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"Notability guideline"

Is this still technically a "notability guideline", now that it seems to just function as a list of non-exhaustive suggestions of criteria that might get significant coverage? Nothing wrong with that, but I wonder if referring to this as a "supplement" would be better. Maybe I'm just nitpicking. 331dot (talk) 10:07, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

WP:N still reads:

A topic is presumed to merit an article if:
1. 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...

—Bagumba (talk) 12:30, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Not all SNGs presume notability, for example most of the subject-specific criteria at WP:NBIO simply tell us that the person is "likely" to be notable. Similarly, WP:NMUSIC uses "may be notable" for musical artists. –dlthewave ☎ 12:51, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    Per Bagumba above, and NSPORTS itself: The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below., NSPORTS does provide a presumption of notability on the same level as GNG. NemesisAT (talk) 12:59, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    Q5: The second sentence in the guideline says "The article must provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below." Does this mean that the general notability guideline doesn't have to be met?
    A5: No With the newer changes to the text (which make it clear the criteria only help determine whether a topic is likely to have SIGCOV), and with the many opportunities that you've had to understand this (this must have been explained to you plenty of times already), it's also untenable to keep supporting this position (although it might be less consequential now that the criteria are being adjusted to actually be reliable indicators). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:03, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    Feel free to get WP:N modified, or delist NSPORTS as an SNG.—Bagumba (talk) 20:37, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    Again, that sentence has literally nothing to do with WP:N. JoelleJay (talk) 22:04, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    I'm not saying that a page must be kept solely because it meets NSPORTS. But I also disagree that consensus can't be to keep if a minority is claiming GNG not met. It should be up to the participants. NSPORTS already says conversely, meeting any of these criteria does not mean that an article must be kept.—Bagumba (talk) 02:37, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
    The FAQ is incorrect. I'm quoting the guideline, which if it and the FAQ contradict, the guideline itself should take precedence. NemesisAT (talk) 23:32, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    It is not incorrect. The problem is you apparently just cannot grasp a minor nuance of the NSPORT guideline (which the FAQs are part of and accurately document) and repeatedly refuse to acknowledge that the consensus interpretation is fully consistent with the original intent behind the second sentence. JoelleJay (talk) 16:33, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
    Implicilty all notability guidelines provide presumed conditions for a standalone article that can still be challenged for appropriate reasons at AFD. We consider them as rebuttals presumptions that may be challenged in the future. This even includes the GNG if only the bare minimum of coverage can be found.--Masem (t) 13:06, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    What is your point? —Bagumba (talk) 20:38, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    With the changes, I think it is a "notability guideline" in name only. All I see it do now is guide readers towards players who are likely to have significant coverage. Sort of a "don't-waste-your-time guideline" if the article you want to create doesn't meet these minimal standards. There is no longer any presumed notability but instead it points us towards what we should focus on. It is more of a helpful supplement now with the recent neutering of power. It is still helpful, especially to new editors, but it is less helpful in overseeing and maintaining 1000s of articles. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:00, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    Fully agree with this - it is a guide only, giving editors an idea of what kind of articles might be notable. GiantSnowman 20:08, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    And if SNGs only identify what "might be notable", what does it provide over an essay? —Bagumba (talk) 20:42, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    I have asked those who have sought to abolish NSPORTS why they are concentrating on this particular SNG and not others, and nobody has yet given me a fair answer... GiantSnowman 21:03, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    None of the other SNG had "simple participation" criteria, and instead are principally based on merit-based criteria, which usually means that's at least one source that will give some significant coverage of the topic. The NSPORTS participation criteria gave no assurance that a source with significant coverage would be available, though this was argued this would exist for most cases. Even if this wa true, editors were not creating articles to include any of these types of sources, leaving them as star heavy stubs, which are against NOT and frowned on by the community. Keep in mind there have been similar efforts such as the NCORP revamp and the removal of the NSCHOOLS outcome that fall in line with removing participation based criteria. --Masem (t) 22:16, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    It appears that this NSPORTS guideline, used for well over a decade, has been softened and words changed from "presumed notable" to "presumed significant coverage." Two totally different things. "Presumed notable" is much more strict and was the basis in discussions for changing to no participation merits. "Presumed significant coverage" is much softer and is more amiable to participation such as major league baseball players or any NBA player. It's very confusing as to what we have here now except I see all the sport headers now say presumed significant coverage and removed notability. If we are going to remove participation then we should go back to "presumed notable" in all the headings. Changing the headings AND removing participation is far and above what is required here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:01, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
    As I am sure you know, this change (presumed to be notable → significant coverage likely to exist) was the result of the RFC #8, and was deemed necessary to avoid misuse of the SNG (i.e. NSPORT is not an alternative to GNG/BASIC and "presumed notable" gave the impression that it is). Removing simple participation (RFC #3) criteria doesn't change this. wjematherplease leave a message... 09:21, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
    ...instead are principally based on merit-based criteria...: WP:NACTOR allows the subjective "significant roles in multiple notable films".—Bagumba (talk) 08:37, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
    That's a far better metric than "participated in one professional game" - significant roles (usually meaning starring or co-starring rather than cameo, and thus will be the immediate subject of movie film criticism) and across multiple films means there's likely to be multiple secondary sources that will have significant coverage of the actor from those reviews alone. Just that in this type of case, it is far harder to skim databases to autogenerate articles, one usually has to do work to satisfy this criteria. But I still stress from what I said above: all notability guidelines are a rebuttable presumption of the allowance for a stand-alone article that can be challenged (after an appropriate BEFORE check) at AFD. --Masem (t) 17:02, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
    "significant role" is highly subjective. One game isn't the problem, it's that some leagues were chosen that shouldn't have been e.g. some of the multi-national sports had some fan thinking "their" country needed representation, or people wanting both genders represented etc. Those can now be removed, but the leagues where 1-game is an accurate barometer should be restored, if demonstrated.—Bagumba (talk) 17:21, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
    "Significant role" sets a far better bar than merely touching the field during a professional game. And the problem with participation-based criteria is that it caused editors to create massive number of stub-level articles across popular sports without any attempt to expand beyond basic stats, with the expectation that other editors would come and "clean up" after them. That's not acceptable anymore even if that was okay when WP was first starting out. --Masem (t) 22:27, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
    Serial microstub creation should be addressed at WP:STUB. Dumbing down NSPORTS wastes people's time at AfD, if there is a simple alternative to GNG. —Bagumba (talk) 02:08, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
@331dot, half of the SNGs listed at WP:N ultimately require GNG-level sourcing. These SNGs exist to provide quick, initial guidance on which subjects are likely to have received SIGCOV in multiple IRS based on meeting topic-specific criteria -- which in theory should predict GNG compliance 95% of the time. So allowances can be made at AfD for, e.g., an Olympic gold medallist or major award-winning film for which SIGCOV can't immediately be found due to lack of digital newspaper archives in the relevant country/time period. But the presumption is still rebuttable, so if someone comes along who does have access to those newspapers and can show SIGCOV doesn't actually exist in them, the article can and should be deleted. The issue has been with people interpreting an SNG's presumption of GNG as if it was a direct alternative to GNG, to the extent that editors will even acknowledge no IRS SIGCOV exists whatsoever but still claim an article should be kept based on meeting some SNG subcriterion. JoelleJay (talk) 22:25, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
And that's a reasonable assessment of how NSPORTS and SNGs are supposed to work. We were getting flooded with so many battles and edit wars and back and forths we couldn't do honest real to goodness work. So criteria was set forth that covered almost all cases. But in the rare instance where an article was called to the mat, if it couldn't provide that notability, it should be deleted or redirected. However, the person asking to show that notability had better have done some searching themselves before nominating. Just going around making dozens of deletion requests because they don't like it does no one any good and becomes disruptive. It should be "hey I'm not sure this article meets GNG... let me look around the interweb"... "Oh, I found something so I'll add it to the article so this doesn't happen to someone else" or "I couldn't find anything so I'll propose a deletion" in case someone else can find something. That's sort of how we expect it to work and should work. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:29, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

In regards to: There is no longer any presumed notability and it is a guide only. Not sure I agree that SNGs are "just a guide". This seems to be saying that SNGs are no more legitimate than an explanatory supplement such as WP:OUTCOMES. SNGs are legitimate in the sense that 1) they can be used and given weight in deletion discussions, and 2) NPPers are allowed to use these criteria to presume a topic notable and mark it as patrolled. Any attempt to reduce this to "just a guide" (which I read as "just a prediction of common outcomes") should really get an RFC with the question "should WP:NSPORT be demoted from guideline to explanatory supplement?" Which by the way I would not support, but I think it deserves a full RFC to make this shift from "can use this to determine notability" to "is just a list of common outcomes". –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:51, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

That RFC seems to pretty much already have happened and it's why everything is being softened and presumed notable is being completely removed from the article. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:58, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I think that for at least several weeks, big changes where the RFC is cited as the impetus should be limited to removal of the participation criteria. Trying to tackle giant fuzzy questions like those above is not RFC related and too much to add to the mix right now.North8000 (talk) 13:44, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Can we take the drama out of this and have a fun transition?

Folks on both sides of the RFC are volunteers working to build a good encyclopedia. The debate is merely seeing things differently on how best to do that. Even amongst those opposing #3 there seems to be a fair amount of acquiescence with raising the NSports bar a bit. Those who maintain NSports should realize that the rest of the community had a very difficult time trying to have input to change the large complex NSports guideline. Proposing and passing a change on the "did it professionally for one day" criteria was way to grab onto a specific to do this, plus deal with the specific criteria often cited as the poster child for NSports setting the bar too low.

