Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 38

Muay Thai
In WP:NKICK, it is written: "A kickboxing athlete is presumed notable if they:


 * Fought for a world title of a major organization or promotion ([...], WMC, [...], WBC Muaythai, [...]).
 * Have been a Lumpinee or Rajadamnern champion."

With all due respect, this is criteria is severely outdated and in dire need of an update. Firstly, there are many more titles that are much more coveted than or just as coveted as the WMC and WBC MuayThai belts: the Channel 7 Stadium title, the Siam Omnoi Stadium title, the Thailand (PAT) title, the True4u title, the OneSongchai (S1) title, and the World MuayThai Organization (WMO) title.

To understand why there are so many "important" titles requires some understanding of the current Muay Thai scene. For example, the Lumpinee Stadium, Channel 7 Stadium, and Thailand (PAT) titles are heavily associated with the Kiatpetch promotion and its affiliates while the WBC MuayThai, WMO, and True4u titles are heavily associated with the Petchyindee promotion and its affiliates, then, the Rajadamnern title is associated with the New Power Group, Singmawin, Jitmuangnon and more promotions.

The Petchyindee promotion and the Chefboonthum promotion, some of the largest promotions in Muay Thai today, recently broke away from Rajadamnern Stadium (July 2020) and are now both operating out of Rangsit Stadium. All of their respective belt holders at Rajadamnern Stadium were accordingly stripped of their Rajadamnern Stadium titles and can no longer compete for either major Stadium titles listed in WP:NKICK. Though it is possible for Petchyindee fighters to fight for the WBC MuayThai title, it is rare that this kind of title fight happens. This is why the True4u title is more important than ever in the Petchyindee circuit, especially since it is the main title for the promotion. Additionally, the WMO is quickly overtaking the WMC as one of the leading sanctioning bodies in Muay Thai, having crowned multiple high level champions like Satanmuanglek CP Freshmart in the past four months alone. On the other hand, at the moment, the Chefboonthum promotion has no affiliation to any major sanctioning body so their fighters cannot fight for a belt of any kind. This current predicament is reportedly temporary.

On to Channel 7 Stadium and Thailand titles: Channel 7 Stadium is home to the Kiatpetch, Poon Seua, Rachanon, among other promotions. Ever since the late 2000s, the title has been one of the most sought after in the Muay Thai world. Legends like Wanchalong PK.Saenchai and Jomhod Eminentair have held the belt, respectively, four and three times on separate occasions and defended the belt regularly against top competition who are also highly ranked at Lumpinee Stadium. The Thailand belt holder is also commonly called the "national champion" even though it can only competed for in the Kiatpetch circuit. The belt acts as an alternate for the Lumpinee Stadium title and holds similar value but less prestige (less history behind it).

The Siam Omnoi Stadium title is also a coveted title. What makes it interesting is that fighters from almost any promotion can fight for the belt. The Stadium has been a staple in the Muay Thai world since the late 80s and in fact, it is widely considered among the top four major stadiums in Thailand

Siam Fight Mag's Serge Trefeu wrote an article exactly on this topic of major titles in Muay Thai: https://www.siamfightmag.com/en/muaythai-en/reports-en/others-reports-muaythai-en/488-the-omnoi-stadium

Secondly, major tournaments winners and Fighter of the Year award recipients should be eligible for their own article. The biggest tournaments in Muay Thai are: the annual Isuzu Tournament at Siam Omnoi Stadium, the annual Tiger Cement Tournament at Channel 7 Stadium, the CP Meiji Tournament under Suk Petchyindee, the Lumpinee Tournament at Lumpinee Stadium, and the Toyota Revo Tournament.

Lastly, Muay Thai should have its own section in this Notability page. Aside from it being a striking sport, Muay Thai have its own distinct ruleset from kickboxing. Namely, the prolonged clinch striking, striking off caught kicks, the use of elbows, throws, sweeps and trips, and more.

Thank you for reading and considering the suggestions made above.

PhanKS1505 (talk) 01:37, 29 November 2020 (UTC)


 * You'll need to come up with some firm proposal. Always remember that the criteria here do not determine whether someone is notable, that's done by WP:N. The criteria here define a group of people who are likely/highly likely to be notable. So you'll need to provide some evidence that a high proportion of the people are notable. Also it not relevant how important a tournament is. What matters is how much coverage the person gets. Nigej (talk) 07:53, 1 December 2020 (UTC)


 * My ongoing answer is that I will support any proposal setting forth criteria for which 90-95% of the players who meet it have been demonstrated to make the GNG, and that doing the legwork in advance to gain proof of the same is a prerequisite. Whether a particular Muay Thai honor is "coveted" or not is a subjective premise with no bearing on this, nor do we need to know squat about Muay Thai in order to verify it.   Ravenswing      19:39, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Cricket
I don't know much about cricket, but User:Reywas92 raised an issue today at the general Notability talk page about the "mass-production" of articles on cricket players. I took a look and found Anthony Hanley, a one-sentence stub created today about an athlete who played in one "first-class" match. Do others have thoughts on this? Is the standard for cricket players too lenient? Do we believe there is likely to be sufficient coverage to show that such a player would pass WP:GNG? Is this a problem? If so, how do we fix it? I am also pinging User:Lugnuts to the discussion, as he is the one who created the article. Feedback welcome. Cbl62 (talk) 02:56, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, this has long been an issue that cricket fans want there to be articles on every cricket player! That football/soccer fans want articles on every football player! On every hocket player! etc, etc. So through this SNG they decided to bestow a supposed automatic notability upon anyone who's ever played a single professional game, regardless of actual coverage under GNG. This has resulted in tens – nay, hundreds – of thousands of articles on athletes which have no substance at all, often sourced to databases like Cricket Archive or other rosters. But even though this page only creates a "presumption" of notability, not immunity for any article, you'll find countless AFD comments like "Keep: Played at least one game, passes NCRIC", despite this presumption failing by the lack of significant sources and failure of the introduction of this page. People like Lugnuts are blatantly circumventing the very first line of this, which indicates that GNG must still be met! The plain text of this guideline ("...to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia", "A person is presumed to be notable if they have been the subject of multiple published[2] non-trivial[3] secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent,[4] and independent of the subject.") pairs with the common sense that playing a single game – or more! – is not notability without non-database coverage, and such mass-production that does not demonstrate passing GNG is inappropriate. Literally just today Lugnuts mass-produced Hanley and six more people who played one game of cricket: Gareth Chirawu William Griffith (cricketer) Rodney Gordon (cricketer) Kenneth Gordon (cricketer) Graham Geldenhuys Robert Frisch. This is not notability, it's a mockery of the system, contributing to systemic bias and justifiable disillusionment in deletion that other areas actually give a damn about reliable significant sources, but sports don't. This needs to stop. Reywas92Talk 04:41, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * These stubs raise a number of questions. Do these bios actually satisfy WP:NCRIC? If so, has the bar been set too low? Can it be shown that 90-95% of the players in this league pass GNG?  Even if NCRIC has been set at an appropriate level, should we set some minimum standard on what is required in terms of required narrative content and/or souring before a bio stub can/should be created? (The last question is not limited to cricket and applies more broadly to all athlete bios.) Cbl62 (talk) 07:44, 10 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Hi. Yes, all the bios satisfy WP:NCRIC, by playing in at least one FC, LA or T20 match. The one match/start rule doesn't just apply to cricket, but to American football, football, Australian rules football, baseball, basketball, ice hockey, rugby league and the Olympics. Using Hanley as an example, there are also lots of others who have played in at least one match, but I have not created, as no biographical details are known, such as DOB/DOD, etc. This is no different to "mass creation" of types of moths or villages in Romania, for example.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 09:38, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * But what about the other questions? Do "Border" cricket players like Anthony Hanley (with one or a few match appearances) actually receive GNG-level coverage that justify their inclusion in the SNG? Shouldn't we require a bit more meat than simply a statement that "Player X was a cricketeer who played in one match for Boder in 1939/40"? Cbl62 (talk) 10:25, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes and there's no minimum requirement for article size. Thanks.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 10:28, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Could you provide some examples of the significant coverage for Hanley? Or the chaps referenced by Reywas: Gareth Chirawu, William Griffith (cricketer), Rodney Gordon (cricketer), Kenneth Gordon (cricketer), Graham Geldenhuys, and Robert Frisch? Cbl62 (talk) 10:32, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The problem is that, using your argument, means I could produce articles on every single doctor in the UK (or any other list I can find which includes basic biographical details) and then claim they are all notable. Relying on WP:NCRIC is NOT a sufficient reason for creating these cricket articles, you must have evidence that they pass WP:N. Nigej (talk) 10:32, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * These articles plainly do not pass GNG. It has been shown consistently at AFD that required coverage does not exist (just a few recent examples that resulted in delete/merge: Umar Draz, Adil Zarif, Tasawar Abbas, Shoaib Akram, Tariq Hafeez, Manu Bhardwaj, Ziauddin; many more have resulted in "no consensus" due to weight of bare NCRIC assertions); the only available sources for most of these stubs are the stats databases of Cricinfo/CricketArchive and occasional incidental/routine match reports (often local press only) – which fails SPORTBASIC. As for the cricket guideline itself, that has been discussed endlessly (e.g. most recently here) with clear consensus that the one match threshold is far too permissive but there has been no progress on changing it. wjematherplease leave a message... 10:48, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The Umar Draz and other AfDs were all created by a WP:SPA to try and create disruption by trying to prove a WP:POINT. You keep citing their work as consensus for deletion. Are you connected to that account in any way?  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 12:34, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * How and why any of these articles arrived at AFD is irrelevant here. Again, I would caution against further personal attacks and casting aspersions. wjematherplease leave a message... 15:21, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I do have to say I have noticed a big explosion of stub cricket articles ever since the ICC decided to grant every international T20 match since 2019 T20I status which would mean that players fulfill the criteria. But though they may be stubs, if they meet NCRIC criteria, they meet the criteria in line with other sports having a similar rule. Nothing wrong with it.  The C of E  God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 10:39, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not a specific cricket problem, it applies to nearly all sports. One sport justifies their position by saying another sport has a similar rule, and then that other sport justifies their position by saying that the first sport has a similar rule. Nigej (talk) 10:45, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Some sports generate significant coverage of players before they reach the level of competition described in the guideline, and so the assumption of coverage for one match played is reasonable. Cricket is not one of those sports. wjematherplease leave a message... 10:56, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

