Wikipedia:Village pump (policy): Difference between revisions

I don't know if the guidelines were improved or not. GoodDay (talk) 13:43, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we need to make any changes to the advice we give editors. I also don't think it would be helpful in the particular situation that triggered the discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:17, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A._C._Santacruz

, after reading that archived thread (though not the discussions that prompted it, which I am not going to do), I'm not entirely clear what exactly it is you were confused about, but I think it was about whether or not it was proper for you to close that discussion (and withdraw the RFC proposal?)? It seems to me there is general consensus that under those circumstances you CAN, with a significant minority dissenting to that view. Most of that discussion seemed academic to me, i.e., the things they were discussing didn't seem to be material to any actual controversy. I agree with WhatIAmDoing. If you happen to find yourself in a position where you've opened a discussion with some kind of proposal, and it quickly becomes abundantly clear that there is no support for what you proposed and leaving it open would be destructive, by all means, close the bastard! And if you get guff for it, just tell them there's nothing in the PaG that prohibit it.

Remember, the policies and guidelines (most of them) are primarily to tell you what you CAN'T do, not what you CAN do. What you CAN do is (mostly) everything else that they don't mention 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:BD9C:7484:82F9:9D21 (talk) 08:30, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Permission for the person who started an RFC to snow-close it early is literally item #1 at Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Ending RfCs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:21, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Number 1 should probably be worded more clearly; it certainly does not say that the OP may snow-close (or any-close) it early, or at any time. What #1 actually says, is that the OP may *withdraw* (not "close") an Rfc whose result is clear. That is to stay, the tag is removed, the Rfc stops, and is not assessed by an independent closer. This doesn't give the OP the right to close an Rfc that appears to be going their way in the initial votes one or two days into the normal running period of an Rfc, although it does give them the opportunity to save everyone else the wasted time of having to weigh in for another 29 days just to change the vote from 6 – 1 to 39 – 3, and perhaps also to avoid the spectacle of having to endure public rejection for another four weeks. Mathglot (talk) 06:31, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Mathglot, it sounds like the box in RFCEND is relevant here: "Some editors make a distinction between "closing" a discussion (discouraging further discussion, usually with the {{closed rfc top}} template pair) and "summarizing" a discussion (naming outcomes)."

I think it's fine to "close" RFCs when your question has been answered. When asked, I never advise editors to summarize contentious discussions that they are "winning". That carries a risk of unnecessary and futile drama. And in this case, the drama would have been entirely futile: the question had already been answered approximately 20 to 1, and the alternative first sentence is still not in the article. Editors are expected to be able to evaluate and agree upon the results of most RfCs without outside assistance, and I think that this was certainly an instance in which even any editors who considered themselves to be "losing" should have been able to agree what the result of the discussion was. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:37, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the prior discussion Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 168#Are we now banning the word "manned"?, there are some cases where using gender neutral language, however appropriate that may be for articles on something involving both men and women, produces extremely difficult problems for an article. The example I have in mind is anything to do with propulsion by oars. In non-technical language, we all call this rowing. However, in any article that goes into any technical detail on the subject, we have the problem that "rowing" has a precise meaning (which, frustratingly, varies with context). In some cases the correct word to use is "pulling". In explaining technical details it is easiest to say, e.g., "...each oarsman pulling one oar". In the context of the affected articles, it would be jarringly wrong to say "...each rower pulling one oar" as rowing and pulling are separate and different activities. Neither can one substitute "crewmember", because some members of the crew are not using an oar - and this can be relevant to the article content. After a lot of thought, I have come to the conclusion that the word "oarsman" has to be used if the articles affected are going to be at all comprehensible.

It appears that the solution to the problem is to have a template that states, in much the way that many legal documents do, that use of "man" should be read as either gender. As a precedent I quote the widely respected yachting author Tom Cunliffe
"In this respect, I fear that English is proving inadequate for the times, and any masculine pronouns should be read as referring to either the male, or the female of our species." (Hand, Reef and Steer 2nd edition (p. 11))
Is such a template available?

We are talking about a small number of articles where the English language is insufficient to deal with the problems of modern usage. I am reluctant to name articles on which I have been working where this has caused difficulty, for fear of alerting single-issue enthusiasts to them, but anyone can search for, e.g., the word "oarsmen" or "oarsman" occurring within articles and see what they find. Note that such a search will produce situations where "men" does mean the male of the species because of the historical role separation that is being described in historical situations - but that is another part of the subject. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 11:14, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In the context you use as an example, "oarspeople" is a word (albeit not a massively common one) that seems to fit perfectly. In most other contexts there will be other words or the possibility of reprhasing to avoid gendered language. In a few contexts, the "-man" word is used for people of any gender, e.g. fireman (steam engine)#Railways and so no changes are needed. Thryduulf (talk) 11:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• While I commend TIR's work and logical process (and they're undoubtedly right), I disagree that a template indicating such is necessary. Its presence, (and potentially others if we are going to start defining words where the ready default of interpretation is going to be "it means both men and women" anyway) will just make articles more clunky unnecessarily. As crew, a rower, a sculler, a blade, an oarsman, a bowman, and more, the status quo (now better justified) seems sufficient without further article-side explanation. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:04, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe the English language is insufficient. But first, is there really a problem here, and if so, what is it? If the boat is crewed by men, just say, "each oarsmen pulling one oar". If it is crewed by women, say, "each oarswoman pulling one oar". Is the situation about generalities, and not about a particular boat? Then say, "boats can be crewed by men or women, each pulling one oar [, except for the coxswain, who...]". Are there mixed crews? If so, talking about this in the abstract is too difficult; one is being asked to solve a problem that hasn't been fully defined. Please present an actual, real-world situation where you find the difficulty exists, preferably in the form of a long quotation setting up the context (or a link to it), along with the troublesome sentence, and I'm sure we can find a felicitous wording that solves the problem without sounding maladroit. Mathglot (talk) 06:41, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Mathglot's assessment here. I'd additionally appreciate some indication that relevant RS are diverging from the standard "-men"/"-women" to some other alternatives, both because I believe we should follow the terms the RS use in these fields and it might provide suitable alternatives.

Please ping me! 10:49, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

RFC on WP: SPS and WP: BLPSPS

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Wikipedia policies and guidelines When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

There is a current discrepancy between how WP: V covers self published sources for BLP's and how WP: BLP covers self published sources for BLP's.

The current text on

third-party sources

about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer.

The current text on

--Kyohyi (talk) 15:05, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Withdraw/close. Why are we having this RfC? Where is the
  talk) 15:11, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

Current BLP policy explicitly forbids self-published sources on BLP's unless they are from the BLP. The change you just made on BLP implicitly allows self published sources as long as they are not used as a third-party source. That is a policy change and should get consensus first. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:20, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So the problem is what? Third-party use is excluded so ... ?

talk) 15:28, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

The change is that non-third party use of self published sources on BLP's is going from being explicitly forbidden to implicitly allowed. That's a change and should get consensus first. Since this is something that affects policy that has discretionary sanctions tied to it, local consensus shouldn't be enough. Hence the RFC. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:35, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How's it a change? Third-party sources are prohibited in BLP, just with different wording. Could you give an actual concrete example of something you think would now be allowed that wasn't before?

talk) 15:39, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Sorry, it doesn't say third-party sources are prohibited in BLP. In all actuality third-party sources are the preferred type of source. What do you think it means to use a source as a third-party source? Is it a Voice issue? The general policies that surround Third-party sources say that articles must be based upon them. Not that we can't use non-third party sources. There is no general prohibition to using non-third party sources, so this change now allows self-published non-third party sources. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:53, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, it doesn't say third-party sources are prohibited in BLP. ← third-party SPS, since this is what we're discussing. It says "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people". I repeat: could you give an actual concrete example of something you think would now be allowed that wasn't before?

talk) 15:55, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Just about any self-published source. Again, what does it mean to use a source as a third-party source? Non-third party sources are not forbidden anywhere on Wikipedia. The text doesn't say "never use Third-party self-published sources". Third-party self-published source would be a description of the source, "never use self-published source as a third-party source" is a description of the source, and a description of how it can't be used. Which implies there is a way it can be used. So how do we use third-party sources vs. non-third party sources? The only policy is that we can't base our articles on non-third party sources. This change no longer forbids use of self-published non-third party sources on BLP's. --Kyohyi (talk) 16:09, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Just about any self-published source" ← no, only non third-party usages are allowed. I'm trying to understand what you think has changed by asking for an example. For the third time, please, just an example of a source/claim that you think would now be allowed that wasn't before.

talk) 16:37, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Alright, over at BLPN the Thacker discussion. What text in policy now forbids the useage of the Novella sources. I again ask the question, what does it mean to use a source as a non-third party? --Kyohyi (talk) 16:48, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"What text in policy now forbids the useage of the Novella sources." As Paul Thacker is a living person, and the 'Novella' sources are by Steven Novella, from Steven Novella's blog, hosted by NESS - an organisation Steven Novella is president of, both the text of WP:V and WP:BLP which you have quoted above prevents their use. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:03, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations, you've identified a self-published source as a self-published source. Now get to the part where we talk about what does it mean to use a self-published source as a third-party source. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:24, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I'm out on this. This is either deliberate trolling or a failure to understand on a basic level, and I am uninterested in finding out which. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• (after edit conflict)
  Phil Bridger (talk) 16:52, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

@

talk) 17:06, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

If Novella is in dispute with Thacker about something, Novella and Thacker become first and second party to each other with respect to the dispute. Novella is not a third-party in that instance. They are potentially a person with an axe to grind. In this case with Thacker. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:24, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

How's that relevant? This is about sourcing, not imagined legal disputes with their distinct terminology. I put it to you, you simply cannot produce an example of what the wording change, would change. This RfC should be withdrawn or closed.

talk) 17:32, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Whether or not a source is third-party is now relevant because you've added it as a usage requirement to the policy text. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:36, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Third party and self-published are not the same thing. See

WP: USESPS. --Kyohyi (talk) 16:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Yes, we all know that, but it is not the question.

Phil Bridger (talk) 17:09, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

A source from a person who is in conflict, or put another way whom has an axe to grind with the article subject would not be third-party. Especially if they are writing about the the topic in which they are in conflict. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:34, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"A source from a person who is in conflict, or put another way whom has an axe to grind with the article subject would not be third-party" ← yes it would. And if self-published would not be allowed for biographical content about a living person.

talk) 17:39, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

No it woulnd't because they are both parties to the dispute. A third party could be someone else commenting on it, but the two parties themselves are not third-party to each-other with respect to the dispute. The text in WP: V would allow that, the Original text in BLP would not. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:53, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In a (legal) dispute there may be "second parties". But this is about sources. The concept of a textual "second party source" does not exist on the English Wikipedia or in writing generally. If somebody is unaffiliated with a source it is a third-party source in respect to them. This is explained at

talk) 18:03, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

I'm am more than willing to drop this if you can provide a single argument which can be linked to that would refute this argument here: [[4]]. (Specifically that SPS can be used) I say this because I know this is going to be argued on BLP's and the BLP version is explicit in what it forbids. Whereas the WP: V version needs interpretation and reasoning. Mind you, I don't agree with the argument I linked. --Kyohyi (talk) 18:45, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it makes sense. But anybody arguing that you can use a SPS as a third-party source for biographical content about living people, is wrong on every front.

talk) 18:58, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

It might not make sense, but can you disprove it. Changing the text to match WP: V would mean we would have to rely on the interpretation of third-party in

WP:Third-party sources to have the same effect as the original text WP: BLP. Third-party sources is an explanatory supplement, which has all the same weight as an Essay. So we go from relying on the text of a policy to having to rely on the text of the policy and the text of an essay. --Kyohyi (talk) 19:56, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Nonsensical things are not amenable to proof or disproof. If "third-party" is too difficult for some readers there may be merit in having the BLP text at

talk) 20:00, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

I've noticed this too about Kyohyi's lines of comments and others trying to insist there are issues with V and R policy language on SPS sources in BLPs. It comes across as hand-waving that something is going to drastically change if we follow existing policy language the community has always been following, yet with no concrete examples provided (instead shifting the burden to others). It seems so odd that there's such a hard push against policy, yet when pushed actual issues that would justify C votes, nothing. KoA (talk) 18:37, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Kyohyi, maybe it would help if you made it clear who made that comment you just linked, or maybe even asked them what they were talking about instead of insinuating things and running with it so far as to start an RfC? There's a reason why Alexbrn said it didn't make sense, because you were taking me way out of context.

The niche use I was alluding to in that case is described in

WP:DUE. There are plenty of examples of that in articles when outside sources deemed an SPS said something noteworthy for the subject. KoA (talk) 03:09, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

My apologies for getting the exception you were going for wrong. However, under current wording on BLP, primary self-published sources would not be allowed. BLPPRIMARY says may, so sources which are primary but not self-published could be allowed under current BLP. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

BLPPRIMARY is policy and explicit that primary sources are possible to be used regardless of SPS or not when there is another accompanying appropriate source. Again, you're missing what our guidance is actually saying overall and kind of tilting at windmills as a result. That confusion could have been addressed at the policy page itself instead of launching a premature RfC. All other guidance in this subject is linked to focus on independent/third-party sources because we do have that very limited use where SPS can be cited according to policy and in long-standing practice. KoA (talk) 18:37, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Since BLPRIMARY subjects itself to BLPSPS (note "subject to the restrictions in this policy" BLPSPS is a restriction in BLP) I find it hard to believe that it allows something that BLPSPS forbids. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:12, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Option A. A dictionary definition of third party e.g. "a person or group besides the two primarily involved in a situation, especially a dispute" appears to suggest that a person in a dispute with the BLP subject is not a third party. I thank Kyohyi for bringing this up. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:53, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Option C: Originally I read those two sentences as meaning the same thing, under the interpretation that a third-party source was simply one not published by the subject, and was consequently going to vote for Option A. However, upon closer reading of
  WP:V to match it. Loki (talk) 05:50, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• C per Loki. The two intend to say the same thing but BLP says it better than V. We should avoid the use of the confusing jargon "third party", which means different things in different contexts. Levivich 16:37, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • While I think C is better than B (meaning, BLP's language is better than V), I would also be OK with D something else that said the same thing in a simpler way, such as "Don't use
    WP:ABOUTSELF." Levivich 19:21, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
    ]

    ^ This. That's basically what we mean. (Only, for clarity, that's "content about a BLP", not "content that happens to be in a BLP article but which isn't itself about a BLP". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Shouldn't pretty much all content in a BLP article be about the BLP? And if we've broadened what we can have in a particle BLP to be beyond the BLP itself should we allow self published sources that aren't by the BLP? --Kyohyi (talk) 14:18, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    "BLP content", which (WAID is right) is better said "content about a living person", doesn't only appear in a BLP article. There are non-BLP articles that still have "BLP content". Hence, WP:BLP applying on all pages, not just biographies. I think it's conceivable but rare that a BLP article might properly use some EXPERTSPS source for some fact that is not about any living person. (In these situations I always remind myself that the breadth of Wikipedia's topical coverage is far wider than my imagination, so it's nearly impossible for me to conceive of all possible situations.) Levivich 15:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    My concern is running into guilt by association and coatrack issues. Generally per WP: OR we have to include sources that are related to the topic of the article. In this case we're talking about a biography of a living person, so do we really want to include self-published content not about the biography on that biography? The opposite end would be if the article is not a biography, but has biographical information of people related to the article. I suppose it depends on how much of an article is a BLP, and how much is not, but I think if we present it primarily as a BLP we should keep to BLP sourcing. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:53, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    There are two potential holes in the policy wording:

    • Content in a BLP article that isn't (directly) about the subject of the article
    • Content in a non-BLP article that is about a living person.