Amongst all of the "oppose" folks on #3 I saw very few that said "we need to have a participation-only way in". Most opposes were for other reasons such as the change being too jarring, too fast, not needed, or removing something without a replacement. (though the closer noted that GNG is a replacement if/when needed). What this means is that there may not be be a substantial conflict on the fundamental question in #3 which is: "To have or not have a "participation-only" way in?"

Could it be possible for nearly everyone involved to just dive in and do an enjoyable process of implementing this change? Could this be a recipe:

  1. Everyone (including persons who maintain NSports and ones from both sides of the debate)just start quickly making the bare minimum changes needed to implement #3. I.E. remove the "participation only" criteria, and, if it breaks nearby text, make the bare minimum changes needed in the nearby text to avoid breaking it.
  2. We need to recognize that #1 will still leave loose ends, and needs to fill in NSports. Let's make the process freer / easier than usual for the folks who maintain those sections to make the needed changes. Including WP:BRD being considered to be a norm during the transition.
  3. A 60 day pause in applying the #3 criteria to articles that are already patrolled or autopatrolled by yesterday.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:23, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

+1.
To those who, like me, supported these subproposals, we should recognize that it's a big change, that a lot of editors have fought against for years, and it's going to take more than a few days to "digest", as it were. It's perfectly reasonable to hold off on the implementation of an RFC while the RFC close is under review (and, as I should have recognized earlier, that review process started with the first message on the closer's talk page).
To those who did not support these subproposals, we should recognize that at least some of the subproposals clearly have consensus and are not going to be overturned (some are not even under review), and there is no reason to hold up the partial implementation of the uncontroversial parts while other parts are under review.
N8k brings up another good point, which is that, after changes are made to NSPORTS, nobody should rush to mass-nominate articles for deletion. Articles that previously met the SNG that no longer meet the SNG should be tagged with {{notability}}, and some reasonable amount of time should be given before they are nominated for deletion. (60 days sounds reasonable to me.) (And don't forget WP:BEFORE.) Levivich 22:35, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
I agree that we shouldn't be rushing to mass-nominate articles for deletion, but I don't believe your solution of tagging with {{notability}} will work, as some editors mass-revert those without addressing the issue. BilledMammal (talk) 01:45, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
If that happens those who do it should get a polite talking to. And if it keeps happening without the issues being solved then a more stern talking to. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:49, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
+1
Everyone needs to calm down, drop the WP:BATTLEGROUND if it exists, and try to seek compromises where those are required (for example, by not rushing to delete stuff, nor attempting to reinstate material which was altered according to the new consensus) while accepting that this is how things are going to be moving forward. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:49, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
Are you trying to be ironic here? Between the battleground behaviour, bludgeoning, and gravedancing, perhaps you can lead by example. Nfitz (talk) 06:57, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
I don't know if anybody is "gravedancing" but merely saying it can unnecessarily create it in minds where it does not exist. This was merely a debate between fellow Wikipedians with different opinions in this particular area, and we went through a process to decide.North8000 (talk) 12:31, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

No, nothing about this transition is going to be fun. Deleting an article feels the same as euthanizing someone’s pet. Jeff in CA (talk) 09:13, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

  • this is all well and good in principle, but we have editors like @Levivich: making INVOLVED changes that they know are going to rile people up (and which I have neither the time or energy to deal with), and then when editors like myself who opposed the RfC (albeit it whilst recognising change was made) suggesting new proposals and having them shot down by editors who clearly haven't a clue - very disheartening all round. GiantSnowman 10:10, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
    • Sorry that my editing this page disheartens you, but you should stop claiming "involved" prevents anyone from editing this page, there is no such rule. Levivich 15:20, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
      It is was wholly inappropriate for somebody who admits to having "supported these subproposals" to then make a call on the implementation of the same by entirely removing the SNG for the most popular sport on Wikipedia/in the world - but that's just me I guess! GiantSnowman 16:25, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
      It is just you. This was discussed already at the AN close review: there is no rule or anything that prevents someone who !voted in an RFC from implementing the RFC. Just for the sake of a complete record, here is the edit in which you made this specious claim, and here is the discussion about it ("Who may implement the changes that have consensus?"), in which no one agreed with you. Levivich 16:41, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
      WP:INVOLVED still applies. GiantSnowman 18:22, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
      INVOLVED would apply for admin actions or for closing discussions. Not implementing the results of said closure, which would logically be done by the people who are most interested in implementing said results, i.e. those who participated in it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:52, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
      and yet you all would be the first to complain if somebody from the 'other side' did similar... GiantSnowman 18:53, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
      I rarely have a need to link WP:ABF to any experienced editor (or any editor at all, generally), but since apparently we're talking about "other sides" and not about collaboration, might be worth it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:56, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
      Alas, there are sides here, as we all know, and everything I have tried to do to bridge the gap has essentially been thrown back in my face. Now I know why some editors haven't bothered. GiantSnowman 19:05, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
      Oh, and I was referring to the closing of discussions - here. GiantSnowman 08:57, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
    • @GiantSnowman: I assume that you were referring to the football removal. I took a look at that when it was done. It appears that those were 100% "participation only" criteria and so that full removal was the bare minimum needed to implement #3. I'm not not bringing this up to debate, but instead to see (via this example) if there's any way for a more fun transition.....to all just say "yeah, #3 happened, let's all just quickly get the bare minimum done to implement it, and then move on and build from there as needed." Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:58, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
    • @GiantSnowman: Also, did you mean that there's an issue with getting "replacement criteria" in? Perhaps during the transition we should "lower the bar" to let that work get done more easily, with the understanding that it might need fine tuning later. Sincerely,. North8000 (talk) 18:03, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
      I think removing the old SNG, when a discussion regarding a new SNG, was foolish. Currently we have a void. GiantSnowman 19:03, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
      Which is filled very conveniently by WP:GNG and WP:NBASIC until such time that the discussion can be completed. Having something that is broken is worse than having nothing at all: at least, we're not giving misleading advice. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:16, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

All good points. But my suggestion is more along the lines the lines of folks from both sides of the RFC debate saying: either way, #3 is decided, let's all get 'r done. Participation based stuff out, new work put in, onward and upward. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:51, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Test case for rugby union

T. J. Anderson (rugby union) was proposed for deletion last week. A very reasonable PROD, it was a one-line article sourced to one dead link. I have sourced it up and expanded it, and it now more than satisfies the old standard of participation in a fully professional competition, and the standard I proposed of participation across multiple seasons. But he's a journeyman pro at best, and I think he could be a useful test case to establish where people think the line should be drawn. Is he a notable player, and are the sources I've added sufficient to establish notability? --Nicknack009 (talk) 08:47, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

What I see that immediately stands out is: A) relatively recent player (retired less than a decade ago, still alive, most if not all of his career in modern-day internet era) B) family relations which might explain some of the pre- and post-sports noteworthiness (although, if he were not already notable, such a detail would not be enough); C) despite that, the article is still mostly a "X played Y and Z from A until B" (I'm caricaturing a little bit, but that's about it). The sources seem to confirm this as something of an edge case (I see two interviews, one newspaper summary of an autobiography written by the father [which would not be an independent source]; one piece which I can't access but looks like an interview from the title [Belfast Telegraph / 08.10.2008]; 2 contract announcements, 1 stats database). If this were an AfD, since the sources don't seem to meet the GNG requirements, a redirect to an appropriate page would probably be an option, based on just the article; and I probably wouldn't know what to do after a search because I'd get conflicting results with another T. J. Anderson (and looking for "T. J. Anderson rugby" doesn't yield much if anything of value); although in this case I might be less concerned than with a similar player for whom we don't have any other information besides the "X played for Y and Z"-style stuff. See, each article is unique and that's why I try to avoid broad criteria unless they're really hard to dispute (for example, if he'd played for his national team, notability would probably be undisputable and we'd have coverage to confirm that). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:27, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
If this was taken to AFD, the community would probably spill lots of ink trying to sort out whether the sources do meet GNG, even as the information in the article is verifiable (perhaps even more than the length of the article). And, since Anderson played for multiple professional teams, there is no obvious redirect target (he played for three teams, serving as vice captain for Eating [where he only played one year]). As Nicknack009 developed the article, we have a good sense of Anderson's life and career achievements. Enos733 (talk) 16:20, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
I would say there is not enough in the sources provided to establish notability per BASIC/GNG. wjematherplease leave a message... 16:30, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

It's article that has lots of real text covering a multitude of topics. It has 8 references and an editor or editors has done a lot of work on it. According to the fuzzy Wikipedia Notability ecosystem, this puts it in the most keep-able 10% of sports articles. So to potential deleters, the notability ecosystem will say "leave it alone and go spend your time on the other 90%". And doubly so for the next few months after the RFC as things get worked out at the SNG. North8000 (talk) 19:35, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Wjemather, I am not seeing him meeting GNG based on the sources in the article. Interviews are not independent and therefore do not contribute to notability unless there is also substantial commentary by the author, and the rest of the sources are deficient in significant coverage or are not independent either. JoelleJay (talk) 20:39, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
I agree that technically the provided sources don't meet a thorough interpretation of GNG. Expanding on one part of my post, this is non-typical PROD/AFD article being brought up at an non-typical time (during the SNG transition) and so is currently not a useful test case. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:52, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
It's a useful test case for me as a rugby union editor, as it clarifies what people are thinking counts as notable following the RfC. The consensus seems to be that a player like Anderson, a journeyman pro with no international callups or major club achievements, is not notable enough for an article of his own, and the kinds of sources I've been able to find for him are not significant enough coverage. In future, for players of this sort of stature, don't make an article. So thank you.
RandomCanadian suggests a redirect would be appropriate, but there is no current article suitable to redirect to. I've done a mockup List of Irish professional rugby union players in my sandbox, based on the A's in the Irish rugby union players category. Would this be the sort of thing you had in mind? --Nicknack009 (talk) 06:36, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
Lists such as the one you are sandboxing (although with each entry summarised in less detail) are exactly the kind of thing I would like to see being adopted as a solution for biographies of players where the BASIC/GNG level coverage that is required for a standalone article is not available. wjematherplease leave a message... 10:26, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
I've done a précis on the first name in the list, hopefully that's more to your liking. --Nicknack009 (talk) 12:19, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
Yes, that's more like what I had in mind. It would be good to hear what others think. wjematherplease leave a message... 12:31, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
@Nicknack009: Sorry, I misunderstood. I was thinking about / commenting on interpreting it as a "test case" for the overall temporary current situation here.North8000 (talk) 12:39, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Gymnastics