We should get rid of NCRIC (at least the current version, but perhaps completely if no better version can be made), as it allows way too many articles on people who don't meet the GNG. This has been discussed in the past, with examples, but nothing ever happens, and AfDs are pointless as people turn up to vote "meets NCRIC" without further sources. Fram (talk) 10:46, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I would support removal of NCRIC pending rewriting of the guideline. As you say, volume of bare "meets guideline" assertions at AFD are often given more weight than they should. wjematherplease leave a message... 11:10, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I would too. Actually I would support removal of WP:NSPORT pending rewriting of the guideline. Nigej (talk) 10:54, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Not sure about all of it, but there are too many areas that are problematic. wjematherplease leave a message... 10:59, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Note. I have placed a note on the talk page of WP:CRIC to notify them of this discussion. wjematherplease leave a message... 11:07, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's a specific problem with WP:NCRIC. With football, we recognise that players who barely meet the SNG may not actually be notable, and there's a long, long list of AfDs where players who barely pass the SNGs but fail the GNG are deleted. In the past two months I can tell you the rule has been adopted by rugby but not by American football (Articles for deletion/Willie Thornton (Canadian football). I think it's the same with almost every sport where we have to be careful with athletes which barely meet the SNG - the exceptions are probably the "major league" sports where there's a clear demarcation between playing in the top flight and not playing in the top flight (usually leagues with drafts.) I would support a clear amendment to WP:NSPORT saying athletes who minimally meet the guideline may still be deleted. I would go on to say that even though these stubs technically pass WP:NCRIC I find bulk-creating them without any further evidence of a GNG pass very disruptive and if there's continued creation of stubs that we can't source to more than a database, there should probably be a limited article creation ban put in place. I think many Olympians suffer this disease as well. SportingFlyer  T · C  10:54, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * We have 34,000 cricketers and 38,000 "players of American football", so I'm not sure the "major league" argument holds up. Nigej (talk) 11:00, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The number of articles is irrelevant in making that determination. I'm thinking specifically of baseball and Aussie rules here, and probably gridiron to a lesser extent - if you get drafted by an AFL club and play in a match, especially now, you're almost certainly notable - there will have been plenty of things written about you. Same with baseball - if you have a single major league at-bat in the US or in Japan, you will almost certainly have WP:GNG-qualifying coverage. Leagues like English football may have youth player who gets a run out with the first team and then never plays again - they may not have received GNG-qualifying coverage, and we probably shouldn't have an article on those players. Cricket is in the latter camp - you're probably notable, but if we look at you and you don't pass GNG, then you should probably be redirected to a list (so we don't lose the information.) SportingFlyer  T · C  11:05, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * We have 8,700 tennis players (a massive worldwide sport), but 14,000 "players of Australian rules football" (basically played in one smallish country). Seems a massive imbalance to me. Nigej (talk) 11:12, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Raw numbers are not conclusive. Articles getting deleted would be more telling if a problem exists. Lack of articles created for a sport could just be systemic bias.—Bagumba (talk) 11:39, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Agree with Bagumba that raw numbers are not conclusive. Tennis is an individual sport, whereas an Australian football team has 18 players on the field at a time. It is not terribly surprising that there are more articles on players of a team sport. The problem consistently arises that, when notability of one sport's athletes are questioned, the defense is to point to other sports and say, "What about them? They're even worse." What we need to do is figure out if there is a problem with the cricket standard and, if so, fix it. Pointing fingers elsewhere just raises smoke and obscures the problem. Cbl62 (talk) 12:19, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * With cricket, (as noted above) many articles are getting deleted. It's also obvious that more would have been deleted but for lack of participation by uninvolved parties and questionable weight given to the bare assertions of NCRIC advocates. wjematherplease leave a message... 12:06, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Some cricket articles that meet SNG but clearly not GNG have been deleted- or merged into lists of cricketers for team X- in the past, and the same thing has happened for footballers who played once or twice, but no significant coverage of them. If any sportspeople clearly don't meet GNG, then the SNG should not be used to say they "must" be kept. All the sports guidelines are "presumed notable" i.e. most people that meet this criteria are notable, but some may not be. Joseph2302 (talk) 12:16, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * A list of deletes that met CRIN would be a good reference.—Bagumba (talk) 12:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * All the articles I listed above met CRIN. wjematherplease leave a message... 13:04, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The problem with "lack of articles" argument is that not far off half of all biographies of living people are sports competitors; a ridiculous proportion, putting sports as a whole way out of line. The problem is clearly that many sports have too many biographies. Nigej (talk) 12:24, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Again, overall numbers are irrelevant here. If all of those sportspeople pass GNG, which isn't a surprise given the amount of coverage individual athletes receive, then we're able to have an article on them. The issue at hand here is that the SNGs capture most but not all of athletes who pass GNG, and whether the SNG alone means we can keep creating bad stub articles. SportingFlyer  T · C  12:28, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I like with SportingFlyer's suggestion above concerning redirecting some of these to a list. In particular, for articles where the article lacks meaningful narrative content (e.g., "Player X was a cricketeer who played in one match for Border in 19__/__"), it can and should be redirected to an appropriate list. And in this case, the list already exists. See List of Border representative cricketers. Any objection to redirecting Anthony Hanley and the like to List of Border representative cricketers. If and when further development beyond a one-sentence substub is created, the redirect can be reversed. Cbl62 (talk) 12:35, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, as the article meets the notabilty requirements. Will you be redirecting the articles for Spectronissa and Gepiu too? And if not, why not?  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 12:37, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * This is the talk page for the Sports notability. If you believe Spectronissa and Gepiu should be redirected, you can bring that up at the appropriate forum for moths and Romanian cities. Cbl62 (talk) 12:42, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Agree – lists are definitely the way to go with these. wjematherplease leave a message... 12:44, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * double edit conflict Looks like you'll have to start an AfD - I'd support redirecting all of these unless other sources are found. Lugnuts, your WP:OSE argument doesn't work - Spectronissa is part of a larger scientific taxonomy which is acceptable, and Gepiu is a legally recognised place which clearly has acceptable references on the Romanian wikipedia, despite being underdeveloped on the English wikipedia. Neither of them are covered by WP:NSPORT. SportingFlyer  T · C  12:45, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I know they're not covered by sport, I'm just picking like-for-like examples from across the project. They are no different to sports articles.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 12:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if AfD is the right forum to seek a redirect, so I went ahead and redirected Anthony Hanley. If it's contested, we can discuss at the article talk page and reach a consensus. Cbl62 (talk) 12:53, 10 December 2020 (UTC)


