victorian Football League(VFL). 3.Appeared in at least 30 matches in the either the VFL before 1990 or the AFL 4.Is known, and has received significant coverage in reliable sources, for major individual achievements in a state football league" would be a better criterion.(not necessary the best, but an improvement).--Burning Pillar (talk) 13:37, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I strongly oppose the suggested changes in regards to VFL/AFL players, the suggested changes are too strict particularly the more than 30 games criteria. The AFL and clubs place emphasis on whether someone is an AFL player or not, regardless of how many games they've played, and what I mean is, even if someone has played only one match, they're still classed as an VFL/AFL player, so it becomes too strict/obscure if we start making criterion such as the ones listed above; one game is a simple criteria and seems pretty on par with other major sports. It will also mess up pages such as List of XXX players for clubs, and will disrupt the player by team categories. I don't think any changes need to be made to the first two criterion, but rather I think a change needs to be made in regards to state league players, particularly WAFL and SANFL players before WA and SA teams joined the VFL/AFL, I'm not sure what the exact wording should be, but I have seen some pages created for state players who are 10 time premiership players but played in the 30s so coverage is limited. Flickerd (talk) 13:58, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion
There's currently nothing in WP:NAFL in regards to players in the AFL Women's competition and the only guide at the moment for these players is GNG. I'm of the opinion that playing at least one AFL Women's match should meet NAFL similar to what is the requirement for players in the VFL/AFL. The reason for this is the level of coverage during the season is much higher than state leagues (requirement for NAFL #3) and very similar to the AFL (all games were broadcast on TV and radio, every game was covered by multiple media outlets, such as AFL, News Corp, ESPN etc., and there were many opinion articles during the season too). In addition, the AFL has treated AFLW very similarly to the AFL comp in regards to awards, i.e. league best and fairest, All-Australian, AFLPA awards and so on. Some discussion I saw during the AFLW season was that editors were saying that player articles would be eventually created (i.e. assuming players already meet notability). Also the amount of players editors redlinked meant that there was the assumption these articles would be created. Flickerd (talk) 13:16, 6 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Agreed - just add "or AFL Women's" and problem solved. AFL Women's players are, if anything, more likely to be notable at this stage than many sportspeople in minor sports with established guidelines. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 14:14, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I also agree. The current notability guidelines don't distinguish between male and female players, and that is how it should be. All AFL players, whether men's AFL or AFL Women's, are notable. They are going to fulfill general notability guidelines anyway as each game is reported by every major Australian media outlet. This is the highest level of competition for this sport. I don't understand why this has even been raised as a question. Jack N. Stock (talk) 16:14, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Just in response, on Wikipedia there needs to be a distinction based on parent pages and so on. If there was no distinction then the Australian Football League page would be about both the AFL and AFLW, but each league has its own page, in addition to categories such as Category:VFL/AFL players and Category: AFL Women's players. Even if outside of Wikipedia, the women's players are referred to AFL players (even though I've nearly always heard AFLW player) procedurally a distinction needs to be made, and currently there's nothing in NAFL for the AFLW league players. I'm not sure if you're asking why the question has been raised is in regards to the whole RfC or my initial discussion, if it's my discussion, then the reason is because at the start of the year, notability of AFLW players was briefly discussed at WT:AFL and it was determined only marquee players should have a page, but there was never a strong consensus, since then non-marquee players have been created and creations have had to be justified through GNG, having something specific at NAFL makes it clear, just having NAFL the way it is now is ambiguous for the women. Flickerd (talk) 16:28, 6 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Agree, makes sense to have the same notability guidelines for women's and men's AFL leagues, for the reasons stated by Flickerd. ColonialGrid (talk) 16:43, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

This discussion has been moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australian rules football

Threaded discussion
"Has played one game". Why does this indicate notability? Do nearly all those players get coverage in independent reliable sources, which excludes broad statistics databases, routine news coverage et al?Burning Pillar (talk) 13:56, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Maybe you wouldn't have to ask all of these questions if you would actually take the time to familiarize yourself with how articles work. Someone with 12 extant mainspace edits should not be leading the charge in content-related matters. Several editors with far more clue and experience than you have spoken plainly to you, but you have not learned your lesson. You need to stop ignoring the concerns of others and recognized that this RfC was put together in a very poor fashion. If you continue down this pot-stirring, IDHT course, you will find yourself starting at a site ban sooner than later. As it currently stands, you are not here to build an encyclopedia. Either change the way you operate or find a new hobby. Lepricavark (talk) 14:12, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Survey
This is probably ok, because it only includes the top athletes that will certainly get attention.Burning Pillar (talk) 14:38, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Survey