    Both of these happen frequently, when we write about events, organizations, scientific research, products, etc.

    The second is easily handled: whenever you are writing about a living person, then you follow BLP standards no matter what the rest of the page is about. "Alice Expert discovered the genetic mutation" in an article about a disease – BLP standards for that sentence. "Paul Politician condemned the state of the world" in an article about a social problem – BLP standards for that sentence. Experienced editors already know this and do this.

    The first is not actually that difficult, but it might be harder to notice. Imagine an article about a famous politician or business person. The article will mostly be about the person (e.g., early life, education, personal life, things they said or did). However, some parts of the article might need to include relevant context, so that the reader can understand what's going on. An article about a senior politician, for example, might need to say something about the state of the country's economy, which isn't BLP content, so that particular bit needn't meet BLP standards. An article on a university professor might need to say something about how well the academic's theories were received, which isn't BLP content. An article about someone who invented a product might need to say something about whether the product is any good, or whether the company was successful, which isn't BLP content.

    It is not really unusual to have an article that is approximately half about a person and half about the band/company/book/thing they created. That's okay. Coatracks are a problem when the content that is hanging on to the ostensible subject obscures the real subject. We're happy to have an article that is about both Fiona Famous and her Famous Foundation; we are less happy to have an article titled Famous Foundation that is 90% about food insecurity. We've got an article about

    Food insecurity; we don't need a dumbed-down version of that information under another title. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

    ]

• D - I have long felt that these clauses are both written - and, more importantly, interpreted - too broadly. I would support them if they were limited to sourcing controversial BLP material, or if they were limited to sources in dispute with a (BLP) subject. But currently these clauses prevent us from directly citing in memoriam blog posts about colleagues, and even ban self-published expert analyses of living authors' professional contributions (the latter may or may not be an intended reading of WP policy, but it is definitely used that way). So I would like to see both passages reined in, rather than setting one the same as the other. Newimpartial (talk) 16:49, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Am I missing something It looks as though we are discussing changes in at least one if not two of our major policies. Without mentioning it at either policy's talk page or
  WP:CENT. Am I right? Doug Weller talk 16:47, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  My apologies, I have added RFC notices to both policy pages. However I have no idea how the CENT template is supposed to work. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:51, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I listed it at

  WP:CENT. Levivich 19:18, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

• Option C The clauses are intended to mean the same thing, but I agree with Loki and Levivich that C is clearer. If it's ever proposed, I would support (D) changing both to an imperative, such as "Self-published sources can only be used as a source of material about the person who wrote the source" (obv. word-smithing needed, of course). Schazjmd (talk) 18:06, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• This RFC and the related situation has a lot of issues and should probably be terminated. Maybe start by opening a discussion at WP:VER about adopting the BLP wording (Option C) North8000 (talk) 18:22, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I made the original edit that triggered this, and I'll agree with others that this should probably be withdrawn/closed due to failing
  WP:RFCBEFORE. I won't have much time if any to respond to this more in-depth until the weekend. It honestly comes across more as steamrolling between blanket reverting already accepted clarifying language in policy even if they only disagreed with a small part of it in addition to jumping to a premature RfC. I do especially find it odd how even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer policy was reverted
  without any mention of it since, which is a pretty strong indication Kyohyi is rushing too much and glossing over a lot in the rush to make an RfC before there could be any input on its formation.

When I was making the edit over at BLP, that was just intended as basic clarifying language that had already been adopted as policy on SPS's for years. Nothing to significantly change either policy, and if anything, strengthening the policy through clarification the community had accepted as policy. The whole point of the language at

WP:INDY (a high-quality supplement that is practically cited as a guideline) is clear on why we need to rely on good independent/third-party sources, as well as the nuances of that language. KoA (talk) 02:36, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

As an afterthought, let's play devil's advocate for a bit though and assume that the text clarification at BLP actually was altering policy on the page. In that case, reverting the change would be violating established policy at both

WP:V on SPS's in BLPs. If two different policies disagree with you about including the third-party/independent language, that's a major issue in trying to claim any sort of consensus, much less the extremely high bar of proof needed of actual issues two change two other policies that's lacking here. KoA (talk) 02:53, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

• Option C/D. I would remove this wording: "unless written or published by the subject of the article". It is very common that someone publish highly promotional materials about himself; some of that can be even a misleading information. Let's say the current place of work can be incorrect, etc. One needs strong 3rd party RS for BLP. That is the idea. While using self-published views by an expert on the subject of their expertise can be OK in many cases, I do not think that using self-published self-promotional materials is OK. My very best wishes (talk) 23:41, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option C/D. I think that the BLP wording may be a little clearer, especially for people who aren't sure how to go about Wikipedia:Identifying and using self-published works. However, I think that BLP's "unless written or published by the subject of the article" wording is overly restrictive. Imagine an article about a crime, e.g., Theft of Alice's sandwich from the office refrigerator. We would normally include a statement from any accused, e.g., "Bob denied stealing Alice's lunch", even if that denial is cited only to a social media post. The current BLP language technically says that you cannot use a self-published denial from Bob, about Bob, because "the subject of the article" is an event, not a person. That does not align with actual practice. The language should be changed to something like "unless written or published by the subject of the material". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:48, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Option C/D: I take Newimpartial's view here, more or less; absent that, I'm sympathetic to WAID's. It's fairly absurd that we can't cite memorials on a university blog, to give one of the former's examples. (It's a lot worse a BLP violation to list a dead person as living for years, at the top of their search results, in the most prominent forum about their life, than to cite the SPS of someone who knew them well and can confirm their passing.) Vaticidalprophet 19:35, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can you give examples of BLP subjects who are notable, who died, and for whom we had no sources about their death except an SPS source? I didn't realize this was something that happened. Levivich 19:36, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • "As far as we can tell someone is dead, but the RSes are absent" happens often enough to have come up barely a month ago, with reference to other cases as well. Both referenced cases there are just ones involving Wikipedians and their friends, so unusually likely to make it to high-profile backstage areas. It's a perennially tricky subject that tends to get wrapped up in both SPS issues and BLPPRIMARY issues. Vaticidalprophet 19:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks. Does this just happen with the death of BLP subjects or does it happen with other key facts, too? I'm wondering what kind of "D" language would cover this issue. Levivich 20:09, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One caveat with university "blogs" is that they often aren't actually blogs in the traditional sense. The third sentence of

WP:BLPSPS covers this in the context of news orgs using blog in a slightly different sense (for better or worse), and the same model applies to many universities even if it's lesser known. It would really depend if it's a personal blog vs. the university owned one that would generally have oversight. KoA (talk) 01:05, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

University "blogs" might not be blogs in the traditional sense, but they are not the same as blogs by a news org. A university blog might be best classified as a press release. You can {{

cite blog

}}, but you can cite them only for information about living people who could be considered "themselves". For organizations (everything from the most storied of academic organizations down to the scummiest of snake-oil sellers, and encompassing every kind of for-profit and non-profit organization in between), we normally interpret "themselves" as including anyone who works for them. Thus you can cite a self-published, self-interested source that says "Big University is delighted to announce that Prof. I.M. Portant has discovered that water is wet" about the living person, I.M. Portant, but you cannot cite such a source about people not belonging to the organization (e.g., "thus proving once and for all that his rival, Author Itative of Little University, is all wet").

Back to the example here, one could cite an official university source (whether that's a blog managed by the publicity department or a press release, but perhaps not a social media post by a fellow colleague) to report the death. I wouldn't recommend using such a source for glowing information.

If you are interested in this subject, then do please read Obituary and make a mental note about the difference between "a news article" and "a paid advertisement". Everything at, e.g., Legacy.com and its competitor falls into the second category. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is probably going on a tangent at this point for this RfC, not I'm not referring to university press release style blogs, but actual news (typically science news or educational material) they put out. Usually that's through extension.[5] Often times they'll also mention retirements, deaths, etc. of researchers at the university, though that can vary. That's a very different setup than say a researcher's personal lab blog that really is often more of a personal blog. KoA (talk) 04:30, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is still information written by the university and that the university makes available to the public. It is still self-published by the university. Fortunately, we interpret instances of an employer writing about the employer's own employees (e.g., a university self-publishing a message about an employee's retirement or death) as an instance of ABOUTSELF. Those sources are just plain old self-published blogs and are acceptable sources for any BLPs who are part of the organization that is writing and publishing the material about themselves.

A

WP:NEWSBLOG is not a blog that contains news. A NEWSBLOG is a publication by a normal news media organization that happens to use a blog format (or at least that they prefer to market as a type of blog). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Yes, the type of university news blog posts I am describing are what you just described for news organizations. Still mostly a tangent for this specific topic though, so maybe something best discussed on talk elsewhere if it interests you. KoA (talk) 23:04, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• B followed by A and D. Insisting on C across all other policies instead of changing the single line at BLP is just
  WP:NOTBUREAU
  as others have mentioned, and weakens or ignores BLP policy itself. I didn't consider it a big deal, but still helpful, when I made that edit at BLP originally, and opposition to it (C), seems to be glossing over our inter-related policies and missing key details. Tl;dr at the bottom for skimmers.

Here's what is added to the BLP page (italics) + the IS wikilink when it matches the language at all other policy pages that say what we do with SPS sources at BLPs: Never use

third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer, unless written or published by the subject of the article.[6]

Tl;dr for B.

1. Multiple policies use stronger language than BLP (including core content policies that have higher standing), and the single line in part of BLP is largely the lone wolf of policies commenting on BLP SPS's.
2. It's longstanding approved policy language that only adds clarification to BLP and shouldn't be controversial.
3. Third-party/independent only strengthens why SPS use is restricted.
4. If someone disagrees with B's language (though I'm open to things like D), that means they're disagreeing with what practically every other policy on BLP SPS's have to say and is an extremely high bar to overcome.
5. BLP policy itself actually does allow SPS citation in very limited instances when secondary sources are involved, so technically current BLP language isn't technically correct in that one line. B fixes that while adding stronger language.
6. B has already been policy for years and hasn't caused the widespread SPS use some C !votes are claiming since it doesn't change what we functionally already do.
7. This RfC's formation really isn't suited for tackling what lead to this or focused enough to manage widespread D options. KoA (talk) 00:58, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• B, largely per KoA. I will note that I believe that this RFC is proper and doesn't need to be withdrawn. BilledMammal (talk) 01:07, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• No change required because both sentences already say the same thing. Never use self-published sources as
  third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer. [i.e. independently written ['third-party'] SPS are not acceptable sources for BLPs] vs. Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article. [i.e. SPS are not acceptable sources for BLPs, unless they are written by the subject of the BLP themself (and, one would hope, to avoid issues with WP:PRIMARY, also mentioned in an independent secondary source as well) - i.e. if they are not "independently written"]. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:24, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

RFC

Wikipedia:Role of Jimmy Wales has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Colonestarrice (talk) 13:15, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Look at my recent contribution and see how I edited an archived lock request, because the super editor who fulfilled it didn't comment, and another one came and saw it was protected and asked to archive my request. It bothers me, because, if you do document things, and have this very nifty bureaucracy with all these rules... why bother with them if you only do it properly 50% of the time?. In the end it doesn't really matter, to me at least, but if you bother, and have archive of requests dating back 10 years... The least you can do is maintain it properly. And, if it's not obvious, I ask for it to be protected after it was vandalized 79 times since Norm's death! So my "little" contribution of asking for it to be protected, is kind of a big deal, to me at least. I feel I earned feeling good about this contribution. But then comes some random editor and robs of me of this little triumph, and of course this awesome icon . I suggest, you decide that the person who does the lock needs to comment. If he doesn't the least that needs to be done is for the one who archives it, to detail the protection type and period. What do you say? Am I right or I'm just being a jackass? I know that if it was my organization, I'd be very upset about the inconsistent documentation — Preceding unsigned comment added by Benderbr (talk • contribs) 20:48, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

lol sorry forgot to sign as usual Benderbr (talk) 20:49, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You asked for a page to be protected and it has been protected. What's the problem? Nobody should care who was the first person to spot that it needed protection, and I would suggest that anyone who does care about such things does not have the right temperament for editing Wikipedia.