 * User:Lugnuts reverted the redirect of Anthony Hanley. If you have views on whether or not a redirect is appropriate in this case, please provide your input at Talk:Anthony Hanley. Cbl62 (talk) 13:00, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * See WP:ATD-R for the approved course of action. Nigej (talk) 13:55, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The discussion is now underway at the user talk page as suggested in that guideline. Cbl62 (talk) 14:02, 10 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Comment. The one first-class appearance bit shouldn't rule out creating articles on them. I've created plenty of articles on one FC appearance players, such as Paul Foley (cricketer), Sir Stanley Cochrane, 1st Baronet, Milo Talbot (British Army officer) spring to mind. Would be good if people creating one FC appearance cricketers could see if they can find more on them, cricketers from pre-WWII do seem to appear more often in written sources. Also, cricketers from non-English speaking countries are woefully neglected; I wonder how many sources on them, in say Hindi, exist? StickyWicket (talk) 14:39, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * These two are notable for other things than their single cricket appearance, that appearance is just a small added measure of notability. If they had never played a first-class match, they would still be meeting WP:BIO. The discussion is about people whose only or major claim to fame is playing cricket (at the level of NCRIC), and for which not enough sources are available to show that they meet the GNG. The guideline is written as if people playing 1 or more first-class matches wil nearly always meet the GNG, when in reality too many don't seem to reach this. Fram (talk) 15:02, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * In terms of non-English speaking country, I think there's also a difference between having an SNG-qualifying article for someone who has sources written in a non-English language (especially in a non-Western script) that are difficult to access, and directory stubs for people for whom GNG-qualifying articles should be easily searchable. The first one is entited to a greater "benefit of the doubt." SportingFlyer  T · C  15:09, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

In general about this discussion: nobody can show if these cricketeers are notable or not, so what is needed is an investigation. For the sources we should look into the secondary sources of that era and that country. I'm not aware of South African newspapers accesible online, so we are unable to find the Anthony Hanley sources via internet I'm from the Netherlands and I don't know anything about cricket but I know where to look for Dutch secondary sources. When looking for a pre-internet Dutch cricketeer I find Chris van Schouwenburg (around 1979). When google-ing him, no good secondary sources could be found see here. So most of the people above will say: unnotable player. However, when digging into old Dutch newspapers many good sources can be found. Five examples from Dutch national newspapers to show that he will easily meet GNG 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So to state Anthony Hanley is notable, we have to find old South African newspapers with cricket, to see what is written about him. However, I think we don't have access to those newspapers. What we can do, is to look into old newspapers searching for the native "first-class match" players, so see ~90% is meeting GNG. If so, we can state that for those countries we don't have the access to, it's likely they will meet GNG. SportsOlympic (talk) 15:31, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I think one of the issues here has to do with the fact these articles have been basically batch created under the assumption of notability, leaving it to others to do the work to determine if they're actually notable. I wouldn't have passed these to mainspace from AfC, for instance. If any one of these articles had the same number of sources you just demonstrated for van Schouwenburg, we wouldn't be classifying this as a problem, especially considering I would assume South African newspapers have online archives somewhere. SportingFlyer  T · C  16:14, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

This is not a new problem; I remember the WP:CRIN wars from a few years ago, and just today in looking at Category:Orphaned articles from December 2012 I found many cricketers with one first-class appearance and no real sign of notability, such as Sean Parry, Michael Hardy, and Vernon Hill (cricketer, born 1978). (There are plenty of footballers as well.) I don't see any new ideas here to solve this, unfortunately. power~enwiki ( π, ν ) 07:31, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment. I've no problem with one FC cricketers for whom nothing can be found being redirected to lists (though I would appreciate their cricketer nationality and team played for categories being retained on their redirect page, just part of a personal project to record how many cricketers from that country have played a FC/LA/T20 match or have played for a specific team). StickyWicket (talk) 08:46, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

If it were "one competitive appearance in a fully professional competition with FC, LA or T20 status" it would be tighter. GNG is always there to add amateurs who don't meet this criteria - including the majority of the people playing T20I for very minor teams. The fully professional bit is, I think, a requirement of FOOTY from memory - one which draws a line substantially higher than CRIC does. But, you know, this has been discussed for years. There might be consensus for adding the word "competitive". Maybe. Not sure about "fully professional" though. But I'm not convinced anything will change. WP:CRIN - the extended version - is a disaster by the way; very little of it was discussed and much of it is the work of one person who's banned. Blue Square Thing (talk) 17:38, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * We have at least four editors (User:Fram, User:Wjemather, User:Nigej, User:Blue Square Thing) taking the position in this discussion that WP:CRIN is so bad that it should be completely jettisoned and restarted from scratch. Do any others support or oppose this position? Cbl62 (talk)
 * I assume the debate is about the actual guideline WP:NCRIC and not the WikiProject advice/essay at WP:CRIN?—Bagumba (talk) 01:14, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * My comments were split between the two: WP:CRIN is a disgrace and attempts to extend CRIC massively; WP:CRIC isn't that different from other sports notability guidelines. CRIN, I think, we could find some consensus to review - people have intimated as such in the past; CRIC is much trickier because on the surface it's so similar yet it allows articles that will never come close to meeting GNG through (but then so do other SNG at times - CRIC may be a little looser, but not all that much). I think there's scope for some change in CRIC, but it's harder to jettison it because there's nothing that different that it could be replaced by. Thanks for the ping btw. Blue Square Thing (talk) 06:17, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not that hard to jettison it, there are plenty of sports which don't have an entry on NSPORTS, and plenty of topics which don't have a specific notability guideline. SNGs are supposed to be handy shortcuts, making life easier and avoiding unnecessary AfDs for topics which meet the GNG almost always anyway. The cricket SNG clearly fails in that regard, and should be either removed or replaced by a much better one. The second option can be done at any time, but there is no reason to wait with the first (removal) until a new SNG is written for cricket. Not having a SNG doesn't mean that suddenly all cricket articles will be deleted; as long as they meet the GNG (as a cricket player or for other achievements), they will be kept. They will simply be treated the same as most other articles, that's all. Fram (talk) 08:52, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Well that's not necessarily a problem for *me*, although I think it would be difficult to write an SNG in a radically different way. Adding "competitive" would get some traction; "fully professional" might - and those would tighten up the criteria substantially - although the nature of amateur cricket in the past is a significant problem with using fully professional. Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:23, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think adding "competitive" or "fully professional" would sufficiently address concerns. The bar simply needs to be set much higher than one match for domestic cricketers (in statement 1); statements 3 and 4 should be removed altogether; and reference to umpires should also probably be removed. wjematherplease leave a message... 18:32, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Ping me when there's a solid proposal. Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:56, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry, been busy achieving things elsewhere. BST, you've summed it up completely. As long as there is no agreed upon proposal from any of the people who are trying to argue the situation is unsatisfactory, it proves even more to me that the way we were doing things in the first place was probably absolutely fine. If people are disagreeing on silly woolly things that allow us to bypass simple, easy to understand rules, to me it smacks of nothing but boredom. Until now, we've been working by brightline criteria Jack put together as far back as he had been involved in the project. Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if we were still arguing this in 2036. While people are unwilling to suggest brightline notability criteria which can be universally followed, which are put to a !vote and agreed upon by the community, I pay their suggestions no mind, and I assume that they no longer consider the basic goals of Wikipedia to be something worth aspiring to. For that matter, I would ask them all what they consider to be the goals of Wikipedia, given that Jimbo himself has claimed them to be "..free access to the sum of all human knowledge." What do those who disagree with this, consider Wikipedia's goals to be? Bobo. 21:18, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * ..free access to the sum of all human knowledge.: But WP is WP:NOTEVERYTHING either.—Bagumba (talk) 01:26, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
 * You cannot claim that the two things are different and there is no need to misinterpret actual words... I'd much prefer to go by the words of the person who created WP rather than people who make inconsistent rules, which go against the purpose of the site. I didn't spot an answer in that comment, either... Bobo. 01:54, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Note: Articles for deletion/Christopher Martin (cricketer), where keepers argued that WP:CRIN was met, has been closed as "delete".—Bagumba (talk) 01:09, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Person who passes SNG: "I wish to have my article deleted."
 * Wikipedian: "But you have to assume you will have a Wikipedia article because you pass [insert SNG criterion here]."
 * Person who passes SNG: "Please put it to conversation that my article be deleted. I don't want this information present to people."
 * Wikipedian: "But you can't just say that."
 * Article gets deleted anyway.
 * Anyone see the logical problem behind deletionism? The same people who say "delete" on the basis of the indefinable fluff that GNG passes for, would be the people who say "you have to expect your article to exist", because SNG and WP:CENSORED. Bobo. 23:48, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Please see Articles for deletion/Arthur Norton, Articles for deletion/Collan Nicholas, Articles for deletion/Lewis Newnham, Articles for deletion/Craig Nelson (cricketer), and Articles for deletion/Frederick Nel. Reywas92Talk 04:47, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