 * No- both are way too lax, and encourage the creation of articles that are mere statistics and frequently contain inaccuracies. Reyk  YO!  04:12, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes - global expectations? Not quite sure how to interpret the word "global". Once again, I find myself suggesting something which nobody has yet been able to do - if NCRIC is not suitable enough, *suggest* something better, which still allows us to adhere to an NPOV standard. One. Major cricketing. Appearance. Regarding cricket, this conversation is happening at least ten years too late.
 * If the issue is with a particular source, then instead of complaining that our NPOV guidelines are too lax - give us another secondary source from which to glean information and data. Or suggest new - workable - criteria.
 * If the issue is with accuracy of data, then please suggest other secondary sources which provide more accurate data. Why is it that those who complain are unwilling to do the leg-work? Bobo. 08:56, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Because there usually is nothing better than the frequently inaccurate statistical tables. If it were possible to find secondary sources containing accurate data and more fleshed out information, there wouldn't be as much of a problem. It's up to those defending these articles to do the legwork. Reyk  YO!  11:31, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * We already do, using the long-established consistent notability criteria. If there's a problem with the criteria, that's all well and good. No harm in questioning those.
 * Do you have any (citable, secondary) evidence that any of this data is "frequently inaccurate"? Bobo. 11:39, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I think the suggestion probably is that stats in an article, say in the infobox, are often out of date - not that the underlying databases (i.e. CricInfo and CricketArchive primarily) are incorrect (although there are clear cases when such databases disagree a little). It's not unusual, in my experience, to come across current or recent cricketer articles with out of date statistics or which are dominated by tables of statistics with very little, if any, added meaning. Even of intentional cricketers.
 * Whilst this is less likely, in my experience, to be an issue with historical cricketers, there are articles about people who played just one or two matches which essentially rely upon the scorecard for the majority of the information presented and for whom I would suggest it is extremely unlikely that GNG quality sources are likely to be found. Blue Square Thing (talk) 15:23, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

No Remove altogether. Not enough thought was brought in regarding to the fact that broad statistics databases, especially those without sufficient review before publishment(not reliable),  routine news, unreliable sources in general and passing mentions are all NOT sufficient to allow an article.Burning Pillar (talk) 13:43, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

 * Worth noting this quote from WP:N. Please forgive my emphasis, but it's important to note this:
 * "It meets either the general notability guideline below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right". Only a "guideline", of course, but until someone can suggest a more universally applicable guideline, everything is fine. Bobo. 09:09, 6 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I found five articles I set up which meet WP:CRIN but which were deleted, three via PROD (which I'm sure I wasn't notified about otherwise I would have protested!), one by CSD A7, and one via spurious means (a AfD including various invalid delete votes - all delete votes listed below:
 * 1: Sockpuppet
 * 2: IP address
 * 3: Genuine account
 * 4: Nonexistent account
 * 5: As per nonexistent account


 * All this taken into account, these delete votes should have been better scrutinized. Bobo. 09:57, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * It is important to know that WP:NSPORTS, in its introduction, says that WP:NSPORTS criteria are not sufficient, and that WP:GNG must still be met, ultimatively.Burning Pillar (talk) 11:49, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Does WP:N trump WP:NSPORTS? Or are we in a continuing circle of self-reference? Worth noting that each are "guidelines" of identical standing. Bobo. 11:50, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:N states either GNG or SNG. The SNG NSPORTS says that GNG must still be met.Burning Pillar (talk) 13:28, 6 May 2017 (UTC)


