Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 11

College sports team

There are a number of articles about college sports teams ( see Concordia Tornados men's soccer, Saint Louis Billikens men's soccer, Drake Bulldogs men's soccer, Navy Midshipmen men's soccer, Syracuse Orange men's soccer, St. Francis College Terriers men's basketball ) none of those that I have seen so far have any claims to conventional notability as currently defined. They generally lack any references to establish notability - references that are included are usually internal college sites , directory listings or score sheets. I have searched for notability references for these sites but found none. My reaction is that these are potential AfD nominations but I would welcome other views before committing any precipitate action.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   23:49, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

• Much as I like to clean up dreck (and these sound like it), chances are good that the result of an AfD would be redirecting.....so maybe that would be a good way to go first. Then, if fanboys fight it with little more than WP:ILIKEIT as their reason, AfD would be the next step. Niteshift36 (talk) 23:57, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes - tried that one and it was immediately reverted back with challenges as to "What is your agenda?" . I suspect AfD might be the only route with the expected outcome of a forced re-direct rather than one agreed by consensus. Ho hum !  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   09:29, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Teams would fall under WP:ORG. -DJSasso (talk) 11:54, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

For comparable teams that can get outside notability, would you have a problem with keeping the articles? Beyond495 (talk) 03:12, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Arena Football League makes a player inherently notable?

I have an issue with WP:NGRIDIRON which states that any player that takes a snap in the Arena Football League is inherently notable and does not have to pass WP:GNG. Am I correct in that statement? To me, it seems the AFL is not a high-enough quality league for inherent notability to be granted. Was there ever a discussion about this that I may have missed? Thanks. — X96lee15 (talk) 22:38, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

No you are incorrect. NGRIDIRON gives the presumption of notability. Articles still have to meet the GNG. However it was designed so that as close to all players as possible (there are always exceptions in both directions) would meet the GNG if they pass in this case GRIDIRON. Quality of the league has nothing to do with notability, in some sports very very low leagues will still produce notable players. It all comes down to how much press coverage the sport gets. The AFL gets a fair amount of coverage, and that isn't even taking into account that players who make it into the AFL probably had some coverage as college players etc. -DJSasso (talk) 22:45, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I guess I've always misunderstood the purpose of WP:ATHLETE then. I agree the low-quality leagues can produce notable people, but I misunderstood that they aren't inherently notable. Thanks. — X96lee15 (talk) 23:00, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Common mistake. Take a read of the first few paragraphs at the beginning of the WP:NSPORTS page and it will give an idea of the purpose of the these guidelines. :) -DJSasso (talk) 23:02, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

While the OP is incorrect in his prior interpretation of WP:NSPORTS I think the substance of his argument still stands. Does arena football have enough non WP:routine coverage from independent sources such that almost all of the players who play in the arena league are going to be notable even if they only played a few seconds? From the articles I have read, it seems like this league is more comparable to the minor leagues in baseball (which we don't presume notable), than the NFL. Just playing a bit of devil's advocate here before we dismiss the OP's main point. --MATThematical (talk) 05:12, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:BASE/N Suggestion

I suggest that we add players who spent time in the "Open" designation, which existed from 1952 to 1957, to the list of "inherently notable" traits put forth in WP:BASE/N, including players who played in Open but not Major League Baseball. Open was, according to Baseball Reference Bullpen, "to help the Pacific Coast League build itself into a major league...[i]t was considered to be a notch above AAA." While it perhaps was not the top level of professional baseball in the United States, it was the top level of professional baseball on the West Coast until the transition of the New York teams to California in the late 1950s. In addition, it did make an attempt to rival Major League Baseball, much as the Federal League, Players' League et al did. In addition, it featured many notable baseball figures and dozens, if not hundreds, of future major leaguers. Alex (talk) 03:26, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

"According to Baseball Reference Bullpen"? That's another wiki, not a reliable source. That's like saying that players who play in the Pioneer or Northwest Leagues are all inherently notable because they play in the highest-level league in the Northern Mountain West. In the United States, Major League Baseball and its predecessor leagues should be the only leagues that presume any notability. Players in any other U.S. league must meet GNG. — KV5 • Talk • 11:28, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

In other words: Alexsautographs made the suggestion, so I am going to be unnecessarily hostile and say "no," despite the validity of his argument. Alex (talk) 21:47, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

No, it seems more like "in other words: the argument is based at least in part on an as yet unsupported comment from a wiki who's material is of unknown quality." Speaking only for myself, if there are other reliable and objective sources that back up the claim of being above AAA and a rival to MLB, then that would seem to be a legitimate reason to consider the suggestion. However, a more complete version of the quote would be "... to help the Pacific Coast League build itself into a major league. It was considered to be a notch above AAA but in assessing talent level, it does not appear to have been any higher."

Though it may have "made an attempt" to rival MLB, that doesn't actually make it a rival, or notable. (Otherwise I suspect a few of us editors would have articles, at least those of us who've made an attempt to be MLB players but have only succeeded in playing local park ball.) To my knowledge, no source recognises it as an alternate, competitor or otherwise belonging to a grouping with MLB, beyond being a baseball competition. And as much as a proportion of its players may have become Major Leaguers after playing in Open, I would imagine the proportion is similar to that today of the AAA leagues. Open would seem no more or less notable than other minor leagues.  Afaber012  (talk)  22:35, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