Phil Bridger (talk) 20:57, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

WP is a crowd-sourced, decentralized, half-regimented and half-chaotic mess that has somehow created the best encyclopedia in the world. Expecting every single i to be dotted and t to be crossed to your liking is going to lead to nothing but frustration and heartache. I understand your point. I understand TBF's point. At the end of the day, you have to let go of little stuff like this. How much time have you spent now, worrying about something that no one, literally, will ever, ever look at again. How much of TBF's time? I had an example of me getting annoyed at something similar in my early days here, but it got eaten when I clicked the wrong button and I don't have the heart to retype it. So you'll have to trust me that I really do understand, but I also really do think you need to let stuff like this go. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:14, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Just for the record, I'm perfectly fine with adding the awesome green plus icon to the archive. Some like barnstars, some like green plus icons, some like a high edit count, some like cookies. Receiving something logged/persistent for a volunteer contribution isn't a completely crazy desire. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:23, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry I used my personal history with TBF as the example. In my mind, it was easier than explaining. I don't really care about it, it's just that coming to ask for the lock, I couldn't submit my request at first, as It didn't follow the format, was too long, IDK? So I figured this is a very bureaucratic place. But then it's more like "Whatever goes", which is fine yeah? I was just under the (what appears to be, false) impression that you really dig all this formality and rules. I'm really asking, how things are? Is how things are (which I actually don't really mind as a user) is how it's supposed to be, or at least the power users vision? Is there any chance for automation of the process, so TBF doesn't waste his time with weirdos like me? Just so it's clear, I really don't care, it's just confusing. Are all edits meaningfull, or this green icon is like a gold star sticker for a small child? I think you might just stop with describing what was done altogether, as the lock icon on the article has the lock period on the tooltip. TL;DR - I think documentation should be 100% or 0%. Maybe it doesn't actually matter that every lock request is archived? IDK. I'm just asking questions. And I do want to publicly apologize to TBF, I did came off agressive and weird, I was trying to be funny and it's obviously didn't work. I appreciate all of you power users who help keep this place in one piece. It's a great wiki and I didn't mean to offend anyone or suggest I was wronged or anyone did anything wrong. I'm just asking - does it matter? maybe this interaction can lead to policy changes of what needs to be done, what's important (like you said, no one will look at the archives, right?). Anyhow I have nothing to add but I wanted to clarify, it's not about my personal thing, I tried to ask "in general" but everyone here took it as if I'm dissing TBF great work, which is not at all what I meant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Benderbr (talk • contribs) 22:46, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There are really no worries from my side. And as I pushed relatively strongly in favor of the creation of

WP:RFPP/A, I obviously share the desire for proper documentation. I just thought that had happened. As there has been a disagreement about whether it happened, I have also already fixed it in a way that seems to address the concerns. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:28, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

I'm not going to read the screed above, it would be a waste of time (our most previous resource). You asked for the page to be protected, quite rightly, and it was protected - the job that needed doing was done. Worrying about exactly how the archives should look is beurocracy for its own sake. Girth Summit _(blether) 23:29, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It does contain an apology, though, Girth Summit. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:33, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hmph. Maybe I should have read it. Really though - this is a lot of words, about very little. Colour me grumpy. Girth Summit _(blether) 00:06, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nah totally my fault. It's multifaceted question, and I tend to write long scrolls. If anything, this is critical of you (oops). Think of it like code, you need to save the proper comments. It's not about this anecdotal example, I was trying to exaggerate it to show how it might rub off wrong on some editors. I'm very thankful for the great work all of you are doing, and I try to bring to your attention, that I think it can be done automatically, and you mods being virtual janitors is kinda weird to me. Maybe posting this in policy discussion wasn't the right place, and me not trying to condense it and simplify it... well I just can't I guess? See I can't help it. Maybe the contributors are happy with the repeating administrative actions? To me it seems like a waste of your time. If you don't agree, I totally understand. I'm just a tiny editor, fix here fix there. TL;DR - I'm just trying to be helpful, I'm not good at draftsmanship. I do apologize deeply for any grievances, didn't intend for it, all of you keep with the awesome work. --Benderbr (talk) 14:03, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article § Adjusting the TFA re-running period. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:33, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following lists: Society, sports, and culture Wikipedia policies and guidelines When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Abolish the current version of

• Support as proposer. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:13, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  N.B. This is without prejudice to rewriting it from scratch RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:22, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Update. I agree that the current text is very woolly, but it is better to stipulate for sports, very much like academics is tough and specific. Sports need a proper and rigorous guideline.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:42, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Davidstewartharvey: The problem is that even updating the guidelines takes unreasonable effort and time (see, for example, this massive RfC which dealt just with Olympics). While more rigourous guidelines might be desirable and even necessary (although, in the end, GNG is a reasonable fall back), I think NSPORTS is currently so disappointing that it might be better to kick the whole rotten structure down and start with a blank slate. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• The time saved is, by definition, on-wiki activity that is absent: it guides many quiet article creators in not creating articles for the large numbers of sports people who are less likely to meet English Wikipedia's standards for having an article. When a subject-specific criterion is written with a high level of accuracy regarding the ability for the subject to meet Wikipedia's standards, it also helps filter deletion discussions to those that are closest to the border line. For this to work in practice, though, the criteria must be refined as needed, and the underlying consensus that supported the establishsment of the criteria must be taken into account during deletion discussions, rather than each one trying to establish that consensus again from scratch. In particular, each deletion discussion shouldn't have to re-establish the consensus view that the entire set of subject-specific criteria has support, including any deference to the general notability guideline. isaacl (talk) 16:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Conversely, the time "not saved" is also that of seemingly experienced editors ([well known editor with over 90k created articles] as the prime example, but surely not the only one) creating hundreds and even thousands of articles on people who meet subject-specific criteria which are actually too generous (which often happen to be the ones from the most popular sports...). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:51, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Consider what would happen if there were no additional guidance: articles on sports figures playing/coaching in local leagues with local game coverage would get created on top of the ones that are being created now, exacerbating the issue of screening all of them. isaacl (talk) 16:58, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Local coverage (which frequently is not truly independent either) is already not usually considered enough for most topics (

  Wikipedia:LOCALCOVERAGE redirects to NCORP, but in practice local newspapers are usually not enough, whether it be for corporations or sports figures). If absolutely needed, it would in any case be far easier to start anew and simply have a sentence like Routine coverage of local league games in local newspapers is not a reliable indicator of notability. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:16, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  Yes, as you know, I've discussed many times how local promotional coverage is not suitable for determining if a subject should have an article. But regarding your point about time spent discussing whether or not an article would be deleted, even more time would get spent if the sports-specific notability criteria for certain popular sports were eliminated. isaacl (talk) 21:21, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I disagree with the premise that local coverage "frequently is not truly independent" -- such a statement is broad, unsupported, and potentially biased.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:28, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It does not make sense to say that deletion would loosen the criteria. WP:Notability says that if it meets GNG, it does not need to meet the SNG. So the SNG is only capable of bypassing GNG, not toughening it. North8000 (talk) 18:59, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, I didn't say that the criteria would become loosened. The point is that more articles that are candidates for deletion would get created, thus more time would need to be spent on them. isaacl (talk) 21:21, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Update I agree with Davidstewartharvey's point above. I see deleting the guideline wholesale will do much more short-term harm than good, so I'd rather even a short 3-4 paragraph replacement be added and then the community can build on that. A good, well-written list of concerns with the current version that can gain consensus and then be added to that talk page could help prevent it becoming the mess it is now, as well. Additionally, I know most of these sports have WikiProjects, so I wonder if some of the information on the page is better suited to be placed within the WikiProjects.
  Please ping me! 16:59, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  If an updated version is to be rewritten and deletion opposed, where should this happen? Would a subpage of the talk page of NSPORTS be the proper location to draft the new guideline in? I'd be interested in helping improve the guideline once I'm more free in February.

  Please ping me! 08:16, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

• Comment - I definitely think we have a problem with our coverage of sports and especially individual athletes. The SNGs, though, aren't really rules so much as peace treaties that exist between the forces that want certain content deleted and the same content kept and the attempt to simply abolish SNGs is (i) likely not to work, (ii) if successful increases IAR voting at AfD, creative interpretation of guidelines, and general resistance to follow policy, and (iii) lowering of trust between the sides. — Charles Stewart (talk) 17:06, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, but significantly rewrite - There remains a need for a guideline… but the current version isn’t it. Blueboar (talk) 17:18, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose All notability criteria work both ways, as isaacl explains above. Articles that fail the criteria are quickly deleted, yet the deletionists ignore these in their efforts to get rid of the SNGs they don't like because they like the current result for those articles. The reason there are a ton of sports articles on Wikipedia is because sports are one of the most popular things on the planet, and sports generates a ton of coverage (primarily at the top tier of sports). Also, the point about bias is just plain wrong, having objective criteria reduces bias. If GNG was the only thing we looked at, the only articles that would get written are those covered in English language sources, which would disproportionally be about primarily white, male, European/North American, modern and wealthy sports. Iffy★Chat -- 17:26, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Plain wrong. The number of white, male, European sportspersons which are included because of overly loose SNGs is far larger than the amount of non-white non-male sportspersons which are also included because of it. And the fact is, there are far more non-GNG meeting examples of the former (the countless early 20th-century footballers) than of the latter (not that both kinds shouldn't be deleted, since this is an encyclopedia and not a database], and as it stands the former are far less likely to actually be deleted because, guess what, they "meet N[SPORT] and there are likely offline sources". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:08, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I think you're underestimating how much football and cricket is played in non-European countries when considering how many athletes are filtered out by rules of thumb. isaacl (talk) 21:43, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose The "needless conflict" is often
  WP:DGFA)—Bagumba (talk) 17:50, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • That's an (interestingly partial) schema for the "meets NSPORT, doesn't need to meet GNG, keep" line of argument. Another (some would say more natural, given an express proviso of NSPORT I imagine you're familiar with) reading is "doesn't meet GNG, delete". If you want less wikilawyering, have clearer rules. As it stands, we might as well remove the guideline, and just have "IAR, keep", "IAR, delete", and "I counted the !votes, and we decided to delete/keep accordingly". 109.255.211.6 (talk) 03:15, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    If you want less wikilawyering, have clearer rules. It goes without saying.—Bagumba (talk) 03:52, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    This is a serious misconception. Attempting to make rules more specific will (without exception) lead to more arguments. Theknightwho (talk) 03:29, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    As it stands, we might as well remove the guideline, and just have "IAR, keep", "IAR, delete" Without getting into

    WP:SNG clearly allow citing SNGs to establish notability.—Bagumba (talk) 03:52, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

    ]

  • Of course NSPORTS also says In addition, the subjects of standalone articles should meet the General Notability Guideline. and A person is presumed to be notable if they have been the subject of multiple published non-trivial secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject., so we wouldn't be here if editors actually respected that part and ensured that articles they wrote or voted on actually had substantive coverage. Reywas92^Talk 05:21, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    It reads (emphasis added) ...articles should should meet the General Notability Guideline. Those that want it tightened should get consensus to change to "shouldmust meet the General Notability Guideline." As an aside, I generally cite ~3 sources of significant coverage when creating bios.—Bagumba (talk) 03:52, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support NSPORTS has been used as an excuse to create vast number of articles for non-notable sports people. The excuse given is that the person "passes" NSPORTS, even though the article created does not show notability. OK, the article can go to AfD but the effort required to delete an article is vastly more than that needed to create it. In the time taken to delete one article though AfD, Countless 100s of new non-notable articles have been created. If the article does go to AfD there's often "votes" along the lines of "KEEP Passes NSPORTS" (substitute the sport of your choice here), as if satisfying NSPORTS was relevant at this stage, when the purpose of the AfD is to determine whether it passes
  WP:NOLY is the one notable exception), with members of the relevant WikiProject almost always opposing along the lines of "we're happy as it is, leave it alone." Many here will say that it just need a bit of fine tuning. I'm afraid that's a million miles from the truth. The only sensible way forward is to delete NSPORTS completely. Nigej (talk) 18:11, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  I suspect the community's frustration is with a few specific sports, who blindly assume that because sport X gets sufficient coverage in one English-speaking country, it must get the same amount of coverage for any countries' top league. Because there's Google hits (from a site most here aren't fluent in and wouldn't know if it's reliable either) Many other sport criteria are more restrictive and true to the 95-99% "truly notable" rate that SNGs should strive for.—Bagumba (talk) 18:40, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I suspect a lot of the problem is that everyone suspects the problem is some other sport than their own area of editing! 109.255.211.6 (talk) 03:15, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support deletion (but allow more thoughtful re-creation from scratch.) This SNG has become the bane of the entire wp:notability universe. An example of a serious problem is the "did it for a living for one day" criteria; meeting that criteria allows an article to bypass all notability sourcing criteria. Since that criteria applied elsewhere would mean billions of Wikipedia articles bypassing wp:GNG, it makes a laughingstock of the more credible wp:notability requirements. And, per a study I did, these have numerically flooded Wikipedia even to the point of significantly affecting the low percentage of articles on females vs. males. And then the individual items given notability (only) by the SNG ripples through into endless articles that are compendiums of them, ones like "players who scored more than 20 points in the 2013 season playoffs" The "did it for a living for one day" criteria alone is embedded in many many places in the SNG, and add in the other significant problems embedded in may places that it would take at least dozens of changes in the SNG to fix it, which is never going to happen, and doubly so by the sports fans who run the sports SNG. So the only way to fix it is delete it, but allow it to more thoughtfully start over. Each addition should meet the "is it good to bypass WP:GNG and sourcing requirements with this?" test. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:45, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I did my own study about a year ago: User:Nigej/sandbox. I compared the number of articles were have for different sports with this list: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5, which has no status but is a carefully thought out list of 50,000 vital articles. In that "50,000" list there are 1,200 sports people out of 15,000 people (8%, although it was only 7% when I produced these numbers). In contrast over 30% of all biographical articles are sports people and its not far off 50% for living people. Some sports are even more stark than this. There are 110 Association football players in the "50,000" list, 0.7% of the 15,000 biographies in that list. However they make up nearly 10% of all Wikipedia biographies and 15% of those for living people. 0.7% or 15%, quite a difference. Nigej (talk) 19:30, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  My study was on 1,000 random articles. 31% of all biographies in the entire Wikipedia were sports people, and 86% of all sports bios were on males. North8000 (talk) 19:58, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Remarkably my numbers 580000/1870000 work out at 31.01% Nigej (talk) 20:06, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  This is a meaningless comparison, as the number of biographies from Level 1 to Level 5 increases from 0% to 30% (and sport-specific from 0% to 8%), and we should also expect the reasonable percentage of sport-specific biographies to differ from Level 5 to Wikipedia's entire scope. This is because some fields will be more suited than others to large numbers of bios on the lower end of notability (while still comfortably over the line). — Bilorv (talk) 21:52, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose but only because ... this should be "Delete all SNGs". You can't deprecate one and not others, especially as there are far worse ones than NSPORTS. Black Kite (talk) 18:51, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nearly all other SNGs have criteria based on merit or recognition by the topic, whuch are things that one can presume discussion about that merit or recognition (eg secondary sourcing). Most of NSPORTs criteria are less about merit and more simply defining by stats, which do not necessarily show evidence of possible secondary sources. That leaves us which articles that are simple career profiles but do not explain why the athlete is notable. --Masem (t) 18:58, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Merit" is not how I would describe SNGs/GNG/notability. It's not about success, but coverage of any form. For instance, in
      WP:NFO#1, we see that two major reviews is a good standard for a widely released film being notable—whether those are raves or tear the film to shreds. (See Notability is not a meritocracy.) In contrast, I would say that NSPORTS is almost uniquely about merit, as it requires successful performance at lower leagues to be recruited to a team where one game played will grant you a pass on an NSPORTS criterion. — Bilorv (talk) 21:52, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
      ]
  • Perhaps you could view doing it to the most problematic SNG as a step towards that. For the others the issue is less serious and would require a bigger fix. Which would be to evolve wp:notability the to point where SNG's are no longer needed. North8000 (talk) 19:06, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't see the evidence for such a nuclear option, so would appreciate more clarification on why SNGs are inherently problematic. Hope this doesn't sound passive-aggressive

  Please ping me! 19:11, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  @

  A. C. Santacruz: I wouldn't use as strong of a word as "problematic" for the others. More like "it would solve and tidy up a lot of smaller issues". Happy to expound but that is a huge topic not directly relevant here.North8000 (talk) 19:41, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  Please ping me! 19:49, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  Well, take

  WP:BAND. Black Kite (talk) 23:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  • The fact that nearly 50% of all biographies of living people are sports competitors convinces me that the problem is with NSPORTS and not with the other SNGs. Nigej (talk) 19:46, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I don't particularly like NSPORTS, especially the guidelines where a single game in a certain league is viewed as evidence of notability, while a whole career in another league is dismissed. It fails both when used to include people and to exclude people. Generally, I'd like us to develop better ways of merging / listifying the information we have about athletes: we could still keep most of the information, but only write individual articles when there is something to write about. Just dropping NSPORTS now would probably result in a bit of chaos. —Kusma (talk) 19:16, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Supporting per some people below and experience with deprecating other SNGs, but I still suggest to attempt some mergist way forward to combine database-sourced entries in a useful way. —Kusma (talk) 09:54, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - I don't believe that the SNGs quietly guide article creators to help them make articles about notable subjects and avoid making topics about non-notable subjects. If that were true, we wouldn't have so many non-notable articles. In fact, I think it does the opposite: it gives license to mass-article-creators to create thousands of articles about non-notable subjects simply because those subjects meet an SNG.
  I also really disagree with BK's stance above, that we should not delete NSPORTS unless we also delete all the other SNGs. People said we can't delete
  WP:GNG. Some make the argument that SNGs restrict article creation because more athletes would be notable under GNG than under NSPORTS, due to the ubiquity of media coverage of modern athletes. I don't believe this is true, based on my deep dive into footballer BLPs in 2019. As long as the GNG requirements of independence, secondary, and in-depth, are properly followed, there are far more footballers that meet NSPORTS than GNG.