 * In this whole mess there is one thing and one thing only which needs to be established. Is this going to actually change anything in terms of notability standards? If not, this is a waste of conversation. If yes, then this conversation is being made in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and about ten years too late. Suggest what needs to be changed. Suggest them to members of the project, with the people who have curated these rules and abided by them for the last ten years, to gain consensus as to whether these are unacceptable criteria. Not just by your own beliefs of what should and shouldn't belong. It's one thing saying "this is a problem". It's quite another saying "here is our problem, and here are some viable ways of fixing this problem." I see none of these mentioned above. Bobo. 15:37, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Survey
Far,FAR too inclusive. Anything except the Olympics should stop at the Gold medal, and for the Olympics, it should stop at 3rd place. Everyone else is possibly an ordinary professional cyclist; with only routine news coverage, coverage in statistics or such.Burning Pillar (talk) 14:36, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Your response seems to misunderstand pro-cycling. It's a team event.  Someone like Mark Cavendish who does the winning of the races, relies on his teammates (for instance Mark Renshaw) to put him in a position to do so.  It's like saying only soccer/football strikers ought to have pages because they're the ones that score the goals.  Red Fiona (talk) 14:47, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * No it doesn't. Sure, they rely on their teammates, but that does NOT make those notable.Burning Pillar (talk) 14:52, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion
See Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cycling. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:44, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Survey
Changes ensuring that there is really notability: 5.They have reached the playoffs in one of the major tournaments: 7.:Removed The current criteria are too inclusive, including players for something that does not automatically result in coverage in independant reliable sources(Statistics databases and news coverage are excluded)Burning Pillar (talk) 14:50, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Using a phrase like "They have reached the playoffs in one of the major tournaments" tends to indicate that you know nothing about golf. What "playoffs" are you referring to? A certain number of tournaments have playoffs when there a tie at the end of the event but otherwise they don't have playoffs. "Top 10 finish" would make sense since the articles for the Majors include the top 10 finishers (needed to make Start class). Category 7 could be removed but very few get in through this category anyway. I'm unclear why you used news coverage . WP:NOTNEWS refers to the fact that Wikipedia is not a newspaper but it certainly doesn't mean that coverage in newspapers is irrelevant here. Nigej (talk) 15:45, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion
At first glance, the criterion 2 seems to be overly broad. Is there any reason not to remove it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Burning Pillar (talk • contribs) 23:08, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
 * @Burning Pillar: After WWII, major racing leagues like IndyCar, NASCAR and sports car racing began their evolution from a grassroots scrum into something fully professional. Willsome429 (talk) 15:22, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

General discussion
A general problem is, perhaps, that the notability in sports is tied to both the time and the region, but that(especially the time criterion) seems to be neglected here. Popularity and attention have changed over time, at least. Our criteria should reflect this.Burning Pillar (talk) 23:20, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
 * No offence, but don't you think six weeks on Wikipedia is a bit too soon for you to be doing something as far-reaching as this? Number   5  7  23:25, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, I saw frequent complaints about that WP:NSPORTS would contain local consensus, and that the current guideline would not be supported..., and something like this seemed the only way to stop complaints; whether by allowing changes to happen( I am not happy about some things, for example), or not to happen. Burning Pillar (talk) 00:39, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * You will never stop complaints. Complaints are part of Wikipedia. Why are there 34 discussion sub-threads on this page? Delete them all. -- Ham105 (talk) 01:17, 6 May 2017 (UTC)


 * By "time" I assume you mean time period, like pre-WWII, 60s, 70s, etc. Naturally, almost every sport gets more coverage now than it did a hundred years ago. But I think that's more a result of limited media outlets back then, compared to now, where the internet has exponentially increased the coverage of sports. Imagine if all we had now existed in Babe Ruth's, Michael Jordan's, Don Bradman's, and Pelé's eras. Certainly they would have gotten just as much coverage as, if not more than, today's world-famous athletes. Lizard  (talk) 23:46, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh, but exceptional athletes aren't any problem. They meet the GNG by miles, usually... and so on. The criteria aren't only including these athletes, however. For example, what about early athletes of the National Football league; particularly those who played maybe only a few games?

Look at European Curling Championships. The earliest champions do not have an article; because curling was not that popular at that time; and the sources are not easy or impossible to find. And all medal holders are considered notable there!Burning Pillar (talk) 00:39, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * It's important to remember GNG trumps subject-specific notability guidelines. A few years ago, an article on a former Major League Baseball player who was known only as "Smith" was AfDed. The article had been created as part of an effort by the baseball wikiproject to have an article for every former major league player. It was ultimately redirected to List of Major League Baseball players with unidentified given names. In this case, not only did the subject not pass GNG, but there simply wasn't enough information available for a stand-alone article. Lizard  (talk) 01:20, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * No it doesn't, as is made clear in WP:N. --Michig (talk) 06:25, 6 May 2017 (UTC)