Is there a reason why the gymnastics criteria only applies to artistic gymnastics and not to rhythmic gymnastics? I know very little about the sport, but I would imagine that their World Championships provide similar levels of notability. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:25, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Artistic gets orders of magnitude more coverage than rhythmic. wjematherplease leave a message... 11:30, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Came here to say the same thing as Wjemather. GauchoDude (talk) 14:12, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Sport by sport review

What this needs, then, is a sport by sport review. For some sports it's obvious that the criteria are indeed "merely participate in one game"; for others less so, but this annoying cycle of reverts isn't going to stop until an agreement can be made about which sports are and which ones aren't. So, starting from the top: RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:12, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with a sport by sport review but, while it is ongoing, I propose no changes to any SNG until agreed below or, as with the Olympics above, evidence of pre-agreement can be demonstrated. No Great Shaker (talk) 05:04, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
The first step of BRD is B, not D. If some of the changes are controversial, sure, discuss them below, but others are very obvious and shouldn't have been reverted in the first place. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 06:09, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
As the R of BRD has been done, we're now in the D phase. Joseph2302 (talk) 09:16, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
This seems like an unnecessary restriction since many of the criteria are straightforward and have not been objected to on participation-related grounds. I don't think it's right to revert the whole thing en masse and then insist that every change must now be discussed. –dlthewave ☎ 15:03, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

American football/Canadian football

Removed. NGRIDIRON was the example given in RFC #3 of an SNG that would be removed if participation-based criteria were removed. There was consensus in the RFC to do that, and that's been re-affirmed here. Levivich 17:13, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

The only criteria is indeed purely and rather explicitly "participation in one game", Have appeared in at least one regular season or post-season game... I'd say remove. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:57, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  • Not seen any participation from American/Canadian football participants, will post on their Wikiproject talk pages. I assume that a change like ones being suggested for association football could work. Joseph2302 (talk) 09:16, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Remove - This one is very straightforward. No objection to creating merit-based criteria in the future. –dlthewave ☎ 14:41, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Keep, having done a large amount of work on American/Canadian football topics, I'd say the current criteria works well (though I would support a little bit of tightening, e.g. up the CFL and USFL to five games). BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:07, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
    The question is not whether they work well or whether they could work with some tightening. The question is A) are those "participation in one game" criteria B) is there an obvious way to remove the "participation in one game" criteria without having to remove the rest? Given the answer to A is "yes" and B is "no", then, per the consensus to remove such criteria, they should be removed. This is without prejudice to creating a stronger criteria, but that doesn't mean the current one shouldn't go until such a time (and in fact, maybe removing them and upsetting the now obsolete pre-RFC status quo will give the impetus to come up with better ones)... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:44, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Remove for now, and allow the project to come up with more stringent guidelines. Natg 19 (talk) 17:33, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Remove per the consensus of subproposal 3. Avilich (talk) 21:12, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Remove per the consensus, and note that protesting this is utterly disruptive nonsense that should be sanctioned. JoelleJay (talk) 21:19, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
  • No it isn't disruptive, the RFC close clearly said that discussions should be had, and this is one of these discussions. Someone disagreeing with you is not the definition of disruptive. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:11, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
    Discussions should be had for cases that aren't clearly merit- or participation-based. GRIDIRON is clearly participation-based and there is zero reason to delay implementing the RfC consensus except to be disruptive. JoelleJay (talk) 16:40, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
  • It could however be argued that the National Football League is a merit-based participation, as it's the biggest gridiron football competition in the world. Which is explicitly allowed by the RFC closer. Merit-based participation being allowed was part of the RFC close, so we cannot just blanket remove everything saying "participation based". I have no objections to anything else participation based being removed, but NFL is a class above the other tournaments, and so I believe almost all players would be notable. Joseph2302 (talk) 09:41, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    You may disagree with the consensus, but since subproposal #3 used it as an example, there is a consensus that NGRIDIRON is based on mere participation and needs to be removed. BilledMammal (talk) 09:49, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
Excluding a few of the 1987 replacements, I'd say every person who's played in the NFL post-merger (or at least 99.9%) meets GNG (I don't recall us ever finding a GNG-failing player post-merger). I'd say 99% of players pre-merger also meet GNG. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:19, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Association football (soccer)

Removed. There is consensus, though not unanimous, that both NFOOTY is participation-based criteria. The argument, "remove but only with replacement" contradicts the RFC result; local consensus here can't override the outcome of that RFC, which was to "remove", not "discuss a replacement". There is nothing wrong with discussing a replacement, and those discussions are ongoing, but there is no justification for not removing it per the RFC until a replacement is agreed-upon. Arguments about whether NFOOTY was or was not an accurate predictor of GNG are irrelevant at this stage; that's what was discussed at the RFC. Arguments about the NFL are also irrelevant here. The only relevant question is whether NFOOTY is "merit based" or "participation based", and consensus, though not unanimous, is that it's the latter. Levivich 17:13, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Here again, both criteria are rather obviously "participation in one game", [played or managed] in any Tier 1 International Match; in a competitive game between two teams from fully professional leagues.. Again, remove (with no prejudice towards whatever the FOOTY project might suggest, I've given my word about that at the relevant place). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:57, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree with removal, but only with replacement. GiantSnowman 09:47, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
That sounds reasonable, but there needs to be a limit, and if a replacement is not agreed on within the limit then it should be replaced with GNG. How long do you believe is required to propose and get a consensus for a replacement? BilledMammal (talk) 10:03, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
I am obviously INVOLVED/biased, and therefore quite possibly looking at the discussion completely wrong, but I think we have a rough consensus on the wording of the guideline, we just need to finalise the list of leagues? Your takes @RandomCanadian and BilledMammal:? GiantSnowman 10:18, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
The proposal to keep the criteria mostly as is (the text of Wikipedia:Notability_(sports)/Association_football#Proposed_guideline is very similar to the one quoted here) but tighten the list of leagues is essentially not really a change and won't really solve the issue or be in line with the consensus to remove such "participated in one game" criteria. Even if we take the discussion about "highest level of the game" from above, and agree (just for the sake of the following argument) that that might be an appropriate criterion (as there definitively is some significant merit in playing for such a club), most of the leagues listed in the new proposal are definitively not that (and, as one would have it, the further away you go from stuff like the Premier League or the Bundesliga, or other similar top level European leagues which have plenty of foreign talent, the more "exceptions" to SIGCOV exist). And having the leagues which are almost automatic indicators of notability be kept on a Wikiproject page should be avoided unless the list is truly of significant proportions. I'd argue that, even with football, there is no justification for making such an out of proportion list that would warrant that treatment. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:09, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
You've clearly either not read or misunderstood the proposal then. It is made clear that there is no such thing as automatic notability, but only a guide that significant coverage might exist. GiantSnowman 14:20, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
That it says "significant coverage is likely to exist" (and not "presumed to be notable") and the fact that the requirement to meet NBASIC has been explicitly spelt out, while good things, does not mean that this is how they are going to be interpreted in practice (see: how the guidelines have previously been misinterpreted), and does not mean that the suggested list of leagues is going to be an accurate indicator of when such significant coverage is likely to exist. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:26, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Alas, we cannot be responsible for how editors implement the guidelines and policies - we can only clean up after the fact. That applies whether we have a loose SNG, a tight SNG, or no SNG at all. That is not a reason not to push forward with the changes proposed. GiantSnowman 14:28, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Agree, the point of NSPORT is to be a guide for who/what might be notable, and that is clearly referenced back to NBASIC/GNG. The fact that some editors try and use it as a black-and-white policy is wrong, but not the fault of the guidelines themselves. Also, as per the RFC closer's comments, merit-based participations should be looked at, which is what we're trying to do. Playing in the Premier League for example is a great achievement, and so everyone who makes appearances there will almost certainly be notable. So condensing to a smaller list of the very top leagues that get lots of coverage makes it more of a merit-based participation, and is compliant with NBASIC and GNG. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:36, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
That's what I tried to do here. Maybe people were just reluctant because I didn't explicitly list the leagues? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:17, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Which is fine, but that list is far too narrow I'm afraid. GiantSnowman 15:47, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
@GiantSnowman: On the other hand, it is a merit-based list and not a mere participation one, so that's definitively a positive. It's also possible to add a note that a list of additional leagues and competitions which may have resulted in significant coverage also exists (i.e. the existing FPL list, ideally tightened where it needs to be), but that it should not be used as a presumption of such coverage existing (as I also proposed for cricket). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:47, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
good point - let me ponder and have a think about a proposal v2, at the subpage. GiantSnowman 08:50, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
The replacement is WP:NBASIC. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:05, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Then why not get rid of every SNG? GiantSnowman 14:18, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Rhetorical point-winning aside, seems it is clear the standard for inclusion should ultimately be NBASIC/GNG (given existing consensuses to that effect and the basic requirements of writing an encyclopedic [as opposed to database] entry). What the role of SNGs is in that should probably be taken closer to what the text itself currently says, i.e. as rules of thumb to help determine whether a given subject is likely to meet those criteria, not as alternatives to it (despite the fact it has been misused as an alternative by way too many for way too long). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:23, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Implementing a version of RandomCanadian's proposal is a way better interim solution that removing everything as proposed here. As long as there is scope for refining it in future with consensus, as I believe there are certainly more leagues that could be added to the notable top divisions point. Joseph2302 (talk) 08:02, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Remove regardless of potential replacements, as per the closing statement of subproposal 3. In the meantime WP:SPORTCRIT will decide the notability of footballers. Avilich (talk) 21:12, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
    you mean the bit that says, in part "The guidelines on this page are intended to reflect the fact that sports figures are likely to meet Wikipedia's basic standards of inclusion if they have participated in or achieved success in a major international competition at the highest level" - so a participation-based criteria?! GiantSnowman 21:21, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out, 'participated' will have to be removed from that too. Avilich (talk) 21:40, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Remove. Any participation-based replacement criteria should gain community-wide consensus before implementation, not before. The positive predictive value of NFOOTY as a whole has been pure, anti-empirical garbage and will remain so regardless of league pruning until editors can actually show playing in League X actually predicts what it's meant to predict 95% of the time. JoelleJay (talk) 21:29, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Remove - Straightforward participation based criteria. –dlthewave ☎ 03:27, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Keep for international footballers, which is a merit based appearance, which is permitted as per the RFC closer. Also, most international footballers pass GNG, so they are "likely to be notable". Either that or wait for agreement on the new criteria- we don't need to rush into changing everything immediately, and then change it again in a few weeks when there's a consensus for a new guideline. Joseph2302 (talk) 07:38, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    Too many international footballers do not get significant coverage and fail BASIC/GNG; indeed for many countries, almost no international players (especially women) receive significant coverage. A vague claim of "most" is not enough. The replacement guideline will require tightening in this regard so it needs to be removed from here now. wjematherplease leave a message... 07:55, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    Almost all international players do meet GNG, which means "likely" is correct. "Likely" doesn't mean that 100% of people will achieve it, but I'm pretty sure 98%+ of international footballers do. Joseph2302 (talk) 07:58, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    Evidence from AFD, plus thousands of contentless stubs, does not support your assertion. wjematherplease leave a message... 08:01, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    Just because someone has created a stub and not improved it, that doesn't mean sources don't exist. And the AFDs are the ~1-2% of international players, but it's a guideline for what's "likely" not an absolute rule that everyone who meets the criteria must be notable (anyone who applies NFOOTY like this is wrong). We could also exclude friendly/exhibition international matches, as most of the non-notables have, in my experience, only played these matches, or could limit to competed at a major tournament (World Cup, or relevant Continental Competition e.g. UEFA European Championship, AFCON etc and women's equivalents). But most international players are notable, and refinement is way better than blanket removal in my opinion. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:01, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    I would agree that internationals should be restricted to appearances in world or continental finals (or similar) tournaments. Please note however, that this discussion is not for agreeing replacement or refined guidelines, just removing the relevant clauses per the RFC consensus. wjematherplease leave a message... 10:45, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    There are plenty of international football players that have been deleted at AfD after extensive searches for SIGCOV. "International" can mean a Gibraltar club playing against a Spanish club, or Liechtenstein playing Switzerland, or whatever. We definitely cannot presume SIGCOV exists for 95% of these players from all time periods. JoelleJay (talk) 21:56, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    I don't think that a single appearance in international football is any more merit-based than a single appearance in the NFL, which was specifically called out in subproposal 3 as an example of a participation-based criteria that should be eliminated. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE    ) 15:41, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    One game NFL players are usually notable. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:47, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
    What a blatantly misleading comment. Like come on, we are obviously not talking about players who played one NFL game but later coached NFL teams; or later played multiple games of professional football in NFL Europe, Arena Football, or in the CFL; or were signed to active rosters of other NFL teams in the internet era; or had notable college careers; or are current NFL players. JoelleJay (talk) 21:48, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Remove per consensus of Subproposal #3. Obviously some editors don't like that consensus, but that doesn't invalidate it. Ravenswing 18:06, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment I saw several reasons for sub-proposal 3. First, there was a feeling there were too many articles about athletes. Second, that too many articles were sourced only to databases. Third, there was a feeling that too many editors would cite "Keep: passes NSPORT" at AFD without examining the sources. To me, sub-proposal 3 used a broad brush to try to solve these problems. I also think that NFOOTY was the poster child for the complaints, as "playing in a professional game," sourced only to a database and no indication that independent reliable sourced material exists(ed). That all said, I do not think the community necessarily has a problem with recognizing that it is strongly likely that a person who participates in an elite league (or in a league that regularly receives substantive press coverage) would likely pass NBASIC. I think the burden now is to show that all players in a particular league do meet NBASIC and if so, there should be no concern with recognizing that in the SNG. --Enos733 (talk) 04:34, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
I also think that at AFD sourcing should be evaluated more leniently for a subject that passes an SNG, and subjects who do not pass a SNG should have sources scrutinized more closely. --Enos733 (talk) 04:34, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Athletics