In my view, players in the PCL prior to 1958, and especially prior to WWII, were at least as notable as the players in non-US top leagues (today or ever). It is silly that the top league that existed in California and over 2/3 of the US at a time when baseball truly was the national passtime is considered somehow less notable than the top Venezuela league or really any other country's top league possibly excepting Japan. And prior to WWII, the PCL (and the AA and IL) were not inherently development leagues - the structure was very different, so although they were a notch below the Major Leagues, they were still full fledged professional leagues were good players could spend their entire careers, unless a Major League team was willing to pay their owner's price to release them. Analogizing to today's AAA is just not relevant. The proof is simply looking at the IL Baltimore Orioles' 1924 pitching staff - led by Lefty Grove (arguably the best left-handed pitcher ever), Tommy Thomas (arguably the 2nd best pitcher in the American League after Grove for the 2nd half of the 1920s), George Earnshaw (easily one of the top 10 pitchers in the AL for a few years once he finally was allowed to play in the Majors at age 28) and Jack Ogden (an effective pitcher for a year when he finally got back to the Majors at age 30), all in their mid-20s. There aren't a whole lot of leagues outside the US that can boast such a staff in their primes. Heck, few Major League teams have ever had such a talented and effective pitching staff in their primes. And that's not mentioning the pitchers on the staff who never made the Major Leagues, but were more effective that year than some of those who did, such as Clifford Jackson and Ed Tomlin. Rlendog (talk) 02:18, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Top baseball prospects

Might it be a good idea to expand BASE/N to include top prospects? By including them in this guideline, we would have time to find coverage for them that might satisfy GNG. By "top prospects", I'm referring to players included on a Top 50 or Top 100 list by MLB.com or Baseball America. I'd also include participation in the All-Star Futures Game. A problem with this idea is that these methods of acknowledging prospects doesn't go back all that far. Thoughts? – Muboshgu (talk) 19:04, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

• I do not think that the vast majority of "top prospects" get WP:non-routine coverage. Of course, some do, and they will be covered under WP:GNG. I would not support adding prospects to WP:NSPORTS for any sport. -MATThematical (talk) 22:28, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Individual season articles

Recently there have been several deletion discussions about individual season articles for individual sports. Our notability guidelines here only mention individual season articles for team sports, not individual sports. The results of these AfD have been going in all directions. Here is an overview:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roger Federer in 2011 resulted in Keep after long discussion.
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rafael Nadal in 2010 resulted in no concensus defaulting to Keep.
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Novak Djokovic in 2011 resulted in Delete.
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lindsey Vonn in 2010 resulted in Delete.

The Novak Djokovic in 2011 article was recreated soon after deletion, and was deleted again. Later it was created again under a different name: 2011 Novak Djokovic tennis season
It seems to me we could use some clearer guidelines about these individual season articles.

On a related note, in project tennis we also have a bunch of articles of the type "<player name> career statistics". You can find them linked from this category page: Category:Tennis career statistics.
I think they violate WP:NOTSTATSBOOK and have started a discussion about it here: Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Career_statistics_articles. Such articles have been deleted before: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anna Chakvetadze career statistics
Is there a concensus not to have such standalone career stats articles for sports? MakeSense64 (talk) 10:34, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Propsed triathlon changes

There is a discussion on the WikiProject Triathlon talk page regarding the revision of the NSPORT triathlon standards for those wishing to comment on the proposed changes. Barkeep^Chat/_$ 16:25, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Individual games or series

I propose removing

• College bowl games (not limited to BCS bowl games, see e.g. 2009–10 NCAA football bowl games).

From the list as there is no indication that they do in fact receive any coverage outside that of plain routine coverage of sports events and those that do will be covered with the final point anyway. Mtking ^(edits) 06:31, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

anyone ? Mtking ^(edits) 03:46, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I think most bowl games do infact get non routine coverage. There is usually quite of few articles outside of just the teams that play the games. Someone else who knows college football better than me can chime in though. The articles about the players playing in the game are often routine, but I think the annual and ceremonial nature of the event, along with the constant flow of articles about the event make it notable. --MATThematical (talk) 15:57, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

wut is notable? is it or isn't it. i say it is... only what is it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.228.90.14 (talk) 02:36, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Notability of single-game players

there are many ppl who play in one game. my uncle play in one game, but no one every heard of him. this is a travasy. is this wikipedia or the almanoc of sports? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.228.90.14 (talk) 02:33, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

i also watch "Field of Dream" and there is an old man he play in one game but he is retired and he is doctor. i would not say he is much notable, even though it was a movie about him

Moonlight Graham, and yes, he was notable. And to answer your question, yes, Wikipedia is in part an almanac. That is actually the first of Wikipedia's Five Pillars. Resolute 02:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

You're making a crucial - if common among newcomers - error, in believing that "notable" = "I think he's famous." Wikipedia's definition of "notability" is that "A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of multiple published secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." Whether or not you, or I, have heard of him is irrelevant. Ravenswing 04:07, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I personally have some issues with the one game = notable criteria, but that's mostly with subjects that only source avaliable is some stats website or book that showed that he played and nothing else about his life. But in 95% of cases they meet the basic WP:GNG even if they only played one game as sources usually covered all their minor league games, college seasons, youth clubs and so fourth, plus primary sources are acceptable for statistics. Secret ^account 04:40, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Going beyond the shorthand inability to communicate in written english (as the lede for this section) . . . for just about anybody I can imagine in sports, the career it takes to be put in a position to play in one game at the highest levels is enough to make one notable. And even if it weren't the occurrence that might put someone completely inexperienced in a game of such stature would be so out of the ordinary it would make them notable. People remember the guy who comes out of the stands, never having played hockey or basketball before, but hits the million dollar shot from half court as part of the half time show. Trackinfo (talk) 06:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

the career it takes to be put in a position to play in one game at the highest levels is enough to make one notable. Sorry, this is not how we measure notability - otherwise, every other profession will start arguing the difficult need to get through their careers to reach a certain point. Instead, notability is reflected in a semi-objective manner in the amount of significant secondary coverage the person has received for their career - and thus can be used to build a comprehensive encyclopedic article. Ultimately we expect that by meeting the criteria of NSPORT, sources can be found for this, but the criteria are "temporary" (read: as long as it takes, but within reason) presumptions of notability.