  Overall, I think removing the NSPORTS SNG will require all sports topics to meet GNG, and that will lead to more notable articles and fewer non-notable articles, which is a good thing. I don't think it'll cause too much chaos, I think it'll be much like what happened with porn bios after the deprecation of PORNBIO, which is that a lot of them were deleted, and that's a good thing.

  As a compromise measure, I would also support taking the lesser step of deleting the "Professional sports people" and "Amateur sports persons" sections of NSPORTS, as I think biographies are the biggest problem of NSPORTS. Levivich 19:28, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Comment (EC). Rather than abolish it wholesale, I think it would be easier to formally redefine it as 1) a collection of rules-of-thumb to guide which subjects might be worthwhile for an article creator to look into creating and which ones are probably not worth their time; 2) a reference for the kind of sourcing considered "routine" and "not-SIGCOV" in sports; and 3) an easy shortcut for editors to find sports projects. This would involve very clearly mandating GNG coverage from the start for all new articles, and eliminating all instances of "presumed notable" etc. from the guideline text. It would probably also require an explicit note in WP:N clarifying its status (while still keeping a link to it). We would also want to discourage immediately nominating lots of previously-created non-borderline cases from historical periods or non-English locations and instead encourage individual sports wikiprojects to adopt the most vulnerable subjects and find refs on them. JoelleJay (talk) 19:46, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • As astutely, if perversely, argued by one editor (while ironically scolding unspecified others for bureaucratic wikilawyering!), at present by a strict reading of policy, one is entitled to say "Keep/delete per WP:GUIDELINEILIKE, ignore WP:GUIDELINEIDISLIKE, it's only a guideline", expect the closing admin to count your '!'vote, cut up rough at DRV if it isn't, and so on. Even without the need for recourse to IAR as such. Even deleting the 'rogue' (or commonly misapplied or cherrypicked) guideline doesn't formally fix that. What would do was to elevate WP:N, or some core part of it, to policy status. However, keeping WP:N as a guideline, and making NSPORT an essay or more clearly subsidiary guideline would likely have a broadly similar effect, such wrangling aside. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 01:49, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per Bagumba but not per Black Kite. The criteria, as others have pointed out, is poorly worded.
  to be blown up and recreated from scratch, but I'm not entirely convinced that there's no utility in having a sports-specific criteria. I guess I wouldn't mind too much if it was deleted without prejudice under the assumption that a better criteria will be developed, but I'm opposed to deleting with prejudice or opening the door to abolishing SNGs.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 19:58, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  I wouldn`t be opposed to starting over from scratch. However, in its current form, that`s about the best fate that could be envisaged for it. Abolishing the current version of NSPORTS would not prevent starting a new one in the future, but doing this one step at a time is more likely to achieve a clearer consensus and to allow more thorough discussion on each individual point. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:15, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose outright removal. A lot of the OP's arguments are against subject-specific notability guidelines in general, rather than this particular one. The major problem with NSPORTS is that many of the criteria are extremely broad. Particular offenders are the sports where you just have to play for any length of time in any high-level match e.g. cricket or (association) football. This can be addressed by tightening the criteria to ensure that passing NSPORTS is more likely to correspond to a GNG pass. Hut 8.5 20:22, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @

  nuclear option. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:27, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  My study (User:Nigej/sandbox see comments above) shows (to me, at least) that the worst "offenders" are (for the major sports) association football, American football and rugby football and (for minor sports) Australian rules football. Nigej (talk) 20:54, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose While usually I like dynamite, there are salvageable parts including Olympic. Fully support a radical rewrite of the "professional sports" section as the concept that sitting on the bench for one game makes someone notable is insane. We should be covering the best of the best and most athletes do not merit an article when compared against their peers. Compare to
  WP:NCORP
  where existence and routine coverage will get you nowhere.20:33, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

  For better or worse, "best of the best" is not a standard used in any of the other fields covered in English Wikipedia. It's a perfectly fine goal, if the community agrees upon it, but I suspect it's not a standard that the community is willing to apply across the board. I do not believe it should be applied in just one topic area. isaacl (talk) 21:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Except that the "best of the best" athletes are far more likely to be notable than, say, the "best of the best" potato farmers or bank tellers. That's why we don't have WP:NPOTATOFARMER or WP:BANKTELLER. Keep in mind virtually any athlete competing at the highest level is the "best of the best" just by virtue of getting there, and on the extremely rare occasion they're not, such as David Ayres, they would generally meet GNG from that oddity alone. Smartyllama (talk) 14:44, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  When most people hear "best of the best", they aren't thinking of every NHL hockey player, for example, but Wayne Gretzky. (This is alluded to in the original comment by saying that "most athletes do not merit an article when compared against their peers.") Every field has those who have been most influential on that field, or on society generally. isaacl (talk) 16:46, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I'm in a very similar position to
  WP:N says meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline. I've never understood the rationale behind that. Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:07, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  Re: “presumption of notability”… I have long thought that this phrasing should be changed to “a likelihood of notability”. The idea behind the “presumption” is that usually sources will exist to demonstrate notability… if you look hard enough. The problem is that it is not a guarantee. Sometimes, those sources don’t exist. “Likelihood” better takes the both “usually” and “but sometimes not” into account. Blueboar (talk) 21:50, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Personally, I think it would be better if, right from the start, all articles contained adequate sources to demonstrate that the general notability guideline is met. As far as I can tell, though, creating stub articles still has community support. (Some of that support is from editors trying to address systemic bias that has created shortages in Wikipedia coverage.) isaacl (talk) 21:51, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose - Jesus H. Christ, OP really has got a bee in their bonnet about this AfD decision not going their way haven't they?! A sport-by-sport re-write is sensible, with input from the relevant WikiProjects, of course. Complete removal of this SNG (and none of the others) is ridiculous. GiantSnowman 22:06, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and there will be far more 'pointless AFDs' and arguments if the SNG was scrapped, as people will continue to create articles on topics! GiantSnowman 22:08, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If other SNGs are also problematic, then what is ridiculous is using that as an excuse to keep the most problematic of all of them. Gotta start somewhere. Your other arguments have already been rebutted. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:14, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying they are problematic, that's the point. Why are you focussing on NSPORTS? GiantSnowman 22:22, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing before I log off for the next 18+ hours - abolishing SNGs, in particular NSPORTS, will result in fewer articles about non-"white, male, European" people, not more. For example, under current NFOOTBALL guidelines I can create an article easily about international players from any country in Africa or Asia. With only GNG, due to language/sourcing issues, that would become so much more difficult. GiantSnowman 22:26, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

By creating tens or hundreds of thousands of effectively unsourced stubs, are we really addressing the issue of disparity in coverage, or are we just hiding the issue? BilledMammal (talk) 22:38, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As if a database-sourced microstub on an African woman football player that no one ever expands is anything more than an unintentional byproduct of personal mass-creation campaigns. Proudly gesturing at 45 seconds of work--that only happened because someone wanted to complete the rosters of all 2014 National League teams beginning with C, or whatever--as if it's some empowering gift to underserved minorities who would never receive Wikipedia's attention without the help of NSPORT is insulting and harmful. It is not a good thing for Wikipedia's coverage of Africa to be dominated by thoughtless permastubs of modern athletes, particularly when they're drowned out by all the modern white male athlete bios produced at the same time. Maybe eliminating the ability of stats-driven editors to autocreate dozens of entries per hour would encourage them to instead expand existing articles (yeah right), or maybe it would mean profiles of particular athletes would only be created by people who specifically wanted to make them and would put effort into the process. JoelleJay (talk) 00:17, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The point you've failed to address is how can it be that other SNGs are problematic too, when NSPORTS covers pretty much 50% of all biographies of living people. Clearly there can't be any other SNG with anything like 50%. Nigej (talk) 14:04, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related page discussions. GiantSnowman 22:08, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Notifying all the various sport related projects doesn't seem like the best idea, for various reasons that I am sure will be discussed extensively if such notifications are issued. Best to list it at CENT and leave it at that. BilledMammal (talk) 22:24, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• It is standard for WP:FOOTBALL, we keep a list of all relevant discussions at
  WP:FOOTYDEL - and how many 'on the ground' editors actually read CENT? I certainly don't. The more people know about this RfC the better. GiantSnowman 22:28, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• The more the better, yes, but the trouble is that the "more" is not necessarily nonpartisan if we engage in these notifications. BilledMammal (talk) 22:31, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Notified:

centralized discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 23:03, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

I will note that I agree that some sections are functional, but these are a minority, and the effort to reimplement them will be far less than the effort to remove or correct from the status quo the sections that are not, and so to avoid tens of thousands of editor hours being wasted

WP:TNT needs to applied. BilledMammal (talk) 22:21, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

• Oppose. Too radical. Erasing years of codified notability consensus in the blink of an eye doesn't seem appropriate.
  WP:TRAINWRECK normally applies to deletion discussions, but I think the spirit of it may also apply here: that issues with this particular SNG guideline should be addressed one issue at a time or one sport at a time rather than in a bundled nomination. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:08, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Strategic support as a radical corrective to overly lenient sports notability guidelines. I might reevaluate my position if this seemed on track to pass with no available replacement and mass-deletions of probably-notable-but-unsourced biographies queued up ready to go. But we're not at that point, nor is it inevitable, so for now I'm happy to support this. I believe that the community should be applying pressure to tighten sports notability guidelines lest more radical action like this become necessary. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:36, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I would note that if this passes I would support delaying its implementation to give time for a replacement to be developed. BilledMammal (talk) 23:46, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Are there too many biographies of non-notable sportspeople? Very probably. Is this a fault of the NSPORTS or is it a fault of GNG? That may be more of the issue. In the big US sports, or other major professional sports like (association) football or cricket, the amount of press coverage is so intense that you could probably find GNG-passing mainstream non-routine coverage of pretty much any player, even if they've only played a couple of games in the higher leagues. It's an inevitable function of how mainstream sports news works. Black Kite (talk) 23:40, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It's a lot of one, and a bit of the other. NSPORT is largely to blame for permitting creation, and supporting retention, of any athlete bio as long as it has one source showing the subject meets a participation-based sport-specific guideline. The issue isn't so much the contemporary tippy-top pro leagues as it is the hundreds of lower-tier divisions with high turnover and low actual coverage whose players particular projects have decided meet their definition of SIGCOV. Now that more editors are mentioning the GNG>NSPORT relationship in AfDs and closers are openly giving less weight to "keep meets NFOOTY" !votes, some in the sports projects have pivoted to instead declaring almost anything published is "SIGCOV in secondary IRS" in order to keep their articles. If editors can't successfully challenge claims that 3-sentence refactored press releases contribute to GNG, then perhaps there is something that needs to be changed with that guideline as well. JoelleJay (talk) 05:11, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose it's a guideline to assist, not an absolute rule, and clearly states that people shoild pass GNG too. If you want to fix the problem, then deal with the places using it as an absolute rule, not by removing the generally decent guidance. For most of the sporrs, most of the people who attain that standard are notable, so having the guidance for this is useful. NSPORTS doesn't trump GNG, and so doesn't need to be exterminated to make people use GNG, because people should be using GNG anyway. Sledgehammer solution..... Joseph2302 (talk) 23:53, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Would you agree that there is enough confusion from editors reading only the bolded second sentence of NSPORT that perhaps the guideline could be made much more explicit about its relationship with GNG? What if we changed it to require two pieces of SIGCOV in secondary IRS from the start like almost every other subject? JoelleJay (talk) 05:16, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose but make fundamental changes Basically in agreeance with what Bagumba and JoelleJay said above. As pointed above the three with fundamental issues are
  WP:NBASEBALL causes issues as well). Instead of blowing up the entire system, it would be better to tighten these problem criteria as needed, as well as fix any issues with NSPORTS as a whole. The criteria is vague and this makes it very easy to litigate into eternity. This is quite reactionary to the deletion review, and while I agree that that DRV has become a shitshow, that doesn't mean we should shoot the hostage. Curbon7 (talk) 00:43, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • How is NGRIDIRON a "fundamental issue"? BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:59, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Having 2% of our biographies on people from a single sport that is played in just two countries suggests that there is a fundamental issue, though whether it is a
      WP:SYSTEMATICBIAS issue or a SNG issue could be debated - and I could see an argument that the issue is at the intersection of the two, but that is a discussion for elsewhere. BilledMammal (talk) 01:28, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
      ]
      • I don't find it an issue at all, considering that nearly every player passing it meets GNG; where it's played is irrelevant (and it's not just played in "two countries," as you say it is). BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:37, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        • I've looked into several of the stubs, and I'm not sure that nearly every player does. BilledMammal (talk) 02:35, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
          • • Can you show me some of those non-notable NGRIDIRON-passing "stubs" you're talking about? BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:02, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

              If you take a category such as Category:American football linebacker, pre-1930s birth stubs, which the exception of a few Pro-Bowlers, most just played a handful of games and got 0 non-routine coverage. --Ahecht (TALK
              PAGE) 17:15, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