This one is just too complex. I'd be open to a suggestion to rewrite this entirely, independently of the "participation" issue (the numbers about which races might be notable, for example, seem quite arbitrary). Some sub-criteria might need removing (for example, there was consensus to remove mere participation at the Olympics without medaling, this should be expanded to the other similar stuff). In short, partial remove. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:00, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  • I think cutting the list from people who finish top 8 in events to top 3 would seem reasonable (and be in line with the Olympic guidelines). I'm not convinced everyone who finishes 8th in a World Marathon Majors passes GNG, but the top 3 always do in my experience. And all of these are merit rather than participation based, which seems to be what people want. Joseph2302 (talk) 08:59, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Australian rules football

Being discussed at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 48#Protected edit request on 29 March 2022 (2). Seems with linking to the discussion here for consistency, but please comment at that discussion instead. Joseph2302 (talk) 08:48, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Baseball

(for reference, version before removal before this was written) No. 2-5 are obvious participation-only criteria (although no. 4, not being about players, might be a special case). Implicit approval, thus, of removing that which has already been removed. On the other hand, given the removal of mere participation, there'd probably be grounds to list stuff such as participation in the yearly all-star games. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:06, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  • Remove #2-#5, these are participation-based. –dlthewave ☎ 14:46, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Remove 2 through 5, per consensus of Subproposal #3. Ravenswing 18:07, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Keep parts of 2 and 4. We have a lot of AfDs of National League and American League players who have played in only 1 Major League game over the years. And as far as I can tell, the only ones for which enough sources to at least marginally meet GNG have not been found (including 19th century players and very recent players) have been a handful whose first names were not known. Since those have now been collected in a separate article there is no good reason to presume that National and American league players, managers and commissioners who have played in or managed (or commissioned for) at least 1 major league game are not notable. Rlendog (talk) 19:08, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Remove 2 to 5. They're still just participation criteria, and if many of one category are notable then this is redundant anyway, probably belongs in a wikiproject essay instead. Avilich (talk) 00:21, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment Which MLB players have not met GNG? If Rlendog is correct, there is no reason not to include MLB players in the SNG. --Enos733 (talk) 04:36, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Endorse removal of 2-5 as 'mere' participation criteria. The core of RFC #3 is that appearing in one game is not sufficient, and it doesn't really matter in what league, or what tournament, that game is played. "Merit-based" means the individual had some kind of recognized individual accomplishment that sets the individual apart from their peers, and "appearing in a game" is not such an accomplishment, because all of the individual's peers will also have had that "accomplishment". (If you're an MLB player, then your peers are other MLB players, and every MLB player will have played in an MLB game.) If it were otherwise, we'd be saying that every player in a given league, or a given tournament, was likely to be notable, and that's exactly what the community decided not to do by eliminating participation-based criteria in RFC #3. Levivich 20:20, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
    • The same could be said for any achievement. If you are an MLB MVP then your peers are other MLB MVPs and every MLB MVP would have won an MVP. The point is that we have been able to find sources for every MLB player whose first name has been known that has come up at AfD that I am aware of (and if you are aware of a counterexample, please let me know), including many 19th century and dead ball players who played in one or very few AL or NL games. If that is the case then the statement that "Significant coverage is likely to exist for baseball figures if they played in at least one AL or NL game" is correct and there is no reason to eliminate that. Not acknowledging that is just adding unnecessary bureaucracy and any such nuances in the previous discussion were buried in the massive scope.Rlendog (talk) 21:18, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
      "The point is ..." I disagree, that's not the point. The point here is about whether criteria are merit-based or participation-based. "the statement that ... is correct and there is no reason to eliminate that." I disagree, and I see this as re-arguing the RFC. The RFC decided that "played in at least one AL or NL game" is not sufficient criteria. There's no point in discussing that further, here.
      What you said about peers is true, but it's about calibrating the level at which we group 'peers'. So if a criteria was, "Was an MLB MVP", then that would be a merit-based criteria. Being an MVP isn't about participating in anything, it's about winning something (the MVP award). So it's not participation-based at all. Whereas, playing in a game in the majors, is participation-based.
      "Played in at least one AL or NL game" is participation-based. "Drafted in the MLB" is merit-based. "Called up from the minor leagues" is merit-based. It may be that everyone who played in at least one AL or NL game was drafted or called up... but still, the former is participation-based, the latter two are merit-based. Levivich 21:25, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
      I agree the past RfC reached a general consensus, but it did not discuss each individual sport and so did not decide on the specific validity of "played in at least one AL or NL game". Now that the general discussion is over, each individual sport can proceed to discuss new proposals based on the predictor principle. If a criterion can be demonstrated to be a highly accurate predictor of suitable coverage satisfying the general notability guideline, then we can evaluate it on its own merits. isaacl (talk) 21:42, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Remove #2-#5 - I agree with the previous points made above, regarding those criteria, as they were often used for automatic keep votes even in the absence of passing GNG. Lose them. Fred Zepelin (talk) 00:14, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Curling