Given that, the problem with "played 1 game at pro level" is that this is an inadequete measure. Yes, I understand to play at a pro level generally requires playing at an amateur or college or equivalent level and there it is case that it is not the average joe that comes off the street to do that. The problem is that the sourcing prior to the pro is often not of secondary nature. Stats, home town, etc., which I do expect to find about a pre-pro career is not secondary information. We need reasons why this player is an asset or a hindrance to their team, or similar analysis, criticism, etc. - information that is part of secondary sources. Some players definitely get this - there's no question that the top rookies, etc. get this type of coverage in pre-pro. But I am extremely skeptical that this applies to all players that step into one game at the pro level. There are athletes at the pro levels playing second or third string, a position they've been in all their career, whom I strongly doubt have had more than a sentence or two written about them at any time that is more than a bio and stats summary. This is why this is a very very poor criteria, and one of many problems re-developing with NSPORT since the last mass revision. --MASEM (t) 07:20, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

What I am saying is the one game at the highest level is a clearly definable line. The significant amateur career is assumed to back it up. The absence of such a career is so rare, its absence itself make someone notable. But to limit wikipedia to what is reported in the press, turns wikipedia into a mirror of the deficiencies of the press, or more specifically the deficiency of modern press to retain history. I've written about numerous Olympic athletes. They are, by that one achievement, notable. But the articles are reduced to mere stubs, because the information that is available about them now is almost non-existent. On WP, notability does not disappear over time. Information does. We have hundreds, thousands of deserving subjects with no articles, because the information is not available. You cannot stop at expecting sources to report everything that is notable. Trackinfo (talk) 08:08, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

But if there are insufficient sources, there is no meaningful and neutral article to write. Hence, notability is dependent on sources (which is dependent on the press).—Bagumba (talk) 09:14, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Sources are everything on WP, that's WP:V. That's why notability is not subjectively measured by "importance" or "popularity". If all that can be written from available sources gives us stubs, that's not a good encyclopedic article. That's not to say that there's other ways of providing info on athletes in other forms (lists and tables summarizing teams/groups work just fine and still allows for searching by name), but short, stand-alone articles with few sources is strongly discouraged at WP, which is what many of the "played one pro game" qualified articles on athletes tend to be. --MASEM (t) 14:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

A followup to Trackinfo's comment of "the occurrence that might put someone completely inexperienced in a game of such stature would be so out of the ordinary it would make them notable.": This person would qualify based on GNG. It does not require that NSPORTS indiscriminately presume that all athletes who played one game at the highest level of any sport are inherently notable. It is reserved for leagues that receive significant coverage.—Bagumba (talk) 17:04, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Which guideline "strongly" discourages short, stand-alone article? Even WP:STUB provides advice on how to write a stub article which others may expand, and acknowledges that "While very short articles are likely to be stubs, there are some subjects about which very little can be written." Rlendog (talk) 20:24, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Bagumba, you have opened a different discussion. An apple to the orange. NSPORT is already defining what leagues meet that criteria in different sports. The theory is the experts in those sports can push for the appropriate leagues or championships in that sport to be notable. For example, I wouldn't have a clue what would be the highest level in Snooker. It is important to someone else. If we accept that sport as a notable sport and its highest level as notable, then its champions are notable, and the people who reached that highest level are notable too. The general media might completely ignore the sport. We might have to use sport specific media to determine who these notable people are. And further, historical data about these individuals might not exist before the sport specific media either was created or more likely is available on-line. NSPORT is here to accumulate those definitions from the experts who understand their niche. But the pattern should be equatable for each sport. NSPORT provides additional guidelines for cases that go beyond GNG, particularly for those who are informationally impaired and take subjects to AfD unnecessarily based on their perceived level of importance. Trackinfo (talk) 22:05, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Trackinfo I think you misunderstand what NSPORT is. NSPORT does not indicate who is notable. It is meant to indicate when there is likely news coverage of an athlete. An athlete still has to have news coverage to have an article, NSPORT does not exempt an athelete from having to meet that. It says that right at the top of the page. -DJSasso (talk) 22:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

This question is not about WP:V, and I am not suggesting we override that. It is about the definable threshold of playing at the highest level. And by defining it as one game or appearance at that highest level, we have a clear marker. Given that the league or championship is established here as notable, and we have an identification that an individual played at that level (probably from a list), that is sufficient to establish notability. We may not have sources to write more about them, but they existed and achieved something notable. That should not need to be discussed further or proven with other sources agreeing to that point. It cuts out the gray areas of other definitions. The point I was making is, we may not know of the additional career, that may not be in sources, but they had to have done something sufficiently significant in their prior career to get to that point. Absent of sources, we can't be totally dismissive of a person who does get to play at the top level, as the lone accomplishment we can verify. Trackinfo (talk) 05:29, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