WP:YOUNGATH question
I've been under the impression that our WP:YOUNGATH disqualifies routine coverage of a person from their youth sports days from ever being used for notability purposes. I've seen a couple AfD votes where some users have claimed WP:YOUNGATH no longer applies since the person is above the age of 18, so their prep sports coverage can count towards notability (see Articles for deletion/Kezo Brown.) This doesn't make sense to me - for instance if you have a footballer who doesn't pass WP:NFOOTY and WP:GNG as an adult is marginal, but received significant coverage from the local paper as a youth athlete, that WP:SIGCOV may lead us to keep the article. Does WP:YOUNGATH exclude all qualifying youth sports coverage for notability purposes? (Obviously, some athletes are notable young, such as that baseball player who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated - these are not the subjects I care about with this question.) SportingFlyer  T · C  22:33, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Routine coverage doesn't satisfy the requirement for suitable coverage, regardless of age. The two explanatory sentences in the section on high school and pre-high school athletes continue to apply when evaluating sources, no matter how much time has passed. isaacl (talk) 03:03, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * YOUNGATH mentions principles independent of age, such as not weighing routine coverage needing independent sources. GNG also needs multiple sources, which rules out people who only have a few local sources of coverage.—Bagumba (talk) 04:11, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Probably it ought to be rewritten changing "High school and pre-high school athletes are notable only" to "When establishing notability, coverage at High school and pre-high school should only be considered etc" Also "High school and pre-high school" is decidedly American. I never went to a "high school" and have only the barest idea (without looking it up) of what ages that covers. Nigej (talk) 07:45, 5 December 2020 (UTC)