Regarding this edit: participants in the world championships are national champions, and so have been selected on the basis of merit. Participation in the Canadian Olympic curling trials is also based on merit—winning specific elite events or accumulating sufficient Canadian Team Ranking System points. (Due to the large numbers of elite Canadian curlers, the Olympic trials are sometimes described as the world's most difficult bonspiel to win.) Thus I feel these criteria ought to remain for the present. isaacl (talk) 04:11, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I have notified the curling WikiProject of this discussion. isaacl (talk) 04:57, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
I agree that participants in World Championships should stay. It could be rephrased as notability is presumed if the curler has won a national championship; however, you will actually open up the guidelines for more curlers because there are curlers who win their national championships who do not make it to the World Championships. For example, in 2016 Anne Malmi won the Finnish Women's Curling Championship; however, Finland did not qualify for the 2016 World Women's Curling Championship; having said that, I have no issue with that expansion to all nation champions. It seems if you win a national tournament like that WP:GNG would not be difficult to meet. TartarTorte 13:11, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
These days, many countries do not send the winner of their national championship to the World Championship, and therefore many national championships aren't that important. However, one national championship that is important is the Canadian championships (Brier and Scotties), which arguably get more coverage than the Worlds. I saw that participation in those events was removed as well from the criteria, and I think we should discuss that a bit further. To get to the Brier/Scotties, a team has to win a provincial championship (unless they are a Wild Card team), which usually comes with significant coverage (less so for the Territories though). I would think that we should change the Brier/Scotties criteria to have finished in the top 3 in those events, or skipped a provincial championship team at the Brier/Scotties. A similar criteria should be for the Worlds, the curler should have won a medal, or skipped a national championship team at the Worlds, or something along those lines. -- Earl Andrew - talk 14:16, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
I did consider saying something about the Brier and Scotties, but due to the varying levels of elite curlers across the provinces and in particular the territories, I didn't want to make a proposal without more supporting evidence. I agree that national champion in itself isn't a good standard. Nations have to go through a qualifying process to participate in the world championships so I think it is a better indication of the existence of suitable coverage meeting the general notability guideline. Although there are some national curling associations that can appoint a team other than the national champion, I think it can be generally assumed this team is at least of equivalent level as the national champion, and so still feel it's reasonable to consider the team to have earned their spot through merit. (That being said, with winning a medal at the World Senior Curling Championships being in the current criteria, at a minimum it makes sense to also include winning a medal at the world championships.) isaacl (talk) 20:29, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
I guess with regards to curling I'm a bit of an inclusionist, but I am fine with any skip who won a provincial/territorial Briers or Scotties making it in. Presumably the wild card team(s) for any given year would also be notable from likely having won a previous year's provincial/territorial tournament. It's likely adding 10 skips per year which seems reasonable. TartarTorte 20:42, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
I've done quite a bit of research for historical articles on Briers/Scotties and curlers, and the skips will usually get significant coverage, no matter where they're from, though that's not always the case for other players. In any event, making the playoffs / finishing top 3 should be enough to qualify for notability at the very least. -- Earl Andrew - talk 21:22, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
That's good info to know—if you can show some of that work (demonstrating significant, independent, non-routine, non-promotional secondary coverage from multiple reliable sources) using a randomized sample across history, it would help with convincing the broader community. isaacl (talk) 21:26, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
I've randomly picked 10 Brier skips over the course of its history, and got three skips without articles: Gerry Glinz (NS, 1955)[1]), Bob Charlebois (ON, 1971 [2]), John S. Malcolm (NB, 1933 [3]). The rest have articles: Bruce Lohnes, Don Duguid, Brad Gushue, James Grattan, Peter Corner, Steve Laycock, Glenn Howard. -- Earl Andrew - talk 16:38, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
Endorse removal in the linked edit, basically for the same reasons I wrote in the baseball section. "Participated in X" is, in my view, participation-based, and not merit-based, even if "X" is an exclusive level of competition. Winning "X", or placing in the top 3, or something like that... that's merit-based. It has to be based on something beyond just playing in a game. Levivich 20:31, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
I appreciate this viewpoint (in particular, there's a bit of a gap between a curling team and its members). Just a note, though: participating in the World Championships or in the Canadian Olympic trials is not the same as just playing in a game. You have to compete and win a lot to qualify. isaacl (talk) 20:57, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
This is a general comment that applies to multiple sports: Yes, but every level of competition requires success at the prior level of competition. Everyone in the finals did well in the tournament; everyone in the tournament did well in the season; everyone in the major leagues did well in the minor leagues; every pro player did well as an amateur; etc. "Played in the Finals" is participation-based criteria; "won the Semi-Finals" is merit-based. Now, it may be true that (almost) everyone who plays in the Finals has won the Semi-Finals, but still, the former is participation-based and the latter is merit-based. This is especially a concern for team sports, where "played in the finals" means the team won the semi-finals, but not necessarily the player (and notability is not inherited, etc.). Levivich 21:20, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
Sure, but now that we are discussing specific sports, we can examine specific circumstances. These are the two of the three highest level bonspiels in curling. As Earl Andrew suggested, the qualifying championship victory can be explicitly included, such as won a national championship for a country participating in the world championships. isaacl (talk) 21:34, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
I'd agree with "won a national championship" as a criteria. For the criteria that were removed in the edit you linked, I'd support changing "participated in" to "won" in each case. Levivich 21:40, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
I'm not prepared to even go that far at this point; I've only discussed the world championships and the Canadian Olympic trials. As I mentioned above, I think "won a national championship" may be a bit too broad, and so think narrowing the candidate countries to those participating in the World Championships during the same curling season may be better. Let's see what others think. isaacl (talk) 21:49, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
That sounds good to me, though I think we need to include winning a World Championship medal to the list (for the cases of teams that didn't win a national championship).-- Earl Andrew - talk 17:38, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I'm waiting to see if anyone else weighs in before trying to summarize a more formal proposal. isaacl (talk) 20:03, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Based on the discussion so far, I propose the following changes: copy edited on April 13 to specify specific championship events

On a separate note, I propose either deleting item 1 entirely, or at least removing or participated in a Grand Slam of Curling event. It's not clear to me that winning an individual tour event is an adequate predictor of appropriate coverage meeting the general notability guideline. From a practical point of view, the history of the World Curling Tour spans a period where there is less of a need for buffer time to find adequate sources meeting the general notability guideline. isaacl (talk) 00:10, 11 April 2022 (UTC)

    • What about winning a Grand Slam event? If we're thinking of removing winning a tour event, we might want to replace it with winning a major bonspiel, perhaps one worth at least $50,000? Also, we need to include something about the Brier and Scotties still. -- Earl Andrew - talk 21:48, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
Here is my counter proposal:
A curler is presumed notable if he or she
  1. Has won a Grand Slam of Curling event, has won a major cash bonspiel with a purse of at least $100,000 or has won a cash spiel of at least $50,000 as a skip.
  2. Has skipped a team at the World Curling Championships (Men's and Women's)
  3. Has won a medal at one of the following World Curling Federation sanctioned events: the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, World Junior Curling Championships, World Senior Curling Championships, European Curling Championships, World Mixed Curling Championship, Pacific-Asia Curling Championships (or Pan-Continental championship), or World Wheelchair Curling Championship.
  4. Has skipped a team in the Brier or the Tournament of Hearts, or has made the playoffs at the Brier or Hearts.
  5. Has won a medal at the Canadian Junior Curling Championships.
  6. Has won the Canadian Mixed Curling Championship, Canadian Senior Curling Championship or Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Trials.
  7. Has skipped a team at the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, TSN Skins Game or Canada Cup of Curling.
  8. Is a member of the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame or the WCF Hall of Fame. -- Earl Andrew - talk 22:25, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
Personally, I don't like an open-ended criterion of a bonspiel with a purse of X. I prefer specific lists where the predictor principle can be evaluated and tested. Regarding Brier participation, seven out of ten wasn't a great percentage, and the coverage links you provided for the three was event-related coverage. It did provide a bit of background, but in my view, wasn't sufficient evidence of appropriate sources meeting the general notability guideline. Without more evidence that the predictor principle is met, I'm not prepared to support adding in the various other events in your proposal. I'm personally inclined to have more restrictive criteria, particularly when it comes to criteria that only apply over the last few decades. Skips in, say, the TSN Skins games don't need any extra buffer time to determine that the general notability guideline can be met. isaacl (talk) 23:46, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
Significant coverage is going to come with event coverage. Expecting significant coverage outside of actual events is being way too strict in my opinion, and I don't think is necessary. -- Earl Andrew - talk 13:45, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
Looking at the bigger picture: at present, English Wikipedia consensus is for athletes biographies to be more than a retelling of "X happened during event Y", and thus to meet the general notability guideline, there must be sources beyond routine event coverage. A few background sentences introducing each player at an event isn't enough by itself. In-depth player profiles, or enough information across sources to add up to an in-depth profile is the goal. I appreciate the shortcomings to this approach, but so far it's what the community has been able to agree upon. isaacl (talk) 15:24, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
I think the sources I provided on the random skips amount to more than "a few background sentences", they constitute significant coverage on them, and coupled with other sources can amount to in-depth profiles. We need to have some sort of Brier and Scotties inclusion criteria, because they have been for most of their history the highest level of curling in the world. -- Earl Andrew - talk 16:06, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
The link for Bob Charlebois has one sentence about him personally: "Born in Brandon, Man., Charlebois moved to Toronto in 1960 and is the youngest member of his rink which averaged 2 years and rated as the youngest foursome in the group of predominantly young men." The link for John Malcolm lists his father and son, but does provide a brief assessment of his competition overseas: "... the Scottish and English skips were impressed by the sensational work of J.S. Malcolm." I agree the link for Gerry Glinz is to a mini-profile of the skip and so provides more source material for a biography.
For better or worse, the standards for having an article on English Wikipedia are not based on achievements, but suitable coverage. With the latest RfC, the community has stated it no longer wants to have criteria solely based on being in the highest level of competition. (Personally, I think a case can be made if the predictor principle can be shown to hold, but that still remains to be seen.) Regarding need, as discussed by others, if there is appropriate sourcing available such that the general notability guideline is met, the wording of the curling-specific notability guidelines is moot, anyway. isaacl (talk) 20:08, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
If I had easy access to some Toronto newspapers I could probably find significant coverage (this seems to hint at something), but doing a quick search at newspapers.com I could find some coverage like the previous source that together could piece together a well sourced article. [4][5][6][7][8] -- Earl Andrew - talk 21:12, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Hey everyone, just reading the discussion now. I have a few questions about the notability guidelines before I share my thoughts. Firstly, what will happen with all the players articles that are now not notable with the new guidelines? Will they be deleted, or remain? Next, as much as skips get the most coverage, curling is a team sport with four players on a team. I don't love the idea of only using "skipped" in the guidelines because curling is a team sport and skips don't achieve their accomplishments without their three other teammates behind them. Also, by changing from "participated in" to "won X," it significantly limits the amount of articles that can be created. This is fine if this is the direction we are heading, but there are lots of good curlers who get close to winning many major events but can't finish it off. Personally, I don't mind the highest level events, such as the Olympics, World Championships, and Grand Slams staying as "participated in" because teams have to either win a big event to reach those events, or be consistently at the top of their game in order to secure qualification. -- TracyFleuryFan (talk) 16:44, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