but they existed and achieved something notable fails how WP defines notability. Playing a pro game may be a significant achievement for an athlete, but it does not necessary make them encyclopedically notable. Our metric is the existence of secondary sources about the topic covering the person to some analytically degree. The criteria of NSPORTS should be cases that because that athlete has achieved that criteria, there are likely or will likely be such sources. Just the plain act of participating in a pro game - even if it means that they had a college/amateur career - is doubtful to be an indicator that such sources exist; they may, but its not a universal truth, and thus makes it a bad metric. --MASEM (t) 05:44, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Masem, you are assuming a perfect world where sources are available to report what happens (of significance). Have you ever tried to write an article that goes back into history, back further than most online sources have bothered to report? There is a definite correlation between the amount of time and the lack of information. Maybe if historical newspapers of were fully available back to their creation, we might have a consistent basis for reporting. But those sources are disappearing as the current owners seek a revenue stream. Come to think of it, jobs in journalism are drying up as print newspapers fail to find income. It is creating a ragged and distorted view of the world. Blogs (things that do not qualify in some people's minds as WP:RS are filling in the blanks. Not to mention the deletionists and agenda pushing trolls that we find on WP. The goofy likely sources existing phraseology is just a sideways argument. When it comes to an AfD, we deal with reality vs a crowd of people who do not know about the subject; Is there a source or not? And does the source indicate the person has achieved a sufficient threshold for notability? That's what the guideline is all about. If we can prove, with a source, the subject reached the threshold of playing at the highest level, whatever sport we define that in, that should be sufficient to claim notability for the subject. With no other sources, that will create a stub article, until further sources are found and more information is added. It is something to be researched, possibly in offline print resources (remember libraries, museums, archives?) and built upon. But it should not mean that the subject be removed, with extreme prejudice, with a stigma against it returning to the pages of WP (the result of a failure at AfD). Trackinfo (talk) 06:29, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The use of a sub-notability guideline, like NSPORT, are to define criteria where, by the topic meeting that criteria, we are either nearly 100% assured that sources to satisfy the general notability guideline (significant coverage in secondary sources) do exist (but may take time to locate) or that sources will exist because of that merit. A player winning the specific sport's highest honor, for example, is pretty much assured to have past and future coverage, explaining his past performance, and the reasoning why he was given said MVP. On the other hand, just because a player is listed on a pro roster provides no significance to their being significant, secondary coverage about that player.

Now, the reasoning with these SNGs is that they are meant as a "temporary" presumption of notability, because we have the assurance that there will be the sourcing available in time, whether they are rare sources that someone has to look for, or that they just don't exist yet. Thus, yes, for older topics with no online counterparts, these aren't going to be rushed to be deleted if they are meeting an SNG. As long as the criteria as well picked, and articles at least provide sources to show how that criteria is met, they shouldn't be taken to AFD, and even if so, the criteria can be used to justify the "keep".

The problem is that the arguments that put forth the criteria "playing one pro game" equates to the likeliness of significant secondary coverage from past or future is simply flawed. Even if this means that they had to play in a college league, if their athletic career had no significant secondary coverage, then we don't have a notable person here. And to be clear: significant coverage must be analytic and critical (either way) about the players; stats, biography, and the like are primary facts, and not appropriate for establishing notability though acceptable after notability has been demonstrated. And I would figure, just going by the big 3 American sports, football, baseball, and basketball, not everyone that is on the pro roster has had a career that has been covered in detail prior to the pros, much less after entering the pros. If it were the rare exception this was the case, then yes, the criteria would be ok, but its not rare exceptions, it seems to be true of a large fraction of pro athletes.

Remember that we are trying to write an encyclopedia here: stub and short articles are not helpful towards that since they cannot be expanded to encyclopedic quality. This is partially why we have notability guidelines to assure that we can write more than a couple sentences about a topic. Again, I point to the fact that there seem to be a good number of athletes that may participate less than a few minutes of gametime each season, have not had a distinguished college athletic career, and otherwise just a name and jersey number - by far, not all athletes, but well more than the exceptional handful. Articles on these athletes will likely never have a chance to grow beyond a short stub, and thus pointing to why this is a bad criteria. --MASEM (t) 07:18, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:GNG requires significant coverage to be detailed. It does not necessarily have to be (specifically) "analytical" or "critical." A detailed description of the player's career would qualify, even if it does not analyze or critique the career. Rlendog (talk) 20:27, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Within the specific context of baseball, Masem, virtually any player with even one game played in MLB will have been the subject of sufficient independent coverage to meet the GNG, if someone is willing to go to the trouble of consulting paper sources. That's why the level was set at one game in the guideline. If you don't believe that to be true, that's fine, but it won't be any less true as a result of your skepticism. Your remarks may be more accurate when applied to other sports - I coudln't say, as I'm not interested in or informed about those. As such, you'd do better to identify the sports for which the current standard is appropriate and the ones for which it is not, and pursue changes in the latter, rather than addressing the issue in an inappropriately broad fashion here. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 15:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Remember, we're looking for "significant coverage" from secondary, independent sources - more than just a player's stats, where he grew up and went to school, and what teams he's played for. Sports journalism is a HUGE field but often very repetitive and with non-encyclopedic details (per WP:NOT#STATS). What importance does he bring to his specific field? Why was he selected by his pro team to play? etc. And I am considering that these don't have to be online sources, this just needs to be from any available source. If the sources cannot detail any more beyond primary data, then we shouldn't have a standalone article on the player. When I spotcheck through various pro team page rosters, even in the age of online media, I'm finding a lot of articles that are more stats than useful information about the player, and while doing a Google source check (though not a deep drill-down) I'm having difficulty finding sources covering these players in-depth.

More realistically, my argument is that the "played one pro game" is unnecessary; in the most covered leagues (likely the NBA and World Cup/international soccer, possibly the NFL, maybe the MLB), I would probably say that every player can meet the GNG without the need to call out a criteria for it, but I wouldn't call out a special criteria for that. In many other leagues, only some fraction of the players will be meet the GNG and be considered encyclopedically notable. While I understand that without something like "played one pro game" as a criteria for the NSPORT SNG that there's fear regarding the deletion of articles on older athletes who played prior to the Internet and thus lack significant online coverage, that cannot apply across the board for all athletes in all pro sports leagues. It's better to remove it, noting a grandfathering clause for some reasonable period of time (2-3 years) before such articles should be considered for deletion if they once met this criteria. --MASEM (t) 16:21, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I suppose you are correct that there is no "need" to have the criterion of playing one game, since every player (who plays one game) can meet the GNG, but that is the point of the special criteria. To establish a line where we may assume that GNG is met, and not have to get into unnecessary debates that player X who played in the 19th century and left little online coverage besides stat sites is not notable because the only online coverage is stats sites. Rlendog (talk) 20:17, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