 * YOUNGATH serves a useful purpose in restricting the circumstances under which we allow a stand-alone article for someone whose highest level of significant achievement is youth sports. This is sound policy, and we should only allow such articles in extraordinary circumstances. However, once an athlete advances to a higher level of play, YOUNGATH is not meant to be an exclusionary rule for coverage received earlier in the athlete's career. Once an athlete passes beyond the realm of being known only as a youth athlete, GNG governs and we look to see if there is significant coverage in multiple, reliable, independent sources. In my experience, high school athletes rarely pass GNG in any event -- since significant coverage is typically limited to a single, hometown newspaper. Cbl62 (talk) 14:27, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I would favor expanding WP:NHSPHSATH/WP:YOUNGATH so that it explicitly applies not only to young athletes, but also to youth sports teams (including season articles) and coaches of youth sports. I've argued at AfDs that the spirit of the guideline should extend to these things, but it would be helpful if the language was explicit. 14:33, 5 December 2020 (UTC)Cbl62 (talk)
 * A lot of good points above. YOUNGATH is absolutely American-centric, and that aside, I think it means what it says, rather than what some people want the words to mean.  A blanket "athletes under the age of 18 aren't notable" is absurd (quite aside from that I missed the point where 18 was enacted the age of majority world-wide), never mind the many sports where U18 athletes are not merely extant, but common. That being said, a couple extra thoughts.  First, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the concept that heavy and detailed local coverage might satisfy the GNG if the subject is >18, but can't if the subject is <18.  This curious notion certainly doesn't apply to other walks of life; coverage is coverage.  Secondly, why is this SNG needed at all?  What does it cover that the other NSPORTS SNGs don't?  Pretty uniformly, they set forth the competitions that provide presumptive notability, and leave out the ones that don't.  Not a single one of them confer presumptive notability to American high school sports.   Ravenswing      16:10, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * You are correct that YOUNGATH is intended to establish a higher bar for < 18 athletes than the ordinary GNG standard. The rationale, as I've usually seen it expressed, is that we don't want to open the door to people writing thousands upon thousands of articles about high school basketball, baseball, and football players who are "stars" at that level, and receive loads of local coverage in the United States, but never make it at a higher level of competition. I think it's a reasonable exercise of Wikipedia's editorial discretion to limit these articles until the athletes prove themselves at a higher level of competition. Cbl62 (talk) 16:41, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't believe that the section on young athletes sets a higher bar. Rather, it emphasizes that routine coverage and non-independent coverage doesn't meet the standards of the general notability guideline, and gives examples of types of local coverage that are not independent. This remains true regardless of when this evaluation is made. Equally, coverage meeting the general notability guideline is suitable even for young athletes. isaacl (talk) 17:46, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with Isaacl here - it doesn't create a "higher bar," it just specifically discusses which sources should be treated as WP:ROUTINE when analysing notability on WP:GNG grounds. Most young athletes who will receive media coverage won't receive national significant coverage - it's more of a guide for determining if WP:GNG is met. The two problems with the section: a) it's written for an American audience and b) the guideline causes a little confusion as to whether these sources can be used to demonstrate notability once the subject is no longer a young athlete. It seems the rough consensus so far is that if you need to rely on a youth sports article covered by WP:YOUNGATH to pass WP:GNG as a non-minor, you're not a notable athlete. It does not mean these sources cannot be used in the article. SportingFlyer  T · C  20:05, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * You can strain to characterize it otherwise, but it pretty clearly does create a higher bar for youth sports. Something "extra" is required (regional or even national coverage) to justify articles on youth athletes. Cbl62 (talk) 20:15, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The same would be true for, say, an amateur adult league. Local coverage is likely to be deemed insufficient to satisfy Wikipedia's standards for having an article. Reaching some age milestone doesn't change the suitability of the source for the purposes of meeting the general notability guideline. (This does not, of course, preclude using the source to cite content in an article, if it is sufficiently reliable.) isaacl (talk) 21:12, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:AUD and WP:YOUNGATH are the only two guidelines on Wikipedia that explicitly limit the use of local coverage. The former applies only to organizations (not including sports teams), and the latter applies only to < 18 athletes. There is no bar on the use of local coverage in establishing notability for > 17 athletes. That said, GNG requires multiple sources, such that coverage in a single local news outlet will not suffice. Further, a properly nuanced GNG analysis, for athletes of any age, will give greater weight to publications with more gravitas: national publication (ESPN, SI, CBS Sports, New York Times, etc.) > regional publication (Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Journal Constitution) > major metropolitan daily > small city newspaper > small town newspaper. Cbl62 (talk) 17:15, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * It's in the basic sports criteria: Local sources must be independent of the subject, and must provide reports beyond routine game coverage. This is in agreement with the corresponding guidance for young athletes, which says that the need for non-routine coverage excludes the majority of local coverage in both news sources and sports specific publications. This viewpoint has been reaffirmed repeatedly in discussions on this talk page. It's not that local coverage is completely barred (regardless of the age of the athlete), but it frequently is routine coverage, is not independent, or is written from a promotional perspective, which is common in sports journalism. isaacl (talk) 22:26, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The language you cited applies equally to all source, i.e., all sources "must be independent of the subject, and must provide reports beyond routine game coverage." In the case of youth athletes, we actually have a bar on the use of most local coverage, even where it consists of feature coverage. Cbl62 (talk) 23:08, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The guidance for youth athletes does not bar feature coverage: it is making a broad generalization that most local coverage is routine coverage. The issue behind local feature coverage (for athletes of all ages) is determining that it is independent and non-promotional, which is generally less of a concern with non-local coverage. If under-18 athletes are only covered by sources (local or not) that are not suitable for demonstrating that the standards for having an article or met, the sources doesn't suddenly become adequate on their 18th birthday. isaacl (talk) 00:39, 8 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Without going back into the history to examine the genesis of the section, I imagine it was created because a lot of editors have tried to use non-independent sources and routine coverage to illustrate that young athletes meets English Wikipedia's standards of having an article. isaacl (talk) 17:51, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I pretty much agree with everything Cbl62 wrote above. To me, the primary purpose of WP:YOUNGATH is to prevent the creation of Wikipedia articles about minor persons, unless the high school athlete is getting an extraordinary amount of national-level coverage of their high school career (like, say, the kind of coverage a young LeBron James's high school career received). Once an athlete advances beyond high school, it is not intended to prevent inclusion of coverage of the athlete's earlier life and career. Ejgreen77 (talk) 16:36, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Rewrite attempt
I've rewritten the section to clarify the feedback above. The proposal is below. This is based on Cbl62's intepretation of extending this guideline to coaches and youth sports organisations - if this isn't agreeable, we can always remove that part. Youth athletes Youth athletes (including high school and secondary school athletes when an athlete participates on a team, or any athlete under the age of 18), youth coaches, and youth sports organisations are notable only if they have received, as individuals, substantial and prolonged coverage that is: (1) independent of the subject; and (2) clearly goes beyond WP:ROUTINE coverage. The first clause excludes all school papers and school websites that cover their sports teams and other teams they compete against. The second clause excludes the majority of local coverage in both news sources and sports specific publications. It especially excludes using game play summaries, statistical results, or routine interviews as sources to establish notability. For individuals, these sources cannot be used to demonstrate notability even if the article subject has graduated high school/secondary school or is now 18 or older. Feedback is very welcome. SportingFlyer  T · C  21:42, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I would exclude the part about "sports-specific publications." I'd consider a feature article in Sports Illustrated or ESPN to be an indicator of notability, for instance. Otherwise it looks good. Smartyllama (talk) 13:13, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * A nationally distributed feature story wouldn't be covered by this as it specifically qualifies it as "local." SportingFlyer  T · C  13:15, 7 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Strong oppose. As I said, I'm fine with expanding YOUNGATH to cover coaches and teams. But the final sentence that you inserted is specifically contrary to the consensus in the discussion above. After an athlete has advanced to significance at a higher level of play, YOUNGATH is not meant to be an exclusionary rule for significant coverage received earlier in the athlete's career. Cbl62 (talk) 16:57, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's the case - my reading is that you're the only user above who specifically opposed that part. It also doesn't make any sense - why should an athlete be non-notable at 17 but notable at 19 with the same sources? SportingFlyer  T · C  23:22, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Because at 17 they're a minor, and at 19, they're not. Ejgreen77 (talk) 23:35, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * If it made no difference that an athlete is < 18, then there would be no purpose at all to YOUNGATH. Cbl62 (talk) 23:52, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) That's not correct. Looking through the archives at this talk page where the discussion of high school athletes occurred -    - show that the section is intended to define what routine coverage is in the context of high school sports, not to protect minors. The age of the article subject is irrelevant - it doesn't make routine coverage non-routine. SportingFlyer  T · C  00:01, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything in those discussions that suggests a different purpose or scope to YOUNGATH. Did I miss something? Cbl62 (talk) 00:10, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * In essence, yeah, there is nothing new being said by the guidance for young athletes from a guideline perspective; it just emphasizes that school coverage is not independent. Ravenswing, Bagumba, SportingFlyer and I agree that adequate coverage is adequate coverage, regardless of the age of the athlete, and Ravenswing seems to feel the section is unnecessary. isaacl (talk) 00:47, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I think it pretty clearly does say something different (i.e., stricter scrutiny for youth athletes), but if you are correct that it does not impose a stricter standard for youth athletes, then Ravenswing would be correct and we wouldn't need it at all. Cbl62 (talk) 00:54, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think it does create a "stricter scrutiny." It's not saying a young athlete cannot be notable while also protecting the encyclopaedia from impossible-to-defend articles like "Athlete won a youth golf tournament in back to back years and was written up in four local papers each time, so therefore passes GNG even though they never picked up a club again." Another athlete wouldn't be notable either for only winning an amateur city or even regional event back to back times as an adult, but the difference is youth sports do tend to receive a certain level of coverage that adult sports don't, making this necessary in the first place. SportingFlyer  T · C  02:05, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The reason for YOUNGATH is to deal with the myriad high school basketball/football stars who, in the American press, receive in-depth feature article coverage (i.e, clearly not WP:ROUTINE) in local news outlets. YOUNGATH has been consistently applied over the years to strictly limit stand-alone articles on such high school athletes. If we water down YOUNGATH to say that it doesn't impose stricter scrutiny, you're opening the floodgates to bio articles on high school basketball and football players, coaches, and teams. Cbl62 (talk) 02:57, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * That type of coverage is promotional, to meet the desires of local paper readership. As such, it isn't suitable for demonstrating that Wikipedia's standards for having an article are met. And it remains promotional when the athlete turns 18; it hasn't suddenly been sanitized. It's akin to the local paper writing a feature article about the bullpen catcher of the local MLB team. It's not independent, non-promotional coverage. isaacl (talk) 04:51, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * So, under your extreme view, an in-depth feature story in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Kansas City Star about a member of the Kansas City Royals lacks independence and should therefore be ignored in a GNG analysis. Fortunately, this view has no force of consensus behind it. Cbl62 (talk) 06:36, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd argue that the vast majority of bullpen catchers are not Pulitzer-worthy. Of course that would be a WP:GNG-qualifying source. But we do have to be more critical of local sources for sports figures who aren't obviously notable. I also don't really feel like we're on topic: I'm really after clarity for the edge cases, where someone has received routine local youth sports coverage and we're using it to demonstrate he passes WP:GNG as an adult.. SportingFlyer  T · C  12:57, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The point is not whether a bullpen catcher is "Pulitzer-worthy" (they're not even "Pulitzer-eligible"). The point is to rebut Isaacl's contention that feature articles in newspapers lack WP:INDY status simply because they write about a sports team located in the same city or metropolitan area. Cbl62 (talk) 15:46, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * This has been discussed on the notability talk page, as well as this talk page. Publications are not uniform in the nature of coverage for all its articles. City-based papers that have regional or national coverage still can have local coverage that is tailored for a local audience. A common example is restaurant reviews: local papers review lots of local restaurants, because that's what its readership wants, but English Wikipedia consensus doesn't consider a local review, by itself, to be suitable for meeting the standards of having an article. Local papers covering sports will go into all kinds of details about its local teams; not all of it will be considered qualifying coverage, either. True enough, though, that some local coverage might still meet the appropriate thresholds for independence and non-promotion; if you have a specific Kansas City Star article in mind, we can examine it.
 * However more directly related to the original query: if local coverage is significant, independent, and non-promotional, then that remains so even if the subject is under 18, and vice-versa. There's no point in changing the suitability of the source solely based on an age milestone, because that would only defer the creation of the article until the subject turns 18. To avoid a flood of articles of ultimately non-notable persons, we have to distinguish between coverage of primarily local interest (regardless of the award-winning status of the source), and coverage that indicates broader interest. It's not easy to codify, and so gets hashed out article by article in discussions. isaacl (talk) 22:47, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I agree that these things are not easy to codify. I do not believe that "independence" is an issue with feature-story coverage by independent newspapers, but I appreciate that your comments above reflect a more nuanced approach than I inferred from your original statement. Cbl62 (talk) 22:56, 8 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose. I agree with pretty much everything except that last sentence. But the last sentence is a deal-breaker for me, per everything above. Ejgreen77 (talk) 23:35, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose I don't see the basis for the last sentence. It might also be helpful to define routine sports coverage outside of young people, e.g. a section that gives sports-specific examples of WP:ROUTINE that applies for all ages.  I think we harp too much on "local", when GNG already requires multiple, independent sources—which is a sufficient filter.—Bagumba (talk) 05:42, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * In my experience, participants in sports AfDs have wildly different views as to what qualifies as WP:ROUTINE. I agree it would be helpful to at least capture those examples that broad consensus defines as ROUTINE. I suggest something along these lines:
 * "Certain types of coverage are considered WP:ROUTINE and are not counted in determining whether an athlete or coach satisfies the WP:GNG standard. Examples of such WP:ROUTINE coverage include (i) listings in comprehensive databases (such as those published by Sports Reference and ESPN.com), (ii) statistical listings (such as a newspaper's listing of player batting averages); (iii) passing mentions in game coverage; and (iv) lists of transactions, including hirings, firings, releases, and injuries (examples here and here)."
 * This has been a highly controversial topic, so we ought to provide broad notice to the sports projects if we are going to propose such a clarification. Cbl62 (talk) 07:18, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The essay what is and is not routine coverage gives some pretty good examples. Ejgreen77 (talk) 11:43, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I consider stats listing as WP:PRIMARY sources, whereas GNG requires WP:SECONDARY sources. Coverage should be significant enough so that it is possible to write more than just stats lines and a series of transactions.—Bagumba (talk) 11:55, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Stat listings published in reliable, third-party sources (like a newspaper or ESPN) are clearly not WP:PRIMARY. They are, however, very likely to be considered WP:ROUTINE and to not be considered significant coverage for the purposes of establishing notability on Wikipedia. Ejgreen77 (talk) 12:09, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't mind having this discussion, but again I really am just after some clarity on this youth sports edge case, so it should be well advertised and in an different section. SportingFlyer  T · C  12:57, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't realize until now that WP:SPORTSCRIT already says about trivial coverage: This includes listings in database sources with low, wide-sweeping generic standards of inclusion, such as Sports Reference's college football and basketball databases.—Bagumba (talk) 06:24, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