The first point is easy to answer. Worth reading NSPORT. It doesn't define who is notable and who is not. So the new guidelines don't make any changes as to who is notable and who is not. Nigej (talk) 16:51, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
I figured adding skipped as criteria might be a good idea, because over the course of my research, it has become quite obvious that skips get quite a bit more coverage than anyone else on the team. To the point where the skip will get regular significant coverage, while the rest of the team doesn't. I'm happy with including everyone on the team for notability purposes, but I thought I'd stake some sort of middle ground. -- Earl Andrew - talk 16:56, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
I agree with this. Ultimately, if a curler meets GNG but not SNG, they're still notable and a properly-referenced article can still be made. (I think Margot Flemming is an example under the new proposed criteria.) And yes, there's certainly plenty of discussion in curling about how skips get all the attention, but the fact is that skips do get more coverage than non-skips, and notability requires significant coverage. I think the proposal looks good – #4 and #7 could be combined (and Skins taken out, per Isaac's comment): "Has skipped a team or made the playoffs at the Brier, Hearts, Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, or Canada Cup of Curling." This makes the guideline slightly more lenient, but if you look at any Trials/Canada Cup team list, meeting GNG is not an issue. Re: winning a bonspiel with a purse of X, even $50,000 is a lot, looking at prize purses in the last several seasons. As far as I can tell, this really hasn't conflicted with GNG, so I think #1 is still fine as proposed. Allthegoldmedals (talk) 17:08, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
I don't mind removing the Skins game criteria, it would presumably fall under any cash spiel criteria we set up. I can understand the hesitancy of adding an actual cash value to the criteria, especially considering exchange rates and whatnot, but I think given the fact that the WCT has only existed for 30 years, and it seems to be in the process of being replaced anyway (not to mention the fact that it includes a lot of tournaments with very small purses), means we should look at some other way of determining inclusion criteria for cash spiels.-- Earl Andrew - talk 17:39, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
I don't feel that it's worth arguing about the Brier, Hearts, Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, and Canada Cup of Curling with all of those who are against participation-based criteria. Particularly for the last two, there is so much sourcing available meeting the general notability guideline that a curling-specific guideline isn't needed for the affected curlers. isaacl (talk) 20:21, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Cricket

RandomCanadian proposed these guidelines on the WikiProject Cricket talk page:

Proposal

Significant coverage is likely to exist for a cricket figure if they:

  • Have played at the international level for a Test-playing nation
  • (for umpires) Have been a member of the Elite Panel of ICC Umpires

Additionally, cricketers who have played at the highest domestic level, or in the lower levels of international cricket,[a] may have sufficient coverage about them to justify an article, but it should not be assumed to exist without further proof.

  1. ^ For both of these, a detailed listing of which leagues or competitions are more likely (or not) to have such coverage is maintained by the cricket wikiproject, see WP:OFFICIALCRICKET.

What do you think of it? --Techie3 (talk) 08:53, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

  • I have already put my thoughts on the other page- it seems good to me. Have played at the international level for a Test-playing nation this is the top level of international cricket and so is a merit-based participation, we should probably list the years that teams have had Test status though. There are only 12 teams of each gender that meet this criteria, and this removes all the rubbish T20 International matches between minor countries. Elite Panel of ICC Umpires is also a merit-based participation (as there are many levels of umpiring below it, from domestic cricket, then the lower level Development Panel of ICC Umpires and International Panel of ICC Umpires- only c.30 people have ever reached the Elite Panel). I support listing the "may be notable, but coverage must be found" with a link to WP:OFFICIALCRICKET (which itself did a massive pruning of its scope last year), as a project based guideline that explicitly tells people to look for sources- that link itself may need modifications to make this message clear too. Joseph2302 (talk) 09:02, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
  • @Techie3: You implemented this proposal? Shouldn't it get consensus first? Levivich 20:26, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
    @LevivichThe concerned Wikiproject has implicitly accepted this definition, and I think there was a implied consensus, almost no one commented on this section or reverted the implementation. You can revert it yourself. Techie3 (talk) 23:49, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Cycling

Male

  • Remove #1-#3, (participation based), Keep #4-#5 (merit based). –dlthewave ☎ 15:13, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Actually, no. 2 might be partly on merit (there are only 3 Grand Tours: Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, Vuelta a Espana), and the "Monuments" are to the number of five, and include such stuff like Paris-Roubaix or other really well known races. A more obvious solution, however, instead of removing no. 2, would be to change it from mere participation to actually winning something (either an individual stage, or a race classification [for multi-stage races which award different classifications]; or finishing on the podium [for stuff like Paris-Roubaix]. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:35, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
      • Agree that for #2, the winner of a stage/top 3 of a one-day race seems sensible. #1 and #3 could just have "competed at" replaced with "won" and I'm sure that would be acceptable too. Seems like a simple fix to me, and way more sensible than just deleting it all. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:22, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Female

Figure skating

There is already consensus to remove simple Olympic participation at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(sports)/Archive_46#Figure_skating. I am proposing:

  • Merge #1, #2, #4 and #5 to "Medaled at an international senior-level event or the World Junior Figure Skating Championships"
  • Keep #3

There was also some talk about including "competed at an Olympics since 1992" in the above discussion, but it went nowhere because although 1992 did seem to correlate with increased coverage of skaters, the date seemed arbitrary. What wasn't mentioned in that previous discussion is that 1992 was the first Olympics after figure skating eliminated "compulsory figures", which drastically altered the sport and made it much more media friendly. Therefore, I feel that it's inclusion as a cutoff date makes perfect sense. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:56, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  • Support but could we also clarify in there what a "senior-level event" (for people who may be unfamiliar with it). For most other sports, we either list the competitions, or at least provide a link to where someone could find what qualifies or not. Joseph2302 (talk) 13:11, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
The events listed in the previous revision are mostly already listed in the linked wikiproject essay. Avilich (talk) 13:28, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Tennis