No, you're missing the point. "Playing one pro game" does not uniformly assure that we can have significant coverage of that player in secondary sources, because it is based on a subjective metric "it's hard to get into the pro leagues". That's really not a valid assumption of notability, making NSPORT a special case. --MASEM (t) 20:22, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

And that is where people disagree with you, in the sports where that criteria is used. Almost 100% of the players will have met GNG in the previous minor league. It would be a rare day that a player who made it the NBA, MLB, NHL, NFL etc were not talked about in the minor league or college league prior to making it to the pinnacle of their sport. Especially in today's world where top high school aged kids get talked about in multiple articles. You seem to be under the mistaken assumption that the articles have to critique their game and talk about their impact. But they don't have to do that, they just have to talk about the player in one shape or another with some semblance of detail. Anyone who has made it to the major leagues has most definitely been talked about in a newspaper article at least 3 times in their life (ie multiple RSes). You also seem to think short articles are unencyclopedic which is also a bit incorrect as if you ever picked up an old fashioned encyclopedia you will often see articles about people/things that are only 2 or 3 sentences long. -DJSasso (talk) 20:43, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The GNG requires "significant coverage in secondary sources". I'll grant that college/minors players may fall under significant in that their will be lots of articles - albeit on the same game/season - repeated in several sources, but this is not secondary coverage. Box scores and even a recap of a game are primary sources. Secondary sources require a more in-depth, critical nature of the player. That's the coverage I contest does not readily exist for every player in a pro sport. It certainly does for some , and possibly with higher likelihood for certain pro sports, but it is far from universal. --MASEM (t) 20:52, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Secondary sources are not required to be critical in nature. They just have to talk about the player in more than a passing mention. So any article that talks about where they came from and what school they went to before they played in the pros....or maybe talked about them winning some amateur award. Anything like this and boom you meet the requirement of in-depth secondary sources. You can bet that every single big league player has had at least a couple feel good stories written in their local hometown papers as well as a story about their being signed/drafted by their pro team which will usually describe their previous experience and where they came from. Whether or not you think those are fluff pieces they do rise past the level of routine to be in-depth coverage. And in today's over covered world any draft based sport (except maybe baseball since they draft so many) is going to have articles about both before the draft talking about why they will be drafted or where they are expected to drafted to articles after the draft talking about who drafted them and how they might help that team. I know in hockey at least since that is the sport I follow most, every single player drafted tends to have a write up in draft preview magazines and then after the draft every city with a team tends to have at least one article in their papers that talk about each of the players drafted. And then there are the hometown papers of these people that usually talk about how a hometown kid got drafted into the major leagues.... So usually the draft alone, before they have even played a game in the majors has them meeting the number of secondary sources....but players who got drafted likely were stars on their previous teams and will have been covered in the papers that cover those minor/college teams which then opens up a tonne more. To be frank I would be more surprised if someone could find a player who wasn't already notable by time the 1 game criteria came into play. For the big 4 leagues I would almost think players only playing 1 game in the top minor league would almost make the criteria even. (ie AAA baseball or AHL hockey etc). -DJSasso (talk) 21:03, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm going back to the point I made before: I can believe that in certain pro sports, that by signing pro you're assured there will be secondary sources. But this is because not because "getting into the pros is a difficult endeavor" but instead because these pro leagues are covered in such utter detail that its hard to escape notice. My mis-givings is that this type of coverage does not extend uniformly across all pro sport leagues. It's also more a factor of modern times with the explosion of mass media and new media allowing for such detailed, varied coverage; pre 1950s, for example, I would expect it a lot more difficult to find the same number of sources for a player of similar caliber.

Again, I would estimate that with the addition of a grandfather clause for 2-3 years to prevent immediate deletion, the "played one pro game" clause could be dropped and only small fraction - less than 10% as a guess - would end up heading towards deletion simply because they don't meet the GNG; the rest would. --MASEM (t) 21:32, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I know what kind of coverage you are asking for, and I'm telling you that even for old-time baseball players with short careers, that's generally available if you're willing to do the research. Take a look at the old Reach guides and the archives of The Sporting News, and you're probably more than halfway there. If you get really desperate, start looking at SABR's many publications. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 14:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Lewis (Surrey cricketer): notable? According to the NSPORTS guideline, he is, but according to WP:GNG? Fram (talk) 15:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I would say there's a decent chance he is if one were to research the offline sources. That's why NSPORTS exists, to protect stub articles that can't be further expanded with online sources. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The info in the article already comes from an offline source. Cricket encyclopedias are in general thoroughly researched, and everything that can reasonably be expected to be unearthed about these people is usually found and included in them. If we don't have a first name or dates of birth and death by now, chances are that we will never have those or anything else about this person beyond what is already in the article. It's not as if it is based on what is available through Google News archive or something similar... Fram (talk) 16:54, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I have to disagree with "If we don't have a first name or dates of birth and death by now, chances are that we will never have those". A few months ago I went through a bunch of 18th century cricket bios and was able to add info like dob/dod, first name/middle name, etc. that wasn't available when the article was created in 2008. As a small example, I was able to move the article you brought up to M. Lewis (Surrey cricketer). Granted it's only an initial, but I don't think it's ridiculous to think that in another four years we might have full name and dob/dod. Jenks24 (talk) 17:44, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

And just flicking through the same cat that Lewis is in I found a better example. See Dampier (MCC cricketer)/John Dampier. Created in '08 and four years on we now have full name and yob+dod. Jenks24 (talk) 18:14, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

So how is this notable? (Recognizing, of course, I'm asking an on-the-spot question regarding something that can likely only be found in print sources and thus not expecting an immediate answer) --MASEM (t) 18:22, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Speaking in general, not specific to Lewis' case, some individual sports guidelines might consider fine tuning their criteria to include years where the assumption of significant sources existing is valid (e.g. after 2000, after 1900, etc).—Bagumba (talk) 19:21, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