          • The NGRIDIRON criterion only covers the leagues based in those two countries, and I think it's a fairly safe assumption that the vast majority of that 2% correspond to those (and one of them rather more than the other). It certainly strikes me as a little far-fetched to argue that the NSPORT problem lies with other, genuinely international sports (football, cricket). And that it's conversely completely fine to bootstrap some idea of the NFL's "inherent notability" on the basis of some highly limited participation, from some often sketchy sports-site coverage of them. "Played a few downs in one game of significance only in that it was actively in their team's interests to lose it, in a sport with unlimited substitution and the ability to field players employed on short-term contracts, verified by idle discussion of this fact in a couple of articles. Strong speedy keep." 109.255.211.6 (talk) 03:42, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment If kept (and I'm in two (or more) minds on that) I feel the idea of it being a "presumption" of notability badly needs to be fleshed out in a clearer and more procedural manner. Some editors clearly seem to feel that NSPORT and GNG should be "balanced" in such a way that the GNG can safely be ignored. (Notwithstanding that NSPORT explicitly invokes GNG in addition to the sport-participation part.) Or indeed that this a "notability floor", at least for their preferred sport, and that they should keep digging further below it. Conversely, some say: we presumed until we looked a little, now it has to meet GNG, simple as. So what is the intended relationship between the two? Presumption enough to keep it off speedy deletion? For some other time horizon? To shift what constitutes
  WP:SIGCOV to the benefit of such subjects? (We've a dozen trivial mentions and those flesh the article out to a couple of paragraphs, good enough.) Is the presumption open-ended: can't prove a negative (or are very unlikely to be able to), so the participation itself grants an indefinite stay. I don't have a strong view on which of these (or some other at least some slightly more explicit scheme) should prevail, but the clarity itself would be a boon. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 01:30, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Update conservatively Like other SNGs, it prevents countless AfDs on notable topics from deletionists caught up in
  WP:RECENCY while making plenty of AfD discussions straightforward. Sure, those routinely involved in sports AfDs have a right to be frustrated, but AfDs often come about precisely because their subject's notability is debate-worthy. There are articles for plenty of non-notable sportspeople, and there are certainly improvements to be made to NSPORTS to decrease that number. But like many lesser-known GNG-passing topics, sports stubs often require a local fanatic willing to dig into archives in order to generate quality articles. The inherently hidden and non-collaborative (and generally short-term) nature of draft space make SNGs a necessary tool to incubate pages until those local fanatics (or particularly determined editors) come along. Star Garnet (talk) 01:49, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

But why should this exemption exist only for athletes? Why do sport stubs get to bypass draft/user/projectspace and wait for a local fanatic to come along in mainspace? JoelleJay (talk) 05:28, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's hardly unique to sports. Entertainers, academics, politicians, locations, and creative works (so, the vast majority of articles) do as well. Star Garnet (talk) 08:46, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Those are decidedly different sorts of guideline, however. To take the AVPROF one, on the one hand it's an alternative to GNG, rather than an "in addition" presumption, and on the other, it's a lot tighter. So we don't get into this sort of "passes one but doesn't pass the other, so !vote keep/delete according to personal preconception" situation. At least, not in quite the same way. If NSPORT (or any of its component parts) were to spell out "this modifies GNG, and here's how" I think -- OK, anxiously hope! -- we wouldn't see quite such sharply divergent takes on how to apply it. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 09:03, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

While true to an extent, I was referring to their shared feature of setting base-level standards where GNG doesn't need to be demonstrated while the article is a stub. Sure, academics and locations have deeper non-GNG protections than the rest, but even AfDs there devolve quickly. "'Name on page for whom no biographical details are available' has been cited a few dozen times, so you can't prove they didn't have a significant impact." But I digress. Star Garnet (talk) 09:39, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Some of the subparts need rewriting, but abolition is simply an invitation to chaos. Cbl62 (talk) 01:52, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • What degree of entropy would you say the status quo exhibits? "Passes NSPORT but not GNG, so delete." "Doesn't pass GNG, but does NSPORT, so keep." 109.255.211.6 (talk) 02:02, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Sports-specific guidance should be calibrated to GNG, and if properly calibrated, that is the best solution IMO. But simply dumping the entirety of NSPORTS is the worst possible outcome. It strikes me more of a temper tantrum than a serious policy proposal. Cbl62 (talk) 02:19, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    • I intend to
      WP:AGF regarding the motivations of the proposal. And if you feel additional "proper calibration" is indicated -- and it seems you do, given you've argued for ignoring it in one area, in favour of more liberal inclusion, while implying it's too lax in others -- this seems like an excellent venue for airing such, as others have done, rather than just blanket opposition. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 02:27, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
      ]

      A blanket proposal to throw out the whole thing is not the right venue for fine-tuning. The right venue for such fine-tuning is Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports). In that venue, I did recently propose eliminating Arena Football League from NGRIDIRON (accepted) and raising the bar on NGRIDIRON to a minimum of two games (not accepted). That's the proper way to address any kinks in the system. Cbl62 (talk) 02:42, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose - I would be ok with getting rid of all SSGs but if we are going to zero in on sports then just make serious changes to the problem areas instead of eliminating the whole group. Each sport has different criteria, some of which pass muster and others which don’t in my opinion. Also, if admins are accepting “passes SNG but not GNG” as reasoning to keep articles, they aren’t doing their jobs. Fair to ask them to tighten up their oversight on AfDs Rikster2 (talk) 02:41, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose – I am in favor of making improvements, and strongly opposed to throwing everything out. Dmoore5556 (talk) 02:58, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose... Getting rid of the guidelines would create a free for all where thousands of minor league and semi-professional players see articles created and equally hundreds of thousands of professional players will be dumped into afd which will lead to all sorts of contentous debates with whatever people show up to those arguments. It is good to have straight forward guidelines so it can easily be pointed out if someone is notable or not. If you have specific arguments with certain of the guidelines then take it up there and debate it.. but this RFC is the wrong approach. Spanneraol (talk) 03:02, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - I never imagined that I would come to the defense of sportball etc. today, but SNGs serve a legitimate purpose. No prejudice to updating and editing through consensus, but I am vehemently against the abolition of this guideline. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 04:12, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose in the strongest possible terms. Misguided deletionism and the rationale of the trending of the articles is misinformed and also misguided. Removing this would only perpetuate the domination of athletes that are most frequently covered by wide sources. Etzedek24 ^{(I'll talk at ya) (Check my track record)} 04:30, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support NSPORTS and its progeny are fundamentally broken. Their practical effect is to make notable subjects which otherwise would not be. We cover far more sportspersons than an encyclopedia should. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 04:56, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Says who? You not liking sports is your personal opinion. We cover "sportspersons" because sports are popular and have large fan bases looking for information on even the most obscure player. Spanneraol (talk) 05:10, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We also have large fan bases for anime and Hindi soap operas who want detailed information on obscure characters etc. We have fandom wikis for those, and hundreds of statistical database sites for athletes that are helpfully linked to in lists of players/seasons/teams. There is no reason this material needs to appear as standalone pages in an encyclopedia. JoelleJay (talk) 05:23, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone can be interested in any arbitrary obscure topic, but that does not mean Wikipedia must have blanket inclusion for separate articles for all concepts or individuals in it. We have requirements for significant sources for a reason and sports should not be exempt from that. We are not a copy-paste of datebases like baseball-reference or whatnot, where such large fan bases are also welcome to find obscure statistics. Reywas92^Talk 05:27, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support The concept that sportspeople are automatically notable for playing a single game is such an astonishing mistake, and we need to be clearer that they need to meet the same standards as other people: with multiple significant sources. It is simply false that mere participation in a game or a few perhaps a hundred years ago or in some minor league results in notability or a presumption thereof. Of course the sports editors are already here to oppose this or to argue procedurally that we can't address the broad variety of sports at once, but when 40% of our biographies are footballers, there is something fundamentally broken. Reywas92^Talk 05:21, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • In practice, it amounts to an assertion that they're automatically notable for playing a tiny part of a single game, in certain sports with unlimited substitution. And a near-automatic presumption that non-playing players working for the same organisation are too, because they get the same sort of low-grade coverage as the one-game, one-play players do. "Hingle McCringleberry hired to the Smallville Supers practice squad, having been released from his contract to not play for the Metropolis Mayors either." "GNG, keep!" 109.255.211.6 (talk) 06:03, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose and start from scratch. As others have said, there is great value in providing clear guidance to editors about what is likely to be notable. Clear lines are a useful starting place, and the expectation for each SNG is that there are reliable, independent, and significant sources about the subject. Looking at the current version of
  WP:NSPORT there are internal inconsistencies across sports and many assumptions that are made that there are reliable, independent, and significant sources for all categories presumed notable. --Enos733 (talk) 05:49, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Support. If people want NSPORTS (and this applies to most other SNGs), it should solely exist as a way of tightening GNG, not as some very dubious indicators of perhaps meeting GNG which allows the creation of thousands upon thousands of articles which then have to be individually challenged and will still be defended tooth-and-nail by some people who misuse the unclear language of NSPORTS and its relation to the GNG. The whataboutism and predictions of impending doom if NSPORTS is abolished or some of its worst excesses curtailed are tiring. A sports SNG which indicated that for sportspeople, you need more than databases, competition reports, and local coverage to even think about creating an article, could be useful.
  Fram (talk) 08:45, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  It currently states that routine game coverage and coverage in databases with wide-sweeping, generic standards of inclusion are insufficient, and emphasizes that local coverage must be independent. isaacl (talk) 16:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, but these are both insufficient. Any database listing should be discounted (for notability discussions, not for referencing information), not just the "too broad" ones,as that only leads to more pointless discussions without providing actual indepth coverage. And all local coverage should be dismissed: your town newspaper writing about 14 year old John Smith winning the town 2km run for the second year in a row, with some background information about where he goes to school and that his father was a good local runner in his days - is no better than them writing about the local bakery which has reopened after renovation, and is now already twenty years old and the son starts working there as well. We shouldn't allow such sources for any topic (for notability).

  Fram (talk) 09:27, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  As I said elsewhere, I think articles should, from the start, include sources demonstrating that the general notability guideline has been met, so I don't have an issue with disregarding databases. For better or worse, though, it's not uncommon for editors to go through lists of people in a given field and create stubs for ones they feel meet English Wikipedia's standards for having an article. So I think this has to be addressed more broadly. Regarding local coverage, most coverage is local to somewhere. The key is to determine the promotional nature of the coverage (local papers, for example, cover things like local primary school kids and bakeries because that's what its audidence wants, not because of any long-term signficance). I've discussed this multiple times in the past so won't go into more details here. isaacl (talk) 21:52, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: I'm neutral on the proposal, because while I agree with the nom that NSPORTS is too inclusive, the real nuclear option is to blow up EVERY notability guideline and rely solely on the GNG. (Yeah, PROF as well.)

  As far as "tightening" NSPORTS goes, while I agree there's a lot of that which could be done, you can't get around the bright-line rule that underpins just about all of the NSPORTS criteria: that participating in a single big league/top-flight match constitutes presumptive notability, period, full stop. That's an objective criterion, and ANYthing that replaces it will be entirely subjective. Three matches? Five matches? Subjective. Does league play count for more (or less) than international play? Subjective. Five matches, that's a large percentage of an American football season, but a tiny fraction of a baseball season: subjective. Top-flight soccer in England vs top-flight archery in Bhutan? (Never mind top-flight soccer in Malawi or Sri Lanka.) Subjective. Because the whole reason NATHLETE devolved into separate criteria for individual sports is that one-size-fits-all doesn't, actually, fit sports. Ravenswing 09:07, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've a lot of sympathy for a lot of what you say here, but to inevitably quibble... Different numbers of matches aren't different in their (lack of) objectivity. Obviously there's a clarity about "some" versus "none". I agree that a number of games across the board would be very apples-and-oranges, but even as presently structured, while a whole lot of them use "one match", that's textually individual to each sport. So it'd be perfectly possible to say "3 gridiron games" but "7 English premiership" (which would even be vaguely proportionate, if we ignore the various still other differences). Incidentally three NFL games just happens to distinguish between people on an "active roster" contract and "flexed practice squad" ones, but that could change again at the drop of a hat, and is wildly overspecific here anyway. Obviously the fatal flaw in this is that each sport will inevitably want to bid "their" number down, and everyone else's up. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 09:31, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    In my experience there's plenty of association football players that play entire seasons but are only notable for having played the entire season (a statistic), so I'd imagine those are the kinds of stats-based articles that are created based on NSPORT more than GNG.

    Please ping me! 09:37, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

    ]