NBASKETBALL: Adriatic league
I've noticed that ABA League (Adriatic league) is not listed among WP:NBASKETBALL's list of leagues leading to presumed notability. I found that in practice, players from that league are widely assumed notable, see e.g. Articles for deletion/Denis Agre or Articles for deletion/Martin Junaković. Plus, the league has regularly provided prospects for the NBA draft and some of the national teams from the area are good by European standards. It seems that ABA League should be included in the list. Or are there any strong objections I'm not seeing? Modussiccandi (talk) 22:48, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * You'd need to demonstrate that anyone that played just one game in the league and didnt play anywhere else has enough significant coverage to meet GNG 95+% of the time. All bios are already notable if they pass GNG, even without NBASKETBALL. Are there a lot of AfDs for Adriatic players?—Bagumba (talk) 01:37, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
 * My comment was motivated by a recent new article review I did on Luka Ščuka. The subject seemed not to meet GNG to me. I went to check the rest of his team's roster: all of them had articles and most were notable for playing in good European leagues. There have been a good amount of AfD's on Adriatic players, most of which ended in keeps because editors thought that ABA League was on a level with the leagues listed. In one of them, someone said that the league was actually on the list at the time of writing . All this does not yet prove that players almost always meet GNG but I think it does show that most editors would vote keep in an AfD. Modussiccandi (talk) 10:20, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
 * ABA League was there for a while, but it was removed because it never really had consensus for inclusion. Also, years ago NBASKETBALL had an open-ended "or a similar major professional sports league", but that was removed in favor of only mentioning specific leagues that have been vetted. —Bagumba (talk) 10:44, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I see, I suspected that something like this had happened. Do you think it is worth starting an RfC about this? I find that the current situation makes reviewing Adriatic players' articles difficult since they are likely to be kept at an AfD regardless of their failing GNG. Modussiccandi (talk) 10:55, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

RFC: NFOOTY reform
I propose that WP:NFOOTY be amended as follows to require that players to have been in three competitive games instead of just one:

Players who have played, and managers who have managed, in any three competitive game s between two teams from fully professional leagues will generally be regarded as notable.