That'll make things worse: now you're going to have editors edit warring if it should be 1961 or 1962 (for example) where this break occurs. Even if you take a round number like after 2000, it will still be something people will want to game. --MASEM (t) 20:22, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

People already game the system with NSPORT over GNG, so gaming the system would not be a new issue. If there was warring there wouldn't be consensus to limit by years to being with. A good example to apply this would be for a sport where Internet coverage by reliable sources have make a one-game player notable, whereas sufficient coverage cannot be presumed to exist beforehand. Hence, players after 2000, for example, could be added to NSPORT for sport XXXX, whereas other players would need to meet GNG. Experts knowledgeable on a sport's history could make similar cases for earlier periods where applicable.—Bagumba (talk) 17:59, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have been clearer. The point I was trying to make is that just because these people are from the 1700s does not mean more information about them will not come to light (especially online information). As to notability, does knowing his full name prove notability? Of course not. But, to pick up on this one example, there are quite a few books that focus on 18th century cricket and I am confident that the article could at least be expanded somewhat. Will he meet GNG? Honestly not sure, but I think an editor who has a lot of knowledge and sources about that era of cricket could make a reasonable argument (it's a shame User:BlackJack has retired or I would ask him about this case). Jenks24 (talk) 11:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

If Mr. Lewis is notable enough to have a brief biographical entry in a separate, commercially-published encyclopedia, that is in and of itself evidence of notability. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with having a one-name article on a notable individual about whom little else is known - look at Herostratus, for example. All we've got on him is a name, a year of death, and a description of one day's work. But who's going to try and delete that? Or how about Emperor Itoku? At least we're reasonably sure that Mr. Lewis, whoever he was, actually existed. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 14:42, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

High School football rivalries

I could not find this in the archive, so I figured I would bring this up. There are two pages dedicated to high school football rivalries:

• List of high school football rivalries (less than 100 years old)
• List of high school football rivalries (100 years+)

As one can imagine, these lists are heavily populated with games that seem to have little notability. Probably the worst offenders are the games Eagle's Landing Christian Academy-Henry County High School and Inter-Lakes High School-Winnisquam Regional High School. These 'rivalries' have been played only four times and are less than five years old. There appears to have been an attempt at notability standards, but that seems to have faded away (Talk:List of high school football rivalries (less than 100 years old)#Standards for inclusion).

I would suggest the following criteria (based on the original criteria by User:LaMenta3.

1. Already has an article on Wikipedia that is properly cited with reliable sources.
2. Has been substantially covered (e.g., more than a passing reference or small isolated story) by a national or international major news source including print media (e.g.,USA Today, Sports Illustrated, etc.), television media (e.g., CNN, national arms of the Big Three television networks or the Fox Network), or online sports-focused media (e.g., Rivals.com, MaxPreps.com, etc.).

Feel free to comment and hopefully we can get some criteria for these two lists.RonSigPi (talk) 16:55, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Such a policy would be very helpful, as since the time I proposed the notability criteria, I don't edit as much or as regularly. I did used to police these lists every so often (and there were a handful of others who did initially as well). It was very informal, and as there was never consensus on the criteria I'd proposed, I always felt like I was walking a fine line of acting like I owned the article, which I was trying not to do. I would also like to recommend that we include in the notability criteria this part of my proposal:

"Is the first or second oldest high school football rivalry in a state or among a class of schools (e.g. public schools, independent schools, parochial schools, etc.) nationally."

Generally, this will also mean that it falls under one of the other of my criteria you've suggested adopting, but not always, and I would argue that meeting this criterium would make a rivalry sufficiently unique and notable if there are good references. I'm ok with dispensing with the attendance criterium, as I have noticed it lends itself to certain crufty additions (particularly in areas where all football games get really high attendance). In its place, especially since it seems there's a little misunderstanding on the list as to what actually constitutes a "rivalry", I'd actually recommend a minimum length to a series or a specific definition of a rivalry. I'm inclined to say that a rivalry is a regular series (in that it happens or did happen, at a minimum, every other year) at least 8 games in length that has been recognized as a rivalry by a source not connected to either school involved. This bar would have to be cleared IN ADDITION to the other notability requirements. Thoughts? LaMenta3 (talk) 06:13, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Gaelic football, hurling, and handball

My attention was just brought to our notability guideline for amateur athletes who partake in Gaelic games — sports such as Gaelic football, hurling, and handball that are played in Ireland under the auspices of the Gaelic Athletic Association.

WP:NGAELIC doesn't use the phrase "are notable", but presumably that is a typo. It says:

 Gaelic games players who have
 Gaelic footballers who have played at senior inter county level in the League or Championship
 Gaelic handballers who have won at senior inter county level
 Hurlers who have played at senior inter county level in the League or Championship

This seems to encompass a great number of players. One GAA hurling club alone has 328 player articles; see Category:Munster hurlers. And we have over 1,300 GAA clubs articles on wp -- see Category:Gaelic Athletic Association clubs in the Republic of Ireland by county.

It strikes me that this appears on its face to be a far softer notability requirement than for amateur athletes around the world who are engaged in other sports. See, e.g., WP:NCOLLATH.