    But of course a change to 'default notability if they've played the equivalent of at least one season at x level, while playing less does not mean they can't meet GNG' would weed out the vast majority of iffy cases. That would necessarily require new, subjective standards for pitchers, goalies, etc., but I don't find that overly troublesome. I do like that that would avoid emphasizing recency too heavily. Rather than simply deleting the material for the less notable players, I'd suggest List of Watford F.C. players (1–49 appearances) etc. include sourced 3-5 sentence bios and minimalist team-specific statboxes for players that don't meet GNG or the redefined NSPORT. (But then for multi-team athletes, you'd need to forego standard redirects in favor of [List of team X players#Player|Player] and/or use a transclusion process.) Star Garnet (talk) 10:40, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree with IP user. I don't get the objective/subjective stuff. Surely NSPORTS got created because GNG is so terribly vague and a clearly defined set of rules was seen as a way of getting round that. Personally I think that NSPORTS could work for individual sports where coverage is generally related to success (ie winning something). The problem is with the team events where a player's notability is much less closely related to winning things. Hence, the notability for walking on the pitch sort of criteria. What I found interesting about the recent discussion about increasing this to walking on the pitch 3 times (Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)#RfC on WP:NFOOTY criteria being changed was that although the proposer started off with "Context: At many recent AfDs, there have been articles deleted despite meeting WP:NFOOTY by playing in one or two games." the discussion turned into the usual why 3? sort of argument. In the whole discussion there was no serious attempt to look at the actual issue at hand, are those who pass NFOOTY by playing one or two games actually notable or not. I'm afraid NSPORTS has turned into a sort of mad house and it needs to go. Nigej (talk) 09:54, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment'. GNG is not a ridiculously high bar so why do we need NSPORTS? It mainly results in the creation of massive amount of articles about non-notable athletes who have nothing to their name except some database listing. Alvaldi (talk) 11:07, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose abolition until and unless the nominator wishes to propose a replacement. Stifle (talk) 12:52, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Because while its feasible a re-write could fix the current issues around SNGs, the reality is there is no way in hell each little walled garden of sports editors (or in fact, any other SNG group) is going to weaken their guidelines to the point where they would prohibit articles on people who once played a game and have no sources available on which to write more than a one-line stub. Which leaves us with three options, the status quo of endless SNG arguments at AFD (issue still unresolved), nuke the SNG's that are overly broad (resolves the issue), or alter AFD closure guidelines to explicitly state that regardless of SNG, if an article isnt brought up to the level where it satisfies GNG during a deletion discussion, it gets deleted (regardless of the closure of this discussion, that should be done anyway). Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:29, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose OTT form, sympathise with concept, will propose alternate - So I was involved in the AfD that most recently bought this to the fore, and am in the DRV as well, albeit non-!voting. Currently NSPORTS is wildly over-generous for inclusion, and attempts to narrow it in the form of raising the presumptive standards have all failed. So I get where nom is coming from. That said, despite being on the anti-NSPORTS wing., I am an inclusionist and do think that SNGs (even those with neither de jure exceptions to GNG or de facto exceptions) have value. So. Until this DRV I had always felt that the timeline for challenged NSPORTS articles that met SNG to prove they met GNG also was an AfD-length. Since this is apparently not a shared position, we should write it in post-haste. And yes, of course I understand the issue that "well, if someone challenged every article, the SNG would have no effect" - I raised it in my RfA. But so what? That's not really a negative in actual practical terms. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:52, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd be pleasantly surprised if we can agree that timeline's anywhere south of a year, much less a week. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 21:58, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per the OP's racist, sexist, effort to erase "(usually white, male, European) sports figures". If we suggested changing an SNG specifically to remove subjects of a particular race, sex, or national origin the OP would already be topic banned if not indeffed and the media would be publishing pieces on Wikipedia's targeting of specific groups. I am sorry the OP is motivated in this manner but we, as a community, cannot let this stand regardless of our feelings about the coverage of athletes (not to mention
  bulls and horses). full disclosure: I spent high school in marching band, not as an athlete. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:27, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose Not sure why this specific SNG is being targeted - it seems perfectly reasonable. If a criterion needs fixing, it can be revised. But short of abolishing all SNGs, I don't know why we need to get rid of this specific one. Smartyllama (talk) 14:36, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Two particulars to this one. We have a lot of sportsbios. A ratio of those to others that seems decidedly unencyclopedic by any plausible precedent for what that might mean. And because it creates a "presumption" of notability, short of saying "yes, we definitely consider this person notable". We seem very conflicted about what should happen in that gap. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 21:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - Is this a quota based on 'race', 'gender', etc for notability, that's being requested? GoodDay (talk) 15:00, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @GoodDay: No, it's a request that people who write sports article kindly oblige with the GNG like everybody else, and that we don't have a "guideline" which is interpreted by way too many as having the force of law and which is so frequently misused that it fails to accomplish its purpose, which is to facilitate discussion, by actively accomplishing the opposite, actually hampering them. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:41, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose I feel like we do this quarterly. If individual sport SNGs need to be tightened then they can be tightened and if you think that those WikiProjects are not going to change their consensus then participate in those discussions. Plus, it's not uncommon for AfDs to delete athletes that fail GNG but pass an SNG (particularly
  WP:NFOOTY-which I do believe needs to be both tightened to specific leagues/tiers of professional ladders and also be adjusted to include more top-flight women's leagues). But unless you want to throw out all SNGs at once I don't think that this is a fair or reasonable proposal. Best, GPL93 (talk) 15:13, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • I can't comment on how common it is, but evidently some editors feel this very definitely should not happen, especially on a sport-by-sport basis, hence a lot of the annoyance if it does, or is even proposed. "What happened to our presumption??" I don't know if tightening the individual guidelines by amount or type of sport-participation would help this as a confusion of expectation, granting that it would presumably reduce the number of articles it happens with. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 21:01, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose I could support an overhaul, but abolishing what we currently have is a step backwards.
  b} 15:17, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • Could you comment on what sort of overhaul you feel might be supportable, or indeed necessary? 109.255.211.6 (talk) 21:37, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support A bullet that unfortunately needs to be bitten. NSPORTS is far out of step with other notability policies, and the "presumption of notability" clause has sparked an unending battle at AfD. Editors have attempt to reform the guideline but the attempts always seem to become bogged down in minutae. We're better off getting rid of NSPORTS and starting again from first principles. --RaiderAspect (talk) 15:30, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Is it really that far out of step from other SNGs though? For instance,

WP:NPOL presumes that members of US State Legislatures are notable despite some having the same lack of significant coverage/reliance on similar sources (government website election results, generic reports such as "x wins primary" with little in between in terms of SIGCOV, there being over 7,300 of them (there are 1,696 NFL roster spots by comparison), only having to have served in office regardless of time served, and less than 20% of Americans not being able to name their own representatives. Best, GPL93 (talk) 16:00, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Since when is another criteria being also bad a reason to keep a worse one as is? At least NPOL has a plausible public interest reason behind it (hey,

WP:BIAS aside, if 20% of americans can't name them, the more reason to educate the public) which could half justify it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:23, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

If we go by topics that fewer than 20% of Americans know about as a metric for notability, then all footballers (as in soccer) and teams should be kept to 'educate the public'.

b} 16:29, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Pretty much all SNGs have the same holes you can poke in them, whether you like it or not, and either they all have to go at once or they all have to stay and be worked out individually until new standards are reached via consensus. We're justifying notability standards, not what you consider is most beneficial to people, so unless you want to throw out

WP:NPOL, and all the rest then I don't see why this specific SNG should targeted. GPL93 (talk) 16:42, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

NPROF and NPOL are absolutely essential for completion of the encyclopedia, so this is why even if a person does not necessarily meet GNG, they still get a notability pass. On the other hand, NSPORTS is very explicitly subservient to GNG.

I would disagree that both, as written, are essential to the encyclopedia. I would disagree that state level politicians or editors of academic journals are inherently notable, but I think this is where biases creep in. Rikster2 (talk) 18:44, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Says who? What makes the "X endowed chair of Y university" more essential than someone under NSPORTS? Why should these SNGs not be subservient as well? I'll bet more people at the

University of Texas came name the members of their starting defense than their endowed department chairs. Dak Prescott is viewed on average 3x more than Greg Abbott, reserve Dallas Cowboys linebacker Jabril Cox gets 4x more a day than Texas Senate president Donna Campbell. As many people come here to learn about NSPORTS passes as the people that pass the other guidelines. GPL93 (talk) 18:47, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

To quote Bearcat from this AfD, if he's served in the legislature at all, then he's notable, because state legislators are one of those fields where it's extremely important, verging on mission critical, for us to be a complete and comprehensive reference for all of them. Also dang I forgot to sign my reply above, that's embarrassing lol. Curbon7 (talk) 02:08, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(Also relevant to @Star Garnet's comment) One of the biggest differences in my opinion is how much easier it is to create thousands of stubs on athletes than it is for any other topic. Power-users concerned with boosting personal creation counts will obviously flock to an SNG that has a) clear-cut inclusion criteria; b) abundant, reliable database/stats sites to template off for rapid creation; c) constant new subjects meeting a criterion; d) entire wikiprojects that will worship them for running through, e.g., all 2020 Olympic sport shooters. Even if 90% of sports editors are focused on creating particular biographies and rarely make stubs, it only takes a couple power-editors to completely skew topic coverage. This is much less of an issue in other SNGs where notability is less "presumed" (like in NMUSIC, where the language used is "may be notable") and where an accomplishment of a group does not confer notability to all members of the group individually (whereas playing a few minutes as part of a team that participates in a non-notable football match is enough to meet NFOOTY). Is it the "fault" of NSPORT that it has such easy methods for validating e.g. a pro appearance, or that all statistics that would appear on a subject's page can essentially be copied over directly from a database, or that each major sport has active wikiprojects participating in AfDs and locally shaping notability criteria? No. But these are substantial differences from other SNGs, and these differences allow much quicker methodical creation of ultimately non-notable stubs than in any other topic besides GEOLAND, as well as far more successful lobbying in deletion discussions and in RfCs on changing criteria. JoelleJay (talk) 19:25, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Then why not propose a ban on this type of editing behavior? Violators can be prohibited from creating articles in the main space and be forced to submit everything through AfC and its not like the pattern of rapid-fire, database regurgitating article creations isn't incredibly obvious. If they are using the crutch of NSPORTS to mass-create, what's to say that they won't move on to doing the same using college directories and and creating stubs on every department chair of every school? Then we'll be right back here arguing whether or not a school in a prominent enough university or that a certain department is not prestigious enough to meet the SNG requirement. GPL93 (talk) 01:23, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

NPROF and NSPORTS guidelines are both about 15 years old. One of them has been (mis)used to machine create articles en masse, to the point that footballers alone make up 40% of our biographies. The other has not. I'm not a huge fan of NPROF, but its issues are very different to those of NSPORTS. --RaiderAspect (talk) 02:39, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose, some subsections may need to be re-written, but getting rid of it entirely is just going to cause chaos, in my opinion. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:46, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support I said I would support deleting NSPORTS and I meant it. There is absolutely no reason for an SNG which does not serve as an alternative to GNG to exist, as there are no instances in which it actually serves a purpose; it is always subservient to another guideline. As it stands, NSPORTS’s primary role is to cause confusion. I’m an inclusionist, but I value sensible rules more than rules which favor inclusion. My first preference would be to make NSPORTS an alternative to GNG, but this is the next best option. Mlb96 (talk) 16:56, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd also like to point out that another option may be to demote NSPORTS from SNG status. If NSPORTS cannot establish notability, then we shouldn't call it an SNG. It should be downgraded to an essay, and a line should be included which unequivocally states that the page should never ever be used to establish notability, rather than the wishy-washy language included in the page currently. Something like, "This page is not a notability guideline. If an individual who does not have an article meets these criteria, it may be worthwhile to look for sources so that an article can be started. However, meeting these criteria does not conclusively establish notability, and athletes must meet the general notability guideline to qualify for an article. This page should never be cited in deletion discussions." This would solve every problem. Mlb96 (talk) 17:11, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Essayfying (that looks even worse than I thought it might) was what I thought the OP entailed, as opposed to literally pressing the "delete page" button. In a way saying it's an essay might just give us a (hopefully better-tempered? -- one can dream) version of the status quo, as it's been argued that "just a guideline" implies "I can ignore this in whole or in part at AfD, even outside of IAR, and you're still obliged to count my !vote" -- at least unless the closer does employ IAR. I think another approach would be to say "here's what the presumption actually looks like". 109.255.211.6 (talk) 20:28, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose as written, support in principle I'm not sure that deleting it and having nothing to replace it with is a good idea. I think it does need to be scrapped and replaced with a more coherent guidance for how and why to create good sports-related encyclopedia articles, but without something to replace it with, I don't like just trashing it. Too much of NSPORT guides editors to create articles which have no useful reference material to support the text in them. That's the key problem. I would be more in favor of replacing NSPORT with guidance that was more in-line with
  WP:42 rather than deleting it with nothing else. What is there now is trash. Let's have something to replace it with before getting rid of it, however. --Jayron32 17:04, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Support NSPORTS is abused so much it does more harm than good to the encyclopedia. (t · c) buidhe 18:40, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support: Abolish and defenestrate altogether. This would not only rid us of AfD fodder but restore some balance within the encyclopaedia in how notability is treated across subjects and fields. It is a case where clearly a group of people interested in a specific project want to see in Wikipedia as many articles related to the project as possible. Clobber it up and start anew! I'm in favor of having for sports something beyond
  WP:GNG, as it happens, but the abuse has gone on long enough. -The Gnome (talk) 19:15, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose I particularly disagree with the idea that to reduce
  talk) 21:46, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  I'd much sooner have 1 well written page on any sportsperson (be they white, male and European, or anything else) than have 100 database-entry equivalents (even if 50 of those are about underrepresented groups: permastubs do not, in any way, help fix the BIAS issues). Simple statistics will show you that most sport biographies (which are already an out of proportion percentage of biographies overall) are about male (and, presumably, from the US or Europe) athletes. As for your disagreement about deletion, there are plenty of articles which fail GNG but meet NSPORTS which are routinely deleted. Removing NSPORTS wouldn't change this, and likely won't produce an immediate flood (the tightening of NOLY, something which opponents of course said that it would have such consequences, didn't, either). However, it would certainly discourage both the needless creation of statistical database entries, generate more thorough AfFDs discussions (by having people actually look for sources instead of using NSPORTS as an indefinite and increasingly frustrating delaying tactic), as well as prevent concerted efforts to disregard GNG by some sports editors cliques. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:39, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose, per Cbl62. The practical reality of this proposal would be increased AfD activity and decreased article creation for people from the pre-internet era, and people from non-English speaking countries. Whether people like it or not, sportspeople from the modern era of leagues like the
  WP:GNG. Individual guidelines that are problematic can (and should) be refined, if necessary, but to abolish the whole thing strikes me as throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Ejgreen77 (talk) 22:58, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  Why is it better to have a microstub on a non-Anglophone athlete hang around for a couple years before being deleted due to not meeting GNG than to just not create it in the first place? JoelleJay (talk) 00:20, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  And the fact is, that for every such microstub on a non-Anglophone athlete, there are multiple microstubs on Anglophone athletes... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:38, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose I agree that some of the guidelines that make up NSPORTS need serious reform (particularly NFOOTY and its fully professional leagues), and I also agree that there's a problem with editors treating notability guidelines as a green light to create stubs on the least-notable subjects that technically meet those guidelines. However, scrapping every sports-related SNG as a result isn't the right fix. For a topic as broad-ranging, popular, and frequently contentious as sports can be, it's incredibly useful to have some guidance as to what's notable and what isn't. If you can just say that athletes who meet guideline X are usually notable and athletes who don't usually aren't based on past experience, you can skip over a lot of extremely similar arguments about the same sorts of athletes. (This of course becomes a problem if the guideline stops reflecting source coverage or community standards, but even then it makes more sense to have a debate about changing the guideline than a lot of smaller debates about individual topics - imagine if the recent tightening of
  WP:NOLYMPICS had to be rehashed over thousands of individual AfDs.) I also disagree with the notion that removing SNGs will counter systemic bias, because it's a lot more likely to just shift the systemic bias elsewhere. GNG leaves enough room for interpetation that it's easy to debate what counts as significant coverage or multiple sources at AfD, and editors can set those bars higher for subjects they're biased against, consciously or not. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 01:47, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose is it true that a number of increasingly vocal editors are dissatisfied with the prevalence of sports coverage on Wikipedia? Yes. Does that mean we should blow it all up and hope for the best? No.
  LEPRICAVARK (talk) 02:18, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose - there are certainly problems with the present creation of sports articles, especially American college sports IMO, but to delete NSPORTS, with no replacement, will create more problems than it solves. Also, as per User:TheCatalyst31 and others, I simply don't believe that destroying it will do anything except make systemic bias worse, for the usual reason, i.e, the variable existence/accessibility of GNG-acceptable sources. Ingratis (talk) 03:14, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  @Ingratis: Do you sincerely believe that having thousands of database-entry microstubs reduces systematic bias issues, or that it really does justice to a subject from [insert minority group here] if the only thing that can be said about them is "Foo played X sport for Y team between 19AA and 19BB"? Again, for every example from a minority group, there are probably a few if not a dozen or more examples from non-minority groups... (as pure statistics will show you) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:20, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS territory (I'm not disagreeing that those articles shouldn't be nuked as a lot should, just not for this particular reason). Curbon7 (talk) 03:38, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  RandomCanadian I don't think that your example "does justice" to the subject - no stub does - but it does a great deal more justice than nothing at all: even your example contains 4-5 pieces of information of use to an enquirer. How it is less patronising or denigrating to remove all coverage instead escapes me. Ingratis (talk) 05:28, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong oppose – If NSPORTS is being misused in AfD discussions, that's not a problem with NSPORTS, that's a problem that the people in the discussion and the admin closing the discussion need to pick up on. These are guidelines, not policies. If they are not being treated as such, then that's not an inherent problem with the guidelines but instead a problem with the way discussions are being conducted. Amongst motorsports editors,
  WP:NMOTORSPORT has been recently updated and it is used appropriately (in both directions) in deletion discussions (I follow or participate in virtually all AfDs sorted as motorsports-related, so I feel qualified to make this judgement). There is no inherent issue with SNGs. There may be an issue with their current iterations or use, but those are not inherent and this proposal is a massive overreaction. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 05:38, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose - I don't really see what we gain by removing the SNG. There are certainly ones that need fixing, but the arguments that it takes too long to fix them isn't a great one to delete the whole guideline. They are, remember, guidelines. There are certainly ones that do a good job of explaining what sorts of people should meet GNG, and that's what is important. Ones that are overly broad, such as
  WP:NFOOTY should be closed. The process of using SNGs at AfD to say "meets NWHATEVER so notable" needs to change to "meets NWHATEVER, so we should find suitable sourcing". If something doesn't meet an SNG, then the article itself needs to make a really good claim for notability or be quickly deleted in my eyes. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:11, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Don't really see the point in throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Something may well be wrong at AfD with sports-related articles, but that doesn't mean we scrap a well-written SNG. Maybe we need to make changes to
  WP:N to that effect to handle database-like creation. Maybe some of the NSPORTS criteria needs to be tightened. But I don't think getting rid of SNGs is the solution. We have maybe 100 guidelines in Category:Wikipedia naming conventions for example -- the concept of SNGs or guidelines in general is not a problem, it's good and ensures consistency at a large scale. The problem is the wikilawyering at times used in their application. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:02, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose: throwing out the baby with the bathwater will just leave a lot of confusion and time-wasting with no place to easily refer newcomers to and much more random fluctuation based on the opinions of the few people that will turn up at individual AFDs. I know people don't like admitting this, but GNG has almost no detail, and tells you very little by itself. Okay, so a book-length source entirely about a topic is "significant", and passing mention is not, but what about almost all sources, which lie imbetween? It is only community norms and SNG which let us apply a consistent interpretation of GNG.
  I gather that trying to tighten various NSPORTS criteria has failed—if this really is a bug and not a feature (it'd be a feature if the deletionists are out of step with community consensus), then how about more explicit guidance on when notable sportspeople should not have standalone articles? Recall, from
  WP:N, [GNG and being within scope] is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article. — Bilorv (talk) 21:52, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • Obviously deletion discussions are generally not just 'deletionists vs the community'. In fact, if you wanted to make a very crude first approximation, a better one might be 'subject-area editors vs random other people who just happen to turn up'. In this very discussion and others like it, you'll see strong hints that there's people who acknowledge there's too many sportscrufty bios... except in their preferred sport, which had the most wonderfully exacting standards. The more useful SNGs have exactly the point of firming up on the necessary vagueness of the GNG. Academic? Then this is what notability should look like in that capacity. And so on. But with the sportsbios we have to deal with the vagueness of the GNG and with the bizarre -- and frankly, bizarrely low -- participation thresholds. And with how those two things relate to each other, which could stand to be clearer, could usefully be more procedurally defined, and which some editors evidently reject, while wanting to cherrypick parts they like. 109.255.211.6 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 02:33, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. I've been mulling this one over for several days. As a card-carrying sport agnostic, I find it sad that such a high proportion of bios are sportspeople. I've joked that put any common anglophone masculine name into Wikipedia and you'll come up with a disambiguation page of 10 footballers, 5 baseball players, 4 US politicians & one other; I don't think this is healthy. However, I don't think abolishing the sports notability guidelines will result in an orderly consolidation of sportspeople's bios into lists, where appropriate. There will instead be a chaotic period where those who are interested in sports create articles on people previously deemed to fall below the threshold, and deletion-minded editors put up thousands of bios lacking multiple strong sources for AfD, or even just prod them if the creator has retired. It would be preferable to tighten overly lax individual guidelines, and make more effort to find sources where notability is questioned. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:35, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Oppose - this seems to be (yet another) attempt to make a one-size-fits-all policy, that feels designed to make the lives of a particular sub-set of editors easier at the expense of the quality of the project. Whether or not NSPORTS requires improving does not justify getting rid of it entirely, simply on the basis that the proposer doesn't like that contributors to AfD might be able to point to specific policies that the proposer hadn't considered. It's nothing more than an argument that nuance is annoying. Theknightwho (talk) 03:39, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose While there may be issues with individual sports notabilty guidance, this should not equate to ditching the whole thing. If X sport's notability levels are causing concern, then they should be addressed on a case-by-case basis. Yes, this can take a long time, but becomes more meaningful instead of ditching the lot. I believe
  WP:NFOOTY is the current guide under the spotlight, so maybe put together a case for tightening that, or whichever sport is the falvour of the month right now. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 09:52, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Support putting NSPORTS to sleep. It is a ridiculous (and ridiculously unprofessional) state of affairs when we allow—even encourage—a crappy little guideline outweigh fundamental policies such as WP:BLP and WP:ANYBIO (yes, naturally SNGs applied to the living are of far more concern than to the dead, notwithstanding the hydra of 19th-century cricketing, etc, permastubs which someone was kind enough to saddle us with). An editor above even argued that we shouldn't deprecate this SNG because it would enforce stricter sourcing on these petty-bios. D'OH! But that's where our laxity in the post has brought us to today, people. SN54129 15:46, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. A ludicrous proposal. Better to get rid of the ill-thought out, arbitrary, and frequently used disruptively GNG instead. --Michig (talk) 16:30, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Complete removal of this SNGs is not solution if there are issues be addressed on a case-by-case basis.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 16:43, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