 * Support As proposer. Howdy hello folks. I think I am not alone in bemoaning the "one match standard" of NFOOTY. Right now we grant notability to any player that has even touched the field in a professional match, if even for a few seconds. I think it is high time we raise this standard. For GNG, we often want at least three sources to show notability. I propose that for NFOOTY, we follow a similar path: require that a player has played at least three professional games. I do not think this will singlehandedly solve the issue of sports notability. But I think it is a start. This will at least eliminate the players who have only been in a single match, such as one game subs/loaners. Such players are highly unlikely to have had GNG level coverage. But if you have played in several games, you are much more likely to be a regular member of the team and to have received GNG coverage. CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 08:13, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Support. One game is too low a bar. Three probably is also, particularly in the lower leagues, but any tightening in this regard is to be welcomed. wjematherplease leave a message... 08:44, 29 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Weak support- although this would push the balance further towards people who actually have significant coverage, it's worth remembering that the actual metric is significant coverage; not some X number of games played. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Reyk (talk • contribs) 08:58, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related page discussions. GiantSnowman 09:14, 29 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose - firstly, can I congratulate the proposer for failing to notify the relevant WikiProject about this proposal. Secondly, the proposal is flawed. We have this kind of discussion once every few months/years, and nobody can explain why X is a better number than 1. Why not 2, why not 5, why not 20? Because they're all arbitrary. At least with 1 that is a clear line - either you have played or you have not. In addition, what makes somebody who has made 3 appearances but only for 2 minutes each game more notable than somebody who has only made 1 appearance but for a full 90 minutes? Please also remember that NFOOTBALL is just a presumption of notability that assumes you also meet GNG due to having played in a professional sport. As such the current '1 game' rule works perfectly for that. GiantSnowman 09:19, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , that would be fine except that people keep pretending that rebuttable presumption means "permanent unappealable exemption from WP:V and WP:GNG". There is no shortage AfDs where the nominator has clearly laid out a failed search for sources beyond database scrapes and gets shouted down by wikiproject enthusiasts coming in to go "speedy keep- meets WP:NBLERP". This proposal may be going off on a bit of a tangent but it's at least heading vaguely in the right direction. Reyk YO! 09:27, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * that's a problem with those editors, not with the rules. I presume you have not been following recent NFOOTBALL related AFDs then, where literally dozens and dozens of articles which technically scrape by on NFOOTBALL but comprehensively fail GNG have been (rightly) deleted? GiantSnowman 09:31, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Exactly what I was going to say. The way in which FOOTY is working in practice just now seems to be people willing to argue "yes, technically meets it, but...". If there's a way that can be strengthened as an approach then that covers most of the issues - and does so better than setting an arbitrary limit on the number of matches. Half of the problem seems to be the word presumed of course - but I got shouted down with all sorts of arguments about legal wittage when I tried to suggest that might not actually be that helpful above... Blue Square Thing (talk) 09:49, 29 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose Slippery slope comes to mind here. 1 game is more than enough as guidance for presumed notability given they will already have been expected to meet GNG. Indeed we do have players who fail NFOOTY as they haven't played their 1 pro game but their articles are still here under GNG. It has already been made clear GNG has primacy, this is just helpful guidance for what might be considered notable.  The C of E God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 09:34, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. This is a huge problem, and the proposal will be a solid step toward addressing it. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 09:47, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose While NFOOTY may need tightening, I've never thought that this is the solution. Why is someone who made 3 last-minute substitute appearances more notable than someone who starts 2 matches for example? It raises more potential issues than it solves in my opinion. Right now players who made one appearance, or sometimes a similar low number of them, and are obviously not going to make anymore are routinely deleted if they fail GNG at AfD anyway. Kosack (talk) 10:11, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose Proposer hasn't explained why 3 is a better number than 1. As GS said above, a player could play 3 games for 2 minutes at the end, but probably won't be more notable than a player who played two full games and scored a hat-trick in both of them. The rule of playing is at least binary of has played or hasn't. A rule of 3 would just make it an arbitrary rule, open to people in future saying they want to make it higher or lower. --SuperJew (talk) 10:30, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose per above. Lack of clear rationale as to what this solves. Are we snowed by instances of people playing just one professional game that making it 3 would solve? GNG is still the overriding criteria regardless of if they have made 1 or 100 appearances. Reliable sourcing is still required to be referenced for that notability. The answer seems to be in enforcing reliable sourcing and GNG as the predicate in all instances, which appears to be routine anyway. Koncorde (talk) 10:43, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The guidance on professional appearances includes "will generally be regarded as notable". As others have said, this is a presumption that it will pass GNG. One appearance or three appearances, this is just a first hurdle, and changing it marginally will make little difference. It's verifiable coverage of the appearances that matters. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 10:58, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose per SuperJew above. And i see no reason given why 3 is better than 1. Kante4 (talk) 11:22, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose This does nothing to fix the ageless problem of whether professional footballers are inherently notable. A player could have a minute in three games and pass this test. If someone wants to look at why we have NFOOTY, it needs a rethink. This is just tinkering.--Egghead06 (talk) 11:28, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose football WikiProject does a good job of making clear that one appearance with no other coverage doesn't make them pass WP:GNG, and these articles often get deleted anyway. Arbitrarily changing the bar is unnecessary. Joseph2302 (talk) 11:31, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment: Starting to be a pile-on here, but while I agree that NFOOTY needs to be tightened, that 3-game benchmark seems to have been plucked out of thin air, and CaptainEek shows no evidence that he's done any legwork to demonstrate projected percentages of players who can make the GNG at 1-game vs 3. (Quite aside from that the real issue isn't so much the number of games but that NFOOTY stipulates that a player playing a hundred games in the English, Italian, German or Spanish top-flights is not one whit more notable than one playing a single match in Brazil's FIFTH tier or Greece's FOURTH tier.)   Ravenswing      12:48, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * "...that 3-game benchmark seems to have been plucked out of thin air..." Just like picking a "90-95% of the players who meet it have been demonstrated to make the GNG", for example.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 13:21, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, what number would you pick? 100% isn't feasible. Below 90% is too loose to be any use, especially with NSPORTS guidance that the various SNGs represent players "highly likely" to meet the GNG. But yes, I get that you really, really, really, really, really hate that I have a number in mind when deciding for myself what "highly likely" means. You've only mentioned it what, eight or nine times?]]  Heaven knows why it bothers you so very much (the more so in that numerous other editors have made similar statements), but demonstrably this is one of the sticks you're incapable of dropping. (One would've thought your extensive block log for harassment and sniping at other editors would've made an impression.)     Ravenswing      14:27, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by "not one whit more notable"? AFAIK, notability is binary - either the player is notable or they're not. --SuperJew (talk) 13:04, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Quite. And that's the rub.  It is reasonable that someone playing for a major national top-flight team can meet the GNG.  I strongly question whether someone playing a single match for a fourth division team in a small country could, as a matter of course.   Ravenswing      14:32, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * AFAIK, the only country which has a fully-professional league below the third tier is England. Regarding your practical examples, Greece only has two fully-pro leagues, and Brazil has 3 + various regional leagues that, for historical reasons, are as important (if not arguably more) than the actual national divisions. Check the list at WikiProject Football/Fully professional leagues. Nehme1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 14:49, 29 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Oppose - One appearance is a logical barrier to entry, three appearances is not a logical barrier to entry.--EchetusXe 12:56, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose I think a lack of thought went into this and it's just wasting everyones time. Govvy (talk) 13:15, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose Per all the above.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 13:21, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose I think GiantSnowman summed it up neatly. Paul W (talk) 14:29, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose per SuperJew's argument regarding the binary nature of having 1 as the limit. <b style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:80%;color:#000080">Nehme</b><b style="font-family:Verdana;color:#27B382">1499</b> (<b style="font-size:80%;color:#a9a9a9">talk</b>) 14:43, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose Readers will reasonably expect to find articles on players after they make their debut. Why make them wait for three matches? There is also a constant stream of articles on players who have made a small number of appearances being deleted (like this, a player with three apperances in a fully-pro league), so clearly WP:NFOOTY is not preventing their deletion. Number   5  7  16:21, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose Players who make their debuts will no longer be considered notable, which seems weird as I see it. And Number 57 summed it up well, I guess. Paul Vaurie (talk) 17:04, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose If a player played once for Manchester City or FC Barcelona would they not be notable? REDMAN 2019  ( talk ) 17:17, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose per GiantSnowman and SuperJew, unless further evidence is given, three seems to be an arbitrary number. Using one appearance provides a clear division. As always, players must still pass WP:GNG, and those with few professional appearances have routinely been deleted. S.A. Julio (talk) 18:48, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Notability in basketball
I would like to propose that the notability guidelines are improved. It is more notable to become an All-American in the NCAA division I than it is to just play one time in a professional league. I also think the list of leagues should be expanded to include those with millions of fans and high-profile players, such as Stephon Marbury and Tracy Mcgrady in the CBA (China). The leagues I believe are missing are ones RealGM.com cites as high-level professional (Chinese Basketball Association, Liga Nacional de Básquet, and Baloncesto Superior Nacional. Each of the listed leagues have had more than twenty NBA players play in them in the last decade alone, they are the highest level in their respective regions, and each have a massive following. So if the other leagues are a distinction, they should be as well. Thanks for your consideration. Youngjtdyt (talk) 17:45, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry about the broken hyperlink, and the has/had error *facepalm* Youngjtdyt (talk) 17:47, 12 January 2021 (UTC)


 * NCAA DI players are not a professional athlete and falls under the requirements of WP:NCOLLATH (All-Americans usually meet #3), not WP:NBASKET. As for the other leagues, examples of non-NBA players meeting WP:GNG would be need to be shown. NSPORTS should use the lowest possible qualification to assess adding (played one or two games in said league only, not any others already in the list), not the highest (players that already met a different qualification such as playing in the NBA). Yosemiter (talk) 17:50, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@yosmiter Thanks for clearing that up. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a thing yet haha but now I know why. As for the non-nba/lowest qualification: do you want me to tag non-nba players in those leagues that already have pages without meeting the 3 requirements? Youngjtdyt (talk) 17:58, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Yosemiter Thanks for clearing that up. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a thing yet haha but now I know why. As for the non-nba/lowest qualification: do you want me to tag non-nba players in those leagues that already have pages without meeting the 3 requirements? Youngjtdyt (talk) 17:59, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Yosemiter Thanks for clearing that up. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t a thing yet haha but now I know why. As for the non-nba/lowest qualification: do you want me to tag non-nba players in those leagues that already have pages without meeting the 3 requirements?