I would be interested in the thoughts of others.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

It was created by people who know the sport. Is there a wikiproject for Gaelic Games I would bring it up there. I don't know enough about how notable the games are to comment really. -DJSasso (talk) 13:19, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I think the key is to keep a consistent standard for similar amateur sports. The fans of Gaelic sports may well have an expansive view of its importance, which is not in line with our GNG and our other amateur sports notability guidelines. For example, I am in discussion with just such an editor, after PRODing an 18-and-under county-wide competition in hurling (that had zero refs, to boot; see Limerick Minor Hurling Championship). What I think makes sense is for the editors who focus on sports notability guidelines generally to take a look here, and consider whether this guideline is too loose.--Epeefleche (talk) 18:06, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh I realize that. But the point of this guideline was to have people who know the sport best judge when their athletes are likely to meet GNG so that we don't have a one size fits all solution like we used to have. It should be different from sport to sport, that was the goal of creating this guideline. -DJSasso (talk) 20:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I hear that. But as a general rule we don't determine notability at wikiprojects, but rather at the notability guideline page. Otherwise, wikiproject:tiddlywinks could determine guidelines that are wholly out of synch with other amateur sports. Given the above, that seems to be what has happened here. One doesn't have to be an expert in Gaelic hurling to realize that we don't treat as automatically notable those athletes who have competed in parallel inter-county competitions. That's akin to saying that all amateur athletes that have competed in such competitions are notable. That's not how we handle any other sport, to my knowledge.--Epeefleche (talk) 21:03, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

But we do tend to presume notability for people at the top level of their sport. And as far as I know this is the top level of their sport. This is where knowledge of the sport is necessary. I have to rely on them not fudging the fact its the top level of the sport. Since the Gaelic sports don't go into the Olympics we have to use whatever the closest equivalent is. And as far as I can tell from previous archive discussions that is what these are and thus what we would do for other amateur athletes. -DJSasso (talk) 01:35, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't know of any other amateur sport, not at a level at which the Olympics accepts it, where we automatically deem notable people who compete on an inter-county level, in an all-country-x championship. Even if they fail GNG. We wouldn't (I hope) automatically deem notable all players of stoop ball, punchball, bandy, orienteering, and inline skating who compete at an inter-State level. Though fans of those sports might like us to. Plus -- the rule sweeps in not even those players who have played at the top level of the country-x competition (in this case, that would be the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, for example), but those who have played at a senior inter-county level in the league. The Olympics, this isn't. One doesn't need any expertise in the sport at all to see what is counting as notability here is far below what we require for sister amateur sports -- and this, for sports which do not qualify for the Olympics. That's backwards. And the number of team and player articles here demonstrate the level of the problem.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I think the misconception you have is that this guideline automatically deems people notable. It does not. It makes that very clear at the top of the page that all this does is help people decide if there is likely coverage in the media etc. It goes on to say that meeting this does not automatically mean an article must be kept. GNG is still required even for people who meet this. -DJSasso (talk) 18:07, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Gaelic games are amateur by ideology. Though there are +50,000-seater stadia, there is no higher level. No pretending to be amateur while waiting for the NFL or NBA money. Amateur athletes who play gaelic games = athletes who play gaelic games.

Munster is not a club, it's one of the four provinces that make up Ireland. There is no Munster team, except that once a year since 1927 the best players in Munster play for Munster against one of the other provinces in a sudden-death semi-final and, potentially, final. It is something of a novelty, and though once of huge interest, is now like a poorly-attended pro-bowl. The players are selected from their county's team.

The real deal is inter-county competition. There are 32 counties in Ireland, each with a team. A team in New York and one in London are also included. Each team seeks to become champions of its province, then placings in these championships determine a new stage of all-ireland competition, analogous to NFL's wildcards and play-offs. Games in this stage can draw an attendance of +82,000, so well in excess of a Bears, Packers or Cowboys sellout, but on a par with a sold-out MetLife Stadium (the NY metropolitan area has a population 20 times greater than ireland's largest county). County players are selected from club teams within the county.

So, many clubs will be notable. Almost all club players will not be notable. County players are notable. 86.44.40.73 (talk) 06:56, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:NCOLLATH seems a close analogy for the Minor game. 86.44.40.73 (talk) 07:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Just entering the conversation here. I, like DJSasso, have worked on this page quite a bit in the past. I similarly don't know much about the Gaelic games, but I do remember the creation of this guideline, and it was not defined by a wiki project, but rather an individual editor. I don't think it represents any general consensus on the sport, but no else who edits this page came to discuss this guideline and propose edits. Since this guideline has no consensus, I think it would be a great idea if Epeefleche proposed some edits to the guideline, with some explanation as to how he/she sees the new guideline as an improvement. So Epeefleche could you think of some guidelines that are more in line with "If the article does meet the criteria set forth below, then it is likely that sufficient sources exist to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article". MATThematical (talk) 02:21, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

College baseball All-Americans

Namiba (talk · contribs) and I (possibly some others) seem to be coming to the conclusion that college baseball All-Americans deserve their own pages. Between us, we have written pages for 2011 All-Americans Mike Zunino, Mikie Mahtook, Michael Roth (baseball), Jason Krizan, C. J. Cron, and others. I propose that we add First Team All-American to the baseball notability guidelines. It can be either of the three main organizations. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:53, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. First team only though, not second, third or honorable mentions. And while we are at it, how about having pages for each year like the football ones (see 2011's for an example)--Yankees10 22:09, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I absolutely agree on only including first team selections for this, and not including first team freshman All-Americans (the freshman team, I mean, not a freshman who makes the All-America team like Colin Moran (baseball)). We should probably add pages like that to the project. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:16, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

There are already several baseball All-American lists at WP:FL.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 20:47, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

See the following:

1. 1991 College Baseball All-America Team
2. 1992 College Baseball All-America Team
3. 1993 College Baseball All-America Team
4. 1994 College Baseball All-America Team--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 01:06, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support. Per nom. Reasonable to extend to basketball/football at minimum, while we are at it. Perhaps all sports?--Epeefleche (talk) 22:17, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

• Perhaps. I shouldn't have restricted this to just baseball. I saw that ice hockey already has this in their guidelines. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:30, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