  • Remove #2 and #3 which are participation based. –dlthewave ☎ 03:23, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
    • 2 are a few international competitions. The solution might be to limit these to the highest level (the Fed Cup has multiple tiers; so does the Davis Cup; the Hopman cup can probably be kept as is due to limited numbers); but that's a bit of a more complex idea, so I'd support removing for the time being. For no. 3, changing "competed" to "won" likely solves the issue with minimal fuss (I could figure even some Grand Slam participants might not be reliably notable, especially in the early years and when travel to distant locations like Australia was not as practical as today). So remove 2, modify 3. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:38, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
    • Since the writing is very specific there is no need for removal at all. Participation at the WTA/ATP level is usually a guarantee of notability but it's not automatic with the change of NSPORT wording. The higher levels of BillieJeanCup/DavisCup is not a bad idea. For the most part these are used for new tennis players so early years with no ATP/WTA don't really come into play. Only at the four majors and even then almost all are notable. This is why it says "Though it is not a substitute for proper sourcing, significant coverage is likely to exist for tennis figures if they" etc etc etc. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:15, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
      • Fyunck(click), aren't you the one who added "though it is not a substitute for proper sourcing"? The consensus is to remove participation-based criteria, not keep it and soften the language. –dlthewave ☎ 04:47, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
        @Dlthewave No, it is to "remove simple or mere "participation" criteria, outside of ones related to Olympics and equivalent events. "
        As said by Mesem, "On the other hand, holding a record, winning an individual championship, or awarded a well-recognized award, are things that are generally assured that more coverage about the person will come in time." Techie3 (talk) 05:00, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
        I have reverted the edit by Fyunck, as this is still under discussion here. The language should not be unnecessarily softened in a bid to keep the criteria as is. Participation at the WTA/ATP level - I'd guess that might be true for modern times, maybe for the very top tournaments (Grand Slams, major ATP/WTA tournaments, maybe Olympics as well), but that has not always (particularly in the olden days before the Open era) or everywhere been the case, and it still is a participation-based criteria. Replacing the word "competed" with "won" would solve most of the issue. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 06:02, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
        Um... Pre-Open level had no ATP/WTA tournaments. That happened actually a few years after the Open Era started, so no issue there. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:16, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
        Grand Slams still existed (as did tennis at the first few Olympics). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 06:20, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
        • I did add that. I did it because NSPORTS itself was softening the language. From what I am reading in all the posts on the talk page is that NSPORTS no longer guarantees notability in forming an article. Is that true or not? It always has been but it seems to have changed from using NSPORTS as the basis for creating an article to using NSPORTS as a framework for creating an article. Which is it now? We can't have it both ways. If it is used as a framework then participation is perfectly fine. If it's to use as endowing notability then it's not. Administrator @331dot: even started a topic on this very issue that this guideline has changed from "presumed to have notability" to "presumed to have received significant coverage." Those have completely different meanings. I would never have changed NSPORTS nutshell had I seen differently. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:13, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
          • NSPORTS never "guaranteed" notability. At least, that's never what the text of the guideline said (from the very first sentence) nor how it's been interpreted in practice (plenty of instances of meeting one of the many criteria of NSPORTS but still not being notable). NSPORT is supposed to be an indicator of whether a subject is likely to have enough coverage to sustain an article. If the criteria are not accurate indicators of this, they need to be adjusted, and one of the most common reasons behind this problem is the proliferation of participation-based criteria which, except at the highest levels, do not usually have that strong of a correlation with reliable source coverage. There's a consensus to remove them. If you wish to come up with something better, you're free to do so (I'd suggest discussing it at the WP:TENNIS project); but as it stands the current criteria are flawed. Beyond the obvious fix (changing "competed" to "won"), there are still other issues outstanding which likely shouldn't be addressed here (to keep the conversation focused - as I said, go to WP:TENNIS and have a chat there if you wish to propose new, better criteria). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 06:20, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
            • NSPORTS was always portrayed as "presumed notable." It said it right up front for over a decade. Written by many many editors to refine it through the years. Now it seems to be portrayed as "presumed significant coverage." Those are totally different. Which is it? WP:Tennis is fine with their guidelines, it's here that we need to be clear what is changing. As 331dot said it is very confusing just what is happening and clarity on those two totally different phrases would help. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:39, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
              • We had an RfC which resulted in consensus to change all instances of the long-standing text, "presumed to be notable", to "significant coverage is likely to exist" (Subproposal #8) and remove all simple or mere participation criteria (Subproposal #3). The sport-specific sections have already been updated to "significant coverage is likely to exist", and in this discussion we're trying to decide which criteria are actually based purely on participation since there are some grey areas. You're welcome to give your input on that specific question but if you need further explanation of how and why long-standing guidelines are changed and the role of Wikiprojects in that process, I would suggest asking at the WP:TEAHOUSE. –dlthewave ☎ 12:46, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
              • As you write: "presumed to be notable. Presumed to be notable≠is notable. It was a rebutable presumption. There have been many instances of subjects that were presumed to be notable according to these guidelines, but on closer inspection turned put not to actually be notable.Tvx1 14:52, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
                • There will always be some that slip through but that far outweighs the mess it creates with edit wars, and overall bad feelings between editors. Here's the problem with the above. Presuming Notability created hard criteria that doesn't really exist for significant coverage. NSPORTS got watered down when "presumed notable" got removed so that it barely resembles anything with any kind of power anymore. It's not really a guideline but a "here's what will probably work" article. If you then water down even the suggestion of significant coverage by going from what will probably work to removal of items that very likely have significant coverage, this article become useless. Is that really what people want? An article at wikipedia that is powerless and useless? Why even have it anymore since SNGs can pick up the slack. I'm really dumbfounded as to why we don't remove it altogether. It really doesn't help us anymore. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:47, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Agree that 2 and 3 need to be removed. In fact, there already was a discussion last October resulting in the decision that 2 had to removed which was done back then. No idea why this was returned. As for 3, I strongly contend that every single tennis player who played in one single match of a grand slam tournament (which has 128 players every year) gets significant coverage. Certainly when you delve into players who only made one ever appearance through a wild card only to suffer a straight set loss. And the claim certainly does not hold true for all first round participants all the way down in the lower tier ATP/WTA 250 tournaments. Better to remove this point now and write a new one here that actually reflects reality and have it supported by community consensus. Another thing that needs to be removed is the sentence claiming that the situation is equal for singles and doubles players. The reality is that doubles gathers considerably less coverage than singles and is about high time that the tennis project finally accepts this.Tvx1 14:52, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
  • "2 and 3" have become confused. In the revision of the page from when this talk subsection was started [9], 2 and 3 referred to participation in "international team competitions" (2) and "main draw in one of the highest-level professional tournaments" (3), but this version was after Fyunck(click) had replaced the tennis notability guideline on this page with the notability essay at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennis/Article guidelines#Notability, claiming "someone removed some events that usually have significant coverage", an action which has since been reverted by Tvx1 and RandomCanadian. Now the only participation-based criteria is 2 i.e. the old 3. I think the WikiProject Tennis essay should be replaced with the the guidelines from this page to stop the confusion, and per WP:CONLEVEL. Letcord (talk) 15:55, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
  • As for 2 (the old 3), participation in a Grand Slam tournament in singles *in the Open Era* basically guarantees notability. Before then, but particularly in their early years, the majors and especially the Australian Championships were more regional tournaments, with near-100% local players (example). I would support a narrowing of the guideline to Open Era-only (1968-present) for Grand Slams. For tournaments on the ATP and WTA Tours (~1970-present), it's true that an occasional local talent is thrown in as a wildcard and loses easily, never to be heard from again. The guideline could be narrowed to having participated in at least 2 tournaments to avoid this scenario. I agree with Tvx1 that "This guideline applies equally to singles and doubles players" should be removed as doubles does not receive near the coverage of singles. Letcord (talk) 16:17, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
    • Or write a new guideline where having won particular matches, rather than just starting them is the norm. I strongly contendst that every of the 128 players starting each grand slam tournament is notable. Ask the average layperson who Ryuso Tsujino is and they will not have any idea. And that is missing the point even, since were not discussing notability but the existence of significant coverage now.Tvx1 18:16, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
      Yes won a main draw ATP/WTA tour match would be a reasonable alternative. "Notability" I'm using in the Wikipedia sense (passes WP:GNG), not the "layperson has heard of them" sense, which would be a terrible test for an encyclopedia as the average person knows very little about anything. I do believe all 128 singles players in both men and women's singles in the Open Era would have significant coverage, including Tsujino, whose Japanese article is more substantially sourced. There are only a couple hundred players who meet that criteria and are yet to have an article anyway, so we're not talking large numbers. Letcord (talk) 19:25, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
      • No, the average layperson is the perfect. This is a general-purpose encyclopedia, not a sports fansite. The average layperson is our audience. The claim that Tsujino has significant coverage is simply false. His article solely exists because some people believed that playing one grand slam match makes one notable.Tvx1 20:11, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
        No, the average layperson is the worst criteria imaginable for a useful encyclopedia. Has the average layperson heard of a Muon, or an Abelian group, or Ploidy? Obviously not, but these are fundamental topics within their respective fields, with thousands of reliable sources covering them in-depth. Within tennis, has the average layperson heard of Alice Marble or Pancho Gonzales or Jack Kramer or Helen Wills? No again - most non-fans would only know the Big Four, the Williams sisters, and a handful of others like Kyrgios. Enforcing an "average layperson" criteria would strip the encyclopedia down to fewer than fifty thousand articles, and what point would there be in reading one if you already knew every topic in it? That to one side, are you a Japanese speaker, and/or have you searched newspaper archives for Tsujino? If not, how do you know he didn't receive more significant coverage in Japan, or in old newspapers not accessible to Google? Letcord (talk) 20:09, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
        Completely agree with Letcord. Tennishistory1877 (talk) 00:15, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
      I'm confused about the meaning of "strongly contend". Contend - "assert something as a position in an argument." but you seem to be arguing that they aren't necessarily notable. Perhaps I'm the only person who's confused but best to clarify your meaning. Nigej (talk) 19:35, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Endorse removal of 3, change 2 to "won" or remove. "Has competed in" is participation-based; changing it to "won" would make it merit-based and I think that's a noncontroversial proposition (that anyone who won one of these tournaments would likely be the subject of sigcov). But if there isn't consensus to change it to "won", then it should be removed altogether per RFC #3. Levivich 20:51, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
    • While having won any of the listed tournamemts is likely to yield players with significant coverage, the current text deals with with playing just one match in them. If you change that to won one match in such a tournament, you get a claim that probably holds true to players winning a match in grand slam tournament, but I strongly contest it does for players who only ever won one match in a WTA/ATP 250 tournament.Tvx1 19:50, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
      • I would bet it does. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:34, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
      • Changing it to "Have won at least one title" (to clarify what is "won") would avoid any such confusion. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:42, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
        "Won at least one title" would be very odd for criterion 2, as criteria 3 and 4 are "won at least one title" and they are for the lower leagues. You're not going to win an ATP Tour tournament and especially not a Grand Slam if you haven't even won a challenger, as you need to be winning challengers to start qualifying for the main tour. "Won at least one match" would be a reasonable tightening for 2 if a change is absolutely necessary. But this whole participation- vs. merit-based criteria debate is an absolutely false dichotomy; to participate in many leagues, you have to have serious merit - you're not participating in the NBA All-Stars game or ATP Finals for example unless you're the best of the best. Letcord (talk) 21:25, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
        And yet, despite what you call an "obviously false dichotomy", there are many cases of players participating in "many leagues" and having no reliable source coverage with which to write an encyclopedia. This extends to far more than just tennis, and even on occasion includes footballers (which is a far more popular sport than tennis). Not going to argue the RfC result again, but mere participation is not a reliable indicator of significant coverage, anywhere. And in tennis, where half of all involved players do not proceed past the first round no matter the tournament, insisting on mere participation in one match (take the archetypical qualifier who loses in the first round as an example) would be even more dubious. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:49, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
        Yes I'm late to the party, so still trying to understand the logic behind these changes. My view would have been that if there are leagues with non-notable players who've participated in them, then participation in those specific leagues should be removed as criteria for presumed notability, rather than overcompensating and removing all participation criteria. But assuming the RFC outcome has to be enforced, I would remove "This guideline applies equally to singles and doubles players" and change 2 to "won at least one match in singles or one title in doubles in...". Letcord (talk) 20:38, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Whatever is decided in terms of a more restrictive criteria, I like the idea of having lists in a similar format to this that we can redirect articles found not to meet the notability criteria, albeit with shorter bios than in that link. So for example List of ATP Tour players from the Netherlands (or something like that). Inclusion criteria would then detail that to be listed they need to have made a main draw. Without lists like these we would often have no obvious redirect targets for most players as they will be linked to from more than one tournament draw. Jevansen (talk) 01:40, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