BEFORERFC Discussion (NSPORT)

What aspects of NSPORT do people what to remove? Some of these are interrelated or may mootify each other. "Removal" can mean deletion or replacement. Feel free to add additional options (preferably w/ a timestamp if others have already !voted).
A. The presumption of notability (as used in AfD arguments)
B. The presumption of notability (as used in article creation--athlete bios need only 1 RS showing they meet a criterion rather than 2+ GNG-meeting sources)
C. Confusing guidance (e.g. the second sentence)
D. The language granting some indefinite amount of time for editors to find SIGCOV
E. Criteria that are not backed with empirical evidence they correctly predict GNG coverage 90+% of the time

1. All of it
2. None of it
JoelleJay (talk) 00:52, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: I've changed this into a discussion. Please revert if you believe that was inappropriate, but I think this question is too broad, and too vague (for example, what are the "confusing guidance" sentences?) to be anything other than a
  WP:TRAINWRECK as a !vote, but as a discussion it will give us guidance for where future RFC's should focus. BilledMammal (talk) 01:07, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• F) The murky relationship between NSPORTS/GNG in theory and in practice (how to avoid the stereotypical "passes NSPORTS/fails GNG" AfDs, and how to deal with cases where even the criteria of NSPORTS are sometimes ignored in practice) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:21, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  So to address this we have at least these options:

  a) remove the presumption of notability and replace it with an explicit, unambiguous statement that all subjects must demonstrate GNG when challenged by a PROD or AfD (but you can still create articles sourced to RS showing the subject meets an SSG)

  b) Require multiple GNG-compliant sources for all articles from the start (removing the presumption of notability entirely and relegating NSPORT to the "collection of rules-of-thumb" I described in my bolded comment in the earlier discussion)

  α) remove the presumption of notability and replace it with an explicit, unambiguous statement that a subject meeting a sport-specific criterion is automatically notable, no GNG sourcing required JoelleJay (talk) 08:04, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I would change “a presumption of notability” to “a likelihood of notability”. It is true that if a topic meets the SNG it is likely that sources will exist that would allow the topic to also pass GNG… however, it is not a guarantee. This simple change would should shift us from (perhaps incorrectly) assuming notability to encouraging the demonstration of actual notability. Combine this with an admonition to do a thorough
  WP:BEFORE search before nominating at AFD, and the SNG would be much less problematic. Blueboar (talk) 02:12, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Suggestions. The key is to reform NSPORTS so that it is more closely calibrated as a predictor of GNG. We have taken some good steps in that direction in the past year, including major reforms of NOLYMPICS (now limited to medalists -- further modification needed for team sports) and partial reform of NGRIDIRON (eliminating Arena Football League). Here are my suggestions:

• Other subparts are in serious need of reform: I supported Fram's proposal last year to eliminate NCRICKET unless/until the cricketeers can agree on a stricter and more predictive guideline.
• Another reform I would support: eliminate across the board and for all sports the presumption that playing in a single game is sufficient to establish notability. Raise the bar to two (or even three) games.
• Mandate that new articles cannot be based solely on database entries but must include from the get-go at least one example of SIGCOV. (Frankly, this mandate should apply across the board and not just to sports.) Cbl62 (talk) 02:54, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I find three games is very attractive for the NFL (for at least very temporarily significant reasons, as I mentioned before), but to be at all comparably predictive or objectively similar, you'd want that to be a lot higher for soccer, and lower for five-day games of test cricket, and so on. (Which isn't to say there might not be an issue with cricket at present counting too many games and types of games, of course.) And of course, in most sports there's several different types of competition, of varying significance, and combining those into some bulk metric is... tricky. It gets very complex and messy very quickly, which in practice it's going to make it tremendously hard to get agreement to anything beyond the most obvious some/none binary. The SIGCOV requirement I very much agree with. If there's some need to create articles (or draft-articles) that lack this, it needs some sort of monitoring or process beyond the present 'languish indefinitely' concept. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 04:00, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Why do we need a "predictor" of GNG? Why not just look at GNG itself? If it does nothing except "predict" whether GNG will be met, then it shouldn't be given official status. It's just an essay at that point, not an SNG. Mlb96 (talk) 04:07, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Quite. I'm decidedly skeptical on this too. But I think the rationale is one (or some combo of two things): build it and they'll come, and collateral or 'inherent' notability. Insofar as it's the former, I think what we need is process and management. Facilitation of creation and development in draft, or conversely of provisionally having articles in mainspace but with a view to revisit their presence after a while, or periodically if needed. If it's the latter, I'm far from convinced, but I suspect it's a big factor in people's thinking. "If people from this [category of competition] are mostly notable, it'd be a terrible shame to have just a few gaps: gorra catch 'em all. So good enough, declare them all notable 'on average'." To put it less than charitably, perhaps, but I detect periodic traces of this at least. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 21:36, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Re: A Removing presumption of notability would be counter to the top of Wikipedia:Notability (WP:N) emphasis added: A topic is presumed to merit an article if: It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG) listed in the box on the right... If that is the consensus (no opinion), effectively SNGs become obsolete, and WP:N should reflect that and remove SNGs also.—Bagumba (talk) 04:03, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  A topic is presumed to merit an article if: It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG) listed in the box on the right...

  And if a subject-specific notability guideline explicitly defers to GNG, then that "or" becomes moot, because meeting NSPORT ultimately = meeting GNG. This wouldn't (and doesn't, as this is how it's already interpreted) affect any other SNG, some of which specifically do bypass GNG (NPROF). JoelleJay (talk) 08:10, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't think the intent was for NSPORTS to "defer" to GNG in the strong sense that it was interpreted in