 * You need to put more effort into this RfC if you want it to be taken seriously. If you don't have the time to delve into the issues and present a well-reasoned case, why should any of us invest time into this discussion? Lepricavark (talk) 02:50, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * It's unmanageable to have so many simultaneous discussions on one page: editor watchlists will get bombarded by updates for all the various sections, which is bothersome for those only interested in specific sports. Also, there is a technical issue that causes odd behaviour when there are multiple subheadings with the same name. It would be better to limit discussion to the first two sections of Notability (sports), and have subsequent discussions for each sport, one at a time. I think Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports) would be a suitable venue for these discussions. For background, here are some previous threads that discussed the initial sections: Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 18, Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 18, Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 21 To be blunt, though, I believe you'd be much better served spending some time to understand more about how consensus is reached on English Wikipedia and the background context regarding the sports-specific notability guidelines before trying to launch a series of RfCs. isaacl (talk) 03:31, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Another pointless discussion that will just soak up editors' time. If you have something to propose, propose it. --Michig (talk) 06:19, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I think if you have something specific to propose you should do that. I understand the frustration at some of the NSPORTS guidelines, and I'm not sure how strong the consensus was around all of them, but you're better off making specific proposals (for example about your complaint on the European Curling Championships). -- Shudde  talk 07:12, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The main problem with the WP:NSPORTS is that it focuses too much on sports people. The sport specific sections only relate to people, whereas many of the notability issue relate to other aspects of the sport. OK, we have a vague section called "Organizations and games notability" but what about venues? Many of the problems in WP:GOLF are related to people creating pages for their own golf club/course and there's nothing written down about which courses are notable and which not. Hence other users are reluctant to get involved in an esoteric argument about the rights and wrongs of the notability of a particular golf course. I did write some guidance for some aspects of golf tournaments, here: WikiProject Golf/Assessment but they are rather hidden for most users. Personally I think the WP:NGOLF section is not too bad (although it should be called WP:NGOLFER). It needs to be tuned and clarified in places. However these issues are best discussed in a sports specific discussion and not in this multi-sport discussion here. Nigej (talk) 10:33, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm finding an interesting problem. Obviously there are a lot of sportspeople stubs which should be improved on (and I am working on it), but where they're Olympic athletes they've been tagged with "is this person notable?" even when their Olympic participation is referenced.  It does tend to be on articles for athletes from more minor nations (in sporting terms, no offence intended etc) and I don't know if that has an effect.  Red Fiona (talk) 13:11, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, we need evidence that a criterion is based on the fact that nearly all subjects have coverage in independant, reliable sources short off broad statistics databases and routine news coverage to retain that criterion.Burning Pillar (talk) 14:06, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * This isn't the way to have this discussion. If you want to talk generally about if WP:NSPORTS is too broad, let's have that discussion before adding 50 threaded discussions about specific guidelines. If your point is that some sport-specific guidelines are too broad and don't meet the goal of indicating subjects that are notable (in the vast majority of cases), then have that discussion at the NSPORTS talk page about those sports in question. I have to say, there is no way that this issue merely pertains to sports, though sports gets a lot of complaint because there are folks who chafe at sport getting more coverage in WP than "more important" topics. Truth is, we have academics, generals, actors, record albums, buildings, schools and fictional characters that don't meet GNG but meet their SSGs. We have hundreds of articles that are poorly sourced stubs in many genres too. Rikster2 (talk) 14:57, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * This discussion should be shut down immediately. It is impossible to get any sort of consensus with such a broad multi-layered discussion. If you want to discuss individual sport criteria this is not the place for it. If you want to attack NSPORT itself, thats been done many times before and has failed to gain consensus. Spanneraol (talk) 15:17, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to close this discussion
As has been suggested by numerous editors above, I propose this discussion be closed; it's far too broad and I can't see anything useful coming from it. Individual guidelines should be discussed one-by-one if there are any perceived problems. This discussion is not the way to do it. Number  5  7  15:49, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Seems to be an excuse for a one-man campaign by someone who knows little about the issues. See golf section above. Nigej (talk) 15:54, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed. This is one inexperienced editor on a campaign that has no worthwhile purpose. All these notability issues have already been thoroughly discussed, and editors have created and edited articles in good faith based on longstanding criteria that has been agreed by consensus. Jack N. Stock (talk) 16:24, 6 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Is anyone else just a tad concerned that the editor who started this has been here all of one month, has made very little article-space editing, but seems to know a lot about AfD, RfC and ANI (to name just three)? Some highly odd behaviour for a "new" editor.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 16:53, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, based on the format of the RfC, there isn't a lot of evidence of being experienced in this area. isaacl (talk) 17:31, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * This long time editor has had absolutely nothing to do with RFC either. That's till I made this post. I think closing the discussion was the right move....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 23:52, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I imagine, though, that based on your experiences with Wikipedia, you wouldn't create a discussion with 35 simultaneous threads? It's not a common approach taken by anyone experienced with large group discussions. isaacl (talk) 17:19, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Mild levels of concern should not overrule WP:BITE. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 09:13, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Perhaps he spent countless hour learning all these things before he made a single edit. It's possible, although it would be unusual from my experience. Anyway, it would be useful if he would clarify the situation. Nigej (talk) 09:25, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I think Lugnuts is justified in his suspicions. The creator of this RFC made his first edit at a AFD. He soon followed it with a non-administrative closure of an AFD. That isn't the standard behavior of a newbie editor....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 15:54, 7 May 2017 (UTC)