Sorry about the mishaps Youngjtdyt (talk) 17:59, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * As noted, if you're proposing to add leagues where 1 appearance satisfies the criteria, then it would be useful to have a list of players who have played just 1 game (or at least a very small number) and to show that they are notable. Nigej (talk) 18:06, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Take a look at Notability (sports)/FAQ: "I want to create a new sports-specific notability guideline or revise an existing one. What approach should I take?"—Bagumba (talk) 18:23, 12 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I did some research to determine if the lists are viable. For each league I found at least four players, who have met the eligibility standard without meeting any of the three requirements of having played in the existing list of leagues, drafted in at least the second round of the NBA, or won an award in the NBA G-League or Continental Basketball association.


 * For the CBA: Ding Yanyuhang, Abdusalam Abdurixit, Liu Wei, He Tianju


 * For the LNB: Héctor Campana, Hernán Jasen, Bruno Lábaque, Nicolás Aguirre, Diego Osella


 * For the BSN: Jordan Howard, Gilberto Clavell, Kleon Penn, Chane Behanen, Javier González, Willie Melendez


 * These players didn’t play only a few games, but have only played in the leagues I am advocating for (or leagues at a lower level). Youngjtdyt (talk) 18:51, 12 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you Bagumba, I believe I have now done that. Youngjtdyt (talk) 18:53, 12 January 2021 (UTC)


 * More players and fixed hyperlinks:
 * CBA : Du Feng, Abudushalamu Abudurexiti
 * BSN: : Chane Behanan Youngjtdyt (talk) 18:57, 12 January 2021 (UTC)


 * (Please read WP:INDENT for responding to others on talk pages) Most of those players you are listing played hundreds of games in their respective leagues. What NSPORTS is looking for, and explicitly NBASKET, is players with ONE appearance in that league and is shown to meet WP:GNG. Yosemiter (talk) 19:07, 12 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Hopefully this is a better format. To satisfy the requirements, I found two players in the BSN. Yancy Gates and Isaiah Piñeiro.

Gates played one game exactly and meets none of the other requirements. The same for Piñeiro. Is that sufficient? I will begin to search the other two leagues if so. Youngjtdyt (talk) 19:47, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Added a page break where I shouldn’t have. Apologies Youngjtdyt (talk) 19:48, 12 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Hopefully this is a better format. To satisfy the requirements, I found two players in the BSN. Yancy Gates and Isaiah Piñeiro.

Gates played one game exactly and meets none of the other requirements. The same for Piñeiro. Is that sufficient? I will begin to search the other two leagues if so. Youngjtdyt (talk) 19:50, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Hello, I am going to attempt to clean up this thread and consolidate my position in this post. So far it has been determined that to qualify for an addition to the exiting notability guideline, a list of players who achieved such status in their own right and also have played minimally in the leagues I advocated would be required. I have composed a list; it is not complete but I do feel the volume is sufficient to make a case for one of the leagues, the Baloncesto Superior Nacional. The other two leagues (CBA, LNB) don’t seem to meet the requirements at this time, or at least to my research. They have 2 and 1 players only, respectively.

The list: (1 game) Eniel Polynice, Víctor Ávila , Raphiael Putney , Darius Rice , Isaiah Wilkerson , Kendall Williams , Yancy Gates , Isaiah Piñeiro , Karim Malpica, Kitwana Rhymer, Phil Jones (2 games) Brian Butch, Ian Young (3 games) Martín Osimani

In summation, this is a list of 14 players who have been deemed notable and have not played in the NBA or any of the accepted leagues, have not been drafted in the first or second round of the NBA, and have not led the league in a major statistical category in the NBA G League or Continental Basketball Association.

Youngjtdyt (talk) 01:29, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Notability in women’s sports
Is there a way we can broaden the notability for women’s leagues to include more female athletes? It appears to me that while men garner more media attention, an encyclopedia would be found wanting if it used that standard while ignoring the obvious imbalance that exists. An example would be the NWHL an equivalent to the NHL. The NWHL is broadcasted on ESPN 3 and ABC, the athletes are professional and it is the highest level in the country. I wouldn’t stop at hockey either, just an example. I look forward to hearing some ideas on this, thanks! Youngjtdyt (talk) 04:50, 19 January 2021 (UTC)


 * This is brought up frequently in the various sports projects (such as the deep-dive at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey/Archive69), but Notability on Wikipedia for NSPORTS is solely about WP:GNG, and women's sports do not garner anywhere near the same coverage the men's leagues for each individual player. It has nothing to do with individual accomplishments, just independent coverage. The top players certainly get coverage, but the ones with the least appearances really only get covered in school papers and blogs such as SB Nation. And as someone who is somewhat of an expert on the NWHL, they do not currently make a living wage (almost all have second jobs and if not, it is because of sponsorship money), so "pro" is dubious as it is not "fully pro". Hence why the Professional Women's Hockey Players Association was created to boycott for better wages, terms, and support. Yosemiter (talk) 05:04, 19 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Oh ok thanks for filming me in. I don’t know all that much about it currently but I was curious and wanted to see how it would be received. Your input is greatly appreciated! I hope they can make some strides sooner rather than later. And I’ll try and place my inquiries in the right spot next time. All the best! Youngjtdyt (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

RfC: Addition of Georgia, Namibia and Uruguay to 'High Performance Unions' on WP:NRU
Hi guys, following the start of a discussion on the rugby union WikiProject, I propose that Georgia, Namibia and Uruguay should be added to the list of 'High Performance Unions' as listed by WP:NRU at WikiProject Rugby union/Notability criteria. World Rugby currently lists 20 sides (17 of which are listed at WP:NRU along with Georgia, Namibia and Uruguay) as 'High Performance' as stated on page 8 of this document and 5 emerging nations (I believe these should not be added at this time). The British & Irish Lions are not included but should also be kept on the WP:NRU list. I believe this document supersedes the one currently listed on the WP:NRU notability criteria as it is more up to date and because of the three sides recent improvements and increase in fixtures against other high performance unions. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 13:35, 22 January 2021 (UTC)


 * NSPORTS claims that people are notable if they have appeared for any of these 17 or 20 countries at any time, not just after they have been declared HPU. Without judging whether players from e.g. Georgia are indeed notable now, it seems wrong to apply this retroactively and declare them to be presumed notable even if they played for the country 50 years ago. Fram (talk) 13:44, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * When the criteria was created, all tier 1 and tier 2 sides at the time (the 17 that are currently listed) were included. I would say that players playing internationally for Japan or Romania in the 1930s are as likely notable as players playing for Georgia at a similar time. However I'm happy to add any player that has played for these nations (Georgia, Namibia and Uruguay) at a world cup or from say 2019 onwards is notable to the criteria. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 13:52, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, I have no idea if Romanian international players from the 1930s were notable or not; it may well be that the criteria (or the wording) are already too inclusive. Your addition seems to avoid this issue for the three new countries at least. Fram (talk) 14:00, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

As there's been no objections to the proposal and it's been up over a week. I'm going to go ahead and implement these changes per WP:BOLD. If anybody has any objections please contact here or on the rugby union WikiProject. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 14:04, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Can we specify a specific date for when the high performance union applies from i.e. whenever they are generally classed as having "become" a high performance union? <b style="color:#0033ab">Joseph</b><b style="color:#000000">2302</b> (talk) 14:38, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , for the 3 that I have added, I have put that from 2016 onwards they are notable (unless they'd previously played for their country at a world cup or notable 7s tournament) as the document provided states high performance plan for 2016–2020. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 16:32, 29 January 2021 (UTC)