  WP:WIKILAWYERING by both sides.—Bagumba (talk) 08:30, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  A well-attended RfC in 2017 found a clear consensus that NSPORT does not supersede GNG and Arguments must be more refined than simply citing compliance with a subguideline of WP:NSPORTS in the context of an Articles for Deletion discussion. This is reflected in the hundreds of AfDs where athletes meeting an NSPORT subguideline but not GNG are deleted for that reason. That some editors are unaware of this consensus or just ignore it indicates it should have resulted in explicit changes in the NSPORT language rather than assuming users would abide by this result. JoelleJay (talk) 20:54, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  It was always intended from the start that the sports notability guidelines did not replace the general notability guideline. From the RfC that established the sports notability guidelines: Echoing many of the participants' concerns though, consensus can not be considered in favor unless the new guideline clarifies that it does not replace WP:GNG but supplements it and that articles that do not meet this guideline may still be included if they satisfy WP:GNG. When you read the discussion (both for the RfC and leading up to it), it's stated several times that the proposed guideline would not enable articles to be created for subjects that did not meet the general notability guideline. This has been affirmed repeatedly in subsequent discussions. isaacl (talk) 22:12, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Endless notable leagues Target the specific sport SNGs that blindly assume that because sport X gets sufficient coverage in one English-speaking country, it must get the same amount of coverage for any country's top league(s). Because there's Google hits (from a site in a language most here aren't fluent in and wouldn't know if it's reliable either) Many other sport criteria are more restrictive and true to the 95-99% "truly notable" rate that SNGs should strive for.—Bagumba (talk) 04:09, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Re: D "granting some indefinite amount of time" is a bit overstated. That was from NSPORTS's FAQ, which was more describing a rough practice, not so much a firm guideline. I'm not sure when it got transcluded on the main page, and not just the talk page.—Bagumba (talk) 04:14, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• "A" is an issue. There needs to be a short section in NSPORTS which says that NSPORTS must not be used in AfDs as an argument for keeping/deleting. Clearly it's of interest whether the person passes NSPORTS or not, but this should be stated once (unless there is some disagreement about the fact), preferably by the proposer and then never mentioned again (e.g. "Note: This person passes NFOOTY because they played one game for Rochdale A.F.C. in 1921"). I would suggest some standardized wording that people can cut and paste, to be used when someone breaks this rule, eg reply with "per WP:NSPORTSinAfD, NSPORTS must be not be used in AfDs as an argument for keeping/deleting." So if someone said "KEEP Passes NFOOTY" that reply would be posted immediately after. Clearly someone might say "KEEP Because he did play one game for Rochdale A.F.C. in 1921" instead, but in a sense that's a valid argument, albeit a excessively weak one, and hopefully the closer would take due note. Nigej (talk) 08:27, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't agree that sports should be an exception to SNGs. If the current NSPORTS is unacceptable, fix or remove the portions that are problematic. I could see if the concern is with SNGs in general, in which case academics or politicians, for example, would be held to the same standard.—Bagumba (talk) 08:39, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I've never really understood this "we must all suffer together" sort of argument. If someone's abusing the system it's them that should be punished. I don't see why those who are doing the right thing should need to do anything. The fact that nearly half of all Wikipedia biographies of living people are sports competitors (ie covered by NSPORTS) shows that the problem is with NSPORTS not with the others. Clearly there can't be other biographical SNGs with nearly half, otherwise there wouldn't be anything left for all the others. Nigej (talk) 09:01, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I was under the impression the vast majority of these were from NFOOTY, but I haven't got the statistics to hand (willing to be told). There are lots of professional footballers, purely by the nature of a length of the sport having been played back to the 1800s and the sheer depths of money and worldwide appeal. It's clearly too broad, as, while being a professional athlete might be notable in certain sports, it simply isn't the case this widespread. The fix is to look at each SNG individually and tighten up the criteria, so that we know certain people are going to be more or less notable. Then, any that are (per the Rochdale example, it's possible someone was notable for playing in that game, being particularly bad/good, or otherwise) notable but don't meet the SNG can be shown via sourcing that they are so. I do agree that we should have less "passes SNG so notable" arguments at AfD. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:25, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The issue mainly relates to living people. Outside sports, 40% of biographies are for living people but for sports its 77%. Less than 20% of biographies for dead people are sports people but its nearly half for those still living. NFOOTY makes up a third of the sports biographies, so it is a high proportion, but American football comes second which seems odds for a sport that's basically only played in two countries. There's other oddities: Australian rules football (basically played in one country) has 14,000 while tennis (a massive worldwide sport) has 8,700. And are there really 10,000 notable racing drivers? Seems crazy to me. (NB all data about a year old) Nigej (talk) 10:22, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Stats from 2019 - more association football BLPs than all other sports combined. Levivich 14:12, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Couldn't find "all sports" in that link, only a selection. My numbers were Footy 153,000, All sports 450,000 (from Category:Sports competitors by sport), All BLPs 970,000. Nigej (talk) 16:12, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  What's the point of these counting numbers? Is there some quota as to how many articles athletes can have? Sports are more popular than academia so of course there would be significantly more athletes represented than mathematicians or whatever. Pointing that out doesn't help advance any argument. Spanneraol (talk) 16:50, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  There's no quota. However my own view is that knowing a few numbers helps people gauge how loose or tight the criteria are in certain areas. Obviously it's not an exact science, people make their own judgments about the merits of these numbers. In my analysis I compared the number of biographical articles with the number of "vital" ones (per Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/5) - people we've heard of or perhaps should have heard of, again nothing precise here, just peoples judgment. For all non-sports combined, there's an average of 90 biographies for every "vital" one (living and dead). Fair enough, we can afford to have lots of articles about people we've never heard of. For soccer there's 1600 articles for every "vital" one. Some might think that indicates that the criteria for inclusion are too loose for soccer, some might not. For soccer to get down to the 90 level from 1600, we'd have to delete about 95% of all soccer biographies (or increase their quota of "vital" articles by the same factor). Anyway it's all food for thought, nothing more. Nigej (talk) 17:16, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  What's the point of these counting numbers? Is there some quota as to how many articles athletes can have? Yes, there is, when it comes to

  WP:BLPs. We are doing active harm whenever we publish a substandard BLP. I quote Tamzin, who wrote:

  But we are now the world's first-choice reference work, and we need to accept the ethical duties that come with that. Which include a duty to the people we write about. Some editors just need to accept that some names are going to be unlinked in their tables or football players and daytime screenwriting Emmy winners.

  Tamzin's entire comment is worth reading (as are her thoughts on her userpage), because she explains the actual harm resulting from poor-quality BLPs, particularly BLPs of marginally-notable people. The rule needs to be that Wikipedia is never the first publication to publish a biography of anyone, and so all Wikipedia biographies must be sourced to other biographies... not strung together from statistics and game reports (which are primary sources), but a tertiary-source biography built upon multiple secondary-source biographies. That's the only way we can be sure we're writing a proper encyclopedia biography and not just a dossier. Levivich 17:58, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  I've never really understood this "we must all suffer together" sort of argument: Similairly, I suspect the problems are with a few select sports, and not all of NSPORTS.—Bagumba (talk) 14:19, 21 January 2022 (UTC)'m n[reply]

  That's true to a certain extent. As I noted above, it primarily relates to team sports, but its certainly not just soccer. Nigej (talk) 16:22, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• A and B are both issues. A - Something being thought to be notable at AfD is bad, when the range is particularly wide. Even if someone makes the argument "Passes SNG so notable", you should be able to challenge them for sourcing. B - This is almost the exact reason for having an SNG in the first place, but if the articles are sourced to meet GNG when they are created, then there is no issue. Perhaps we should be a bit stricter on sourcing, so when an article is created we need to at least give a good account that the subject meets GNG (this does happen at AfC). Expecting at least three sources isn't much that's needed Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:25, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Sigh - each sport-specific entry needs to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Treating all sports the same simply won't work. GiantSnowman 18:00, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• I think the better way to approach this problem is with stricter BLP notability rules... for any BLP, any sport, or non-sport. Start there. Modify BLPPROD to allow the prodding of any BLP that doesn't have two GNG sources. Amend N to require consensus that there are two GNG sources at AFD in order for a BLP to not be deleted at AFD. Consider whether to retain the exception for NPROF (which is, AFAIK, the only type of BLP that has a formal GNG exception). This will avoid all the accusations/feelings that one particular sport, or sports altogether, are being "singled out". We have over a million BLPs and yes, this change would result in the deletion of a significant number of them. Levivich 18:06, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest an unusual RFC statement, and that would be:

"The community has decided that NSPORTS is too inclusive and asks that it be tightened within the next year. Amongst other possible changes, please remove provisions where NSPORTS passes an athlete in essence solely because they participated professionally."

Two notes on this. One is that is it is a general finding and request. Trying to make the large amount of changes needed by a specific community RFC is impossible, but the push needs to come from the community, not just the people active at the SNG, and this is a way to resolve that quandary. The other is that it does not specify "predictor of GNG". This leaves open the possibility that this is a unique field because much in it "coverage" is often created primarily as a form of entertainment and so needs a higher standard to be an equal gauge of notability. A higher coverage-type bar such as at NCorp might be required. As with ncorp, this could also vaguely/informally also calibrate GNG for sports. North8000 (talk) 18:11, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that we need input from the whole community. I'm not sure we'll ever get agreement to delete large number of articles. My own preference would be some sort of "from now on, BLPs cannot be created unless ..." Nigej (talk) 18:44, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would help to differentiate between "getting a biography" and "being mentioned somewhere in Wikipedia." A criteria that said something like:

• Played for at least two seconds and editors have located at least one article in an independent news source that contains at least 200 consecutive words about the player: separate article
• Played for at least two seconds and editors are unable to locate any qualifying articles containing at least 200 consecutive words about the player: add paragraph to the Wikipedia article about the team/season/roster, with suitable redirects.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:33, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This was essentially what happened in

WP:NSPORTS in the context of an Articles for Deletion discussion. Since this didn't result in a specific change to the guideline that AfD participants could point to, it was basically ignored by the usual offenders and here we are. I think for this discussion to have any impact whatsoever it needs to be codified in the guidelines. JoelleJay (talk) 21:07, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

That RFC close also stated that there was a rough consensus that sources on older athletes are concentrated in print media. Because it is impossible to prove the negative that the sources do not exist to support an article, some intermediate standard is required for determining when an article on these athletes should be deleted due to lack of notability. Seems the entire community has dropped the ball on formulating this "intermediate standard", not the exclusive fault of any specific "usual offenders".—Bagumba (talk) 05:10, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Subproposal 1 (NSPORT)

All subjects must demonstrate GNG when notability is challenged at AfD. This could be added to, e.g., clarify the second sentence. Amendments to/additional guidance on this statement could include:

1. SIGCOV in multiple secondary, independent reliable sources would have to be produced during the course of an AfD.
2. Articles could still be created and exist in mainspace with only one RS verifying the subject meets a sport-specific guideline (SSG) criterion, but meeting a criterion would not serve as a valid keep argument in a deletion discussion.
3. Editors would be discouraged from nominating very new SSG-meeting articles for deletion (barring non-notability issues).

JoelleJay (talk) 03:04, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, with support of 1, and support of 2 iff a stronger change (e.g. GNG sourcing required from the start) does not gain consensus. JoelleJay (talk) 03:04, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Suggestion I would like to see elements of
  WP:FAILN being prerequisites when nominating a subject that meets an SNG. Say, article been tagged for notability for over a month. Even better, evidence that related WikiProject was contacted, asking for subject-matter experts to improve.—Bagumba (talk) 04:48, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• Comment I think if we're going to make such a sharp criteria difference between the 'creation' threshold and the 'deletion' one, I think it might be useful to be a little more explicit about what the expected time horizon is. Article creators might feel that AfD-timeline+not-very-new is a signal they have very little time, and be deterred from going about that business. Or conversely, they might find it sounds very slack and easy-going, and then be enraged if it ends up deleted within a month. Or else to be a little be more explicit about what process might handle making that determination, case-by-case. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 05:49, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Another possibility is if the article does not meet GNG within a month's time to draftify it. It wouldn't be completely deleted so no work is really lost, but would prevent articles that do not meet GNG for staying on mainspace for too long.

  Please ping me! 10:35, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

• Support in line with JoelleJay. BilledMammal (talk) 06:03, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support sounds like a good way to clean up non-notable topic articles. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:18, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support in line with JoelleJay as well.
  Please ping me! 10:32, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Comment - I think this misses the point of why the SNG exists. It's not just for articles to be created easier. We absolutely should not be suggesting to editors that we want them to have a single reference on a new article. We really want to have an article that demonstrates GNG on the outset. The issues are when we are talking about items that are either foreign language, or where the sourcing would likely be offline (or otherwise difficult to locate). The point of SNG is to point to a specific group of people, and comment that they should be notable, as similar articles we've already proven do meet the guidelines. Here's an example:

So, say a Japanese player from 1960 has a database entry and nothing else, a similar Japanese player from the same time period already has some offline sources. Would we really want to take the other article to AfD and have the article deleted simply because those reading the AfD don't have access to those sources and/or not speak Japanese?

I don't think we gain anything by saying the second bit at all, we should really promote articles being well created in the first place. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:57, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose, as this seems to be a way to functionally relegating SNGs to granting only a probationary status. I don’t see how this could be compatible with
  WP:NASTCRIT with respect to objects visible to the naked eye. Theknightwho (talk) 11:51, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  I believe this will only affect

  WP:NASTCRIT. BilledMammal (talk) 11:59, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  The proposal begins with “All subjects”, which feels like it’s intended to be wider, given that we were inherently already talking about all subjects in NSPORT anyway. Would it please be possible to get some clarification on this @JoelleJay? Theknightwho (talk) 12:26, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support: Heck, this should be routine for ANY SNG. My response to Theknightwho is that yes, this would mean that article creators would need to do a good bit more digging to source their sub-stubs, but I consider this a feature of the proposal, not a bug. Ravenswing 12:10, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Pragmatically, is this likely to result in mass AfDs for articles where reliable sources are primarily not in the English language and therefore difficult to locate? The existence of a RS and the ability to check that source are not the same thing, and it is the first that matters here. It feels like the current SNGs offer some level of protection against this problem at the moment, which wouldn’t be there without some objective criterion for presumption of notability. Theknightwho (talk) 12:26, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support as also a good step to help ensure article topics are notable and articles meet core policies. Levivich 14:03, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose on multiple and different grounds:

Procedural oppose This is an entirely new and different RfC that would dramatically change NSPORTS. For it to be considered, it should be opened as a new RfC, complying with RfC requirements, including notice to the impacted projects.

Summary: For those who don't see this for what it is, it's yet another attempt to crush NSPORTS -- after the last effort to do so failed -- and to impose a strong anti-sports bias on wikipedia by imposing new restrictions that do not apply to academics, entertainers, politicians, businessmen, or any other group or category. Appallingly bad proposal.

Oppose 1. One week (the duration of an AfD) is simply not a sufficient timeline in the case of pre-Internet topics. A topic should have at least a year after the article is created for editors to search for SIGCOV in libraries, paper archives, etc. Also, it's inappropriate for this requirement to be directed only at sports articles. If such a requirement is to be implemented, it should be across-the-board and not targeted at one group of articles.

Strong oppose 2. A rule stating that passing NSPORTS would have zero effect in AfD discussions would render meaningless the "presumption of notability" created by the SNG. It is really a back-door way to completely gut and neuter NSPORTS -- the very thing that was strongly opposed by the majority in the RfC above. As written, this continues to encourage creation of sub-stubs based solely on database entries. I favor imposing a requirement of including one example of SIGCOV (above and beyond a database) as a better solution.

Oppose 3. Hopelessly vague as to "very new" -- does that mean one week, a month, a year? It's also drafted to be completely toothless -- "discouraged", really?

The real solution: Don't gut NSPORTS. Instead, tighten the standards that are too loose, and impose a requirement to have at least one example of SIGCOV for all new articles (not just sports articles). Cbl62 (talk) 14:32, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note that I would oppose notification of wikiprojects, as this would cause

WP:CANVAS

issues specifically related to the partisan nature of the audience. If wide input it needed, it is better to widely advertise it in high traffic, relevant noticeboards.

As for "Oppose 2", shouldn't that be done by the creator of the article, before moving it to mainspace? BilledMammal (talk) 15:04, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

So you think it's appropriate to fundamentally change (more accurately, "gut") NSPORTS without providing a neutral notice to NSPORTS and its constituents? Unbelievable. Notices have been given. Cbl62 (talk) 15:20, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@

WP:CANVAS in two ways. I would ask that you rescind the notices, and publish neutral ones is nonpartisan forums - or at least hold a discussion here about which forums to notify before unilaterally doing so. BilledMammal (talk) 15:26, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Disagree. This is a proposal which you admit is targeted at NSPORTS ("I believe this will only affect

WP:NSPORT".) Yet, you oppose letting NSPORTS and its constituents know about this proposal -- a proposal that would render meaningless the presumption of notability for NSPORTS and no other guideline. If this change is to be properly considered, NSPORTS should be notified. Changes like this should not be made in the dark, but in the light of day. My notice (which you have now reverted twice) was neutrally worded and invited participants to weigh in one way or the other. Your substitute is meaningless and doesn't even say that the proposal has to do with sports!!!! In what way do you think my notice was not neutral or accurate? Cbl62 (talk) 15:35, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply

]

Moving this to your talk page. BilledMammal (talk) 15:38, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]