General discussion

On a discussion organizational note, I feel it is better to have separate top-level sections for each sport, allowing each discussion to be monitored separately. Thus I had placed my original comment in a separate section. Is there any objection to separating it again? isaacl (talk) 04:23, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Keeping them as sub-sections allows it to be made explicit what the discussions are part of. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:34, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
I think the intent of each section is self-explanatory, and I don't think the preceding discussion matters. (My decision to start a discussion to review the changes is not a consequence of it.) Personally, I don't want to subscribe to changes for the whole section, including all sports. isaacl (talk) 04:42, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
The idea isn't linking the outcome of any discussion with another. The idea is that these are discussing the same broad topic (the removal or non-removal of certain participation-based criteria) and they should be grouped together as a result of that. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:57, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Several times editors have said that interested editors in each sport are welcome to start discussions on how to further refine the changes being made. I don't think there is much advantage in arbitrarily grouping discussion on all sports together under a parent heading, and I do see advantages in having separate sections. isaacl (talk) 05:05, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
The same thing's been done with Olympics just previously (Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 46#Proposal to clarify Olympic participation as an indicator of notability), I don't see why it couldn't be done here... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 05:08, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Yes, sometimes things get discussed in an omnibus fashion, for better or worse. But if the interested editors for each sport are going to start discussing how to refine the criteria for the sport, as has been suggested, then I think we can let the editors in each area independently choose their own set of important topics to discuss. It's not important that they be slotted underneath a "Content removed again" heading (and personally I would prefer a clean break from the arguing about reverting). isaacl (talk) 05:31, 29 March 2022 (UTC)


Gymnastics criterion for junior gymnasts

In criteria #2 for junior gymnasts, why is there nothing about junior boy gymnasts winning gold at their national junior championships? Yes, the female gymnasts from USA, Russia, China and Romania are very strong, but equivalently, China, Japan and Russia are very dominant in male artistic gymnastics. Should boys who won gold at Chinese, Japanese or Russian junior championships be able to meet the "Nobility" requirements? NguyenDuyAnh1995 (talk) 16:42, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Question for the experts here on snow skiing

(asked for NPP work) I see don't skiing (down hill or cross country) in either the current guidline or in the version before the recent evolution. Is there some portion of nsports that typically gets applied to this or does it just go by wP:GNG? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:41, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

There's the Olympic guideline which applies. Wikipedia:Notability (sports) § Basic criteria provides a little bit of additional guidance on interpreting the general notability guideline, by providing some examples of what doesn't meet the standard of suitable sources. isaacl (talk) 01:18, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
Isaac Thanks! North8000 (talk) 17:03, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Professional Athletes - lede

The section on "professional athletes", I propose, should begin with this language:

Athletes who won or medaled in a major amateur or professional competition (as listed in this section) or won a significant amateur or professional honor are likely to have received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. Professional athletes in team sports may also be likely to receive significant coverage, especially in elite professional leagues, but all articles must contain at least one reference to a source containing significant coverage.

When the community decided to roll back the participation requirement, the standard used is GNG. As of yet, no specific guidance has been created for the many professional athletes who played professionally in team sports but may not won a significant honor. I believe that my proposed language provides important guidance without equivocating that participation in a professional league equals notability while recognizing that many professional athletes may meet GNG. Placing this before the sport-specific guidelines provides a nice overview for what any sport-specific guideline might say.

I might also suggest that language could be added here along the lines of "Professional athletes not independently notable may be redirected to a team page (such as 2022 Los Angeles Dodgers season) or a list of players from a league, country, or era (such as List of players who played only one game in the NHL. --Enos733 (talk) 05:58, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

  • I agree that the whole page would benefit by having a criteria that applies to multiple sports, like a PROBASIC section. I think for pretty much any pro sport, pro athletes are likely to meet GNG if they have certain achievements in their sport, such as being inducted into the hall of fame, winning a major season award (MVP, Rookie of the Year, etc.), setting an all-time record (most points in a game or season, etc.), or similar accolades. The sport-specific sections could then list the accolades specific to that sport. This would reduce the size of the page, be easier to follow and apply, and be entirely merit based and not participation based. Levivich 01:27, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
    The motivation behind replacing the old athlete guidance with the individual sports-specific guidance was that one-size-fits-all guidance didn't apply well across all sports. When a set of criteria is limited to a specific sport, it's easier to demonstrate that the criteria are highly accurate predictors that the standards of having an article are met, versus trying to craft criteria accurate across multiple sports. isaacl (talk) 02:46, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Numbered list

@Isaacl: I disagree with the statement items provide guidance on interpreting the general notability guideline, and are not individual criteria, as some of them are individual criteria; for example, #5. BilledMammal (talk) 05:26, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

That is of course the newest entry that was added based on the recent RfC. The first four items are not standalone criteria, but further interpretation guidance. The fifth item is not a presumption of notability criterion, either, but a requirement for articles. Thus it isn't really a "basic criterion" for establishing that the standards for having an article are met. isaacl (talk) 05:59, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
Then we should create a new section for it; either way, we need a simple way to refer to it - either as WP:SPORTCRIT #5, or WP:SPORTMIN. BilledMammal (talk) 06:15, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

I support using a numbered list, as it makes it easier to refer to the items in discussions. Levivich 00:50, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

To-date, the absence of numbers hasn't hampered discussion about the inadequacy of trivial coverage, database coverage, fan blogs, primary sources, or routine game coverage. They all trace back to statements in Wikipedia:Notability § General notability guideline; the items in that section aren't numbered, and discussion still proceeds without issue. isaacl (talk) 02:51, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Obsolete criteria

RandomCanadian, the reason I added the Obsolete criteria section was that without it, editors following old redirects (and those who knew of their previous existence but not the recent discussions) would be confused and left none the wiser as to what happened to their intended targets. If you think it doesn't belong, you might want to consider nominating the redirects WP:AFL/N, WP:AFLN, WP:FOOTBALLER, WP:GRIDIRON, WP:NAFL‎, WP:NAFOOT, WP:NFOOT, WP:NFOOTBALL, WP:NFOOTIE, WP:NFOOTY, WP:NFUTBOL, WP:NGRIDIRON, WP:Ngridiron and WP:NSOCCER for deletion until replacements targets are created for them. --Paul_012 (talk) 21:19, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Regarding this edit: the section was added to be a target for various redirects that no longer point to an existing section. I feel it is a reasonable approach so anyone following any of the many, many past uses can land on an explanation. isaacl (talk) 21:22, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

People looking for obsolete criteria should probably be redirected to the criteria which replaces them (i.e. this), until such time, if and when, there are more up-to-date replacements. That seems simpler and less confusing than adding section which does not make clear what they are replaced with. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:09, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
Readers of old deletion discussions don't know the criteria they are looking for have now been deleted. Redirecting them to a different section may lead them to misunderstand the past discussions. isaacl (talk) 22:25, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
I remember the solution taken with WP:NSOLDIER was to move those to a separate page marked with {{historical}}, although in that case there was not any expectation of a replacement (and indeed, there is none apart from GNG). If that's not feasible here, a replacement section which at least makes it explicit the replacement is GNG/NBASIC would be a better solution than the one that was attempted so far. 22:36, 25 April 2022 (UTC) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:36, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
So a section such as the one that WP:NSOLDIER currently points to? Sure, once there is a target section, its text can be copyedited. isaacl (talk) 22:43, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
The other solution is to leave a note in an existing section and use {{anchor}}; if that's simpler, or if the main idea can be expressed succinctly enough to not warrant a separate section. What would you think of putting Criteria for several sports were removed following an RfC from January–March 2022. Questions about the notability of figures from such sports, or from other sports which do not have criteria listed here, should defer to the basic criteria, listed immediately below. in the #Applicable policies and guidelines section? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:13, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
I think it's a little unconventional on Wikipedia to have a link to a paragraph (and personally I find it a bit disconcerting). Otherwise, sure, it's functionally the same as linking to a section. isaacl (talk) 23:34, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Maybe a soft redirect? Levivich 01:18, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

@Levivich: Currently (click on any of the links given as example above), you get sent to Wikipedia:Notability_(sports)#Obsolete_criteria, which answers any question readers or those clicking on the links from an AfD might have. Also, and more importantly, if not a straight redirect to there, where would a soft redirect be to? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:17, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
To NSPORTS but not a specific section, but the status quo anchor is probably better than the soft redirect idea anyhow... forget that idea :-) Levivich 02:23, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Regarding this edit: I don't see any logical flow problem. All sports not listed includes that were previously on the page but are now removed. I feel it is more cumbersome (particularly over the long run) to call out removed sports. isaacl (talk) 02:38, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Sports that are not listed on this page[2] should defer to the § Basic criteria for guidance., with the ref note keeping this explicit mention while the main text remains free of this cumbersome distraction? At least, since the point of having this is so that people using redirects from before can "land on an explanation", it would make sense for that explanation to be there somewhere. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:04, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
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