• Yep. I'm a fan of us having consistency across sports, where it makes sense. Which, I think, it does here. I would support all first-team All Americans across all sports being deemed notable, if that were the consensus sentiment.--Epeefleche (talk) 22:41, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm unsure about this as in previous discussions college baseball all-americans were not deemed notable enough.. college baseball on the whole isnt covered as much as football and basketball. You should drop notes on the project pages cause i dont think many of them have this page watched. Spanneraol (talk) 22:58, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

• Actually, I'm not a fan of consistency across sports; most of the reason for devolving notability criteria to the various Wikiprojects is that one-guideline-fits-all works singularly poorly in the sporting field. One could, for instance, make a solid case for presuming that second team All-Americans are notable in football and basketball, where collegiate sport is very strong, as opposed to other sports, where collegiate-level play isn't as prominent. Ravenswing 03:18, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• Different views. Perhaps this won't impact your view, but what I suggested is I think how we treat Olympic athletes ... per se notable, no matter whether the Olympic sport is "strong" or not "as prominent".--Epeefleche (talk) 08:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

• Simple question in my mind: Can it be safely presumed that most or all All-Americans receive enough non-trivial coverage to satisfy WP:GNG. If they do, then I see no reason not to add such a criteria to the sport SNGs that are appropriate. If such sources to not typically exist, then I would judge each on a case by case basis without a blanked presumption of notability. Resolute 03:44, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

• I do not think that would be a safe presumption. I would think that All-American football players, for example, tend to receive such coverage but I am not sure that is the case for All-Americans in Olympic, non-professional sports.--Epeefleche (talk) 08:18, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
• In many cases, they do. I can't speak for every instance, though. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:18, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

• I agree that they do in many cases, such as in the major sports -- even our first team All American football kickers receive enough coverage to satisfy GNG (I, btw, wrote an article for last year's AA kicker, so I've seen this up close, at least for our current AAs). I don't think we can presume this, however, for the less major sports -- e.g, track and field, lacrosse, diving, water polo, golf, volleyball, gymnastics, wrestling, etc.--Epeefleche (talk) 01:15, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

• I have no qualms about making first team AAs the cut-off for college baseball players, but trying to extend that criterion across the college basketball and football projects does not sit well with me. For instance, a "consensus" All-American in basketball is a first teamer OR second teamer insofar as the calculated votes deem them to be. Being a consensus second team All-American is an historical and recognized threshold for basketball players. In football, with the unique set-up (purely offense vs. purely defense, specialized positions, 22 starters per team per game, etc.) it would be ridiculous to narrow the notability to only first team AAs. I agree with Ravenswing that cookie-cutter thresholds are problematic. Jrcla2 (talk) 01:50, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

• Hi. We're not, at least I'm not, suggesting that whoever does not meet whatever threshold we add is not notable. We're simply trying to streamline notability discussion, by identifying a class of athletes we can all agree are notable. That would lessen time spent on discussion at AfD; time that could be spent more productively elsewhere. Anything we can do here, that establishes consensus as to any group of these athletes, is I think a plus for that reason. So, I'm supportive -- given your comment -- on the guideline indicating that all first team All Americans are per se notable, without suggesting that second team All American are not notable -- they would require a case-by-case analysis, which of course is how we handle them today. --Epeefleche (talk) 20:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment I think it would be more consistent with football and basketball, if we said consensus first team All-Americans are WP:N. Although baseball does not use a consensus recognition system, we could have a policy that players recognized by two out of the three selectors are notable. That would be more consistent with basketball and football who generally recognize consensus AA as a major recognition that confers notability, although I don't know if there is an official policy in this regard for those sports. Take a look at the four FLs above and note how many players would suddenly be notable if we said all 1st team AAs are notable. Support limited to those making 2 out of 3 major AAs--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

• That sounds fair to me. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:13, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment Before a college baseball All-American signs with an MLB team, does any organization besides Baseball America consistently would provide in-depth coverage? I dont follow if closely, so my (perhaps incorrect) perception is that coverage is fairly routine otherwise for college baseball? Do more sources exist for Mike Zunino? WP:GNG expects multiple, independent sources from different organizations.—Bagumba (talk) 07:29, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

• I think so. Some of those are game logs, but other pieces are more in depth. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:12, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Let's try to wrap this up and not let it stall out, like so many other discussions. There are currently two proposals and three possibilities, as far as I can tell:

1. All College Baseball First Team All-Americans (whether by Baseball America, ABCA, or Collegiate Baseball) are added to NSPORTS
2. All players making two of the above three College Baseball All-American teams (first team only) are added to NSPORTS
3. No changes made to NSPORTS, let them be assessed under GNG only

Make your choice. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:37, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

• Option 2: That would meet, I figure, the concept of a "consensus" All-American. Ravenswing 00:49, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
• Option 3: I remain unconvinced that these guys should get a free pass.. many minor leaguers get more coverage. Spanneraol (talk) 01:21, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
• Option 2: Using the 2-out-of-3 method would indicate that they are consensus selections, and first team All-Americans at that, so I'm partial to this method. Jrcla2 (talk) 03:51, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
• Option 3: I am still unconvinced multiple publishers will provide non-routine coverage in the majority of cases; fall back on GNG until this is consistently demonstrated.—Bagumba (talk) 04:59, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
• Option 3: I see no reason why the should be excused of WP:GNG. The current list of free passes is already a way too long. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:43, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
• Option 3, with option 2 as a distant second choice. I tend to feel that NSPORT is already too inclusive. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:17, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
• Option 3: WP:GNG is still needed and per Bagumba. --lTopGunl (talk) 00:16, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
• Option 3 - WP:GNG is still the best guide for notability in these cases. BRMo (talk) 03:30, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
• Option 3. Substantial coverage from reliable sources is certainly not a fair general assumption here, so this is not a good rule of thumb. NSPORTS is already far too flabby as it is. --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 01:27, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Notability of regular season games or individual plays

I am bringing up two questions here after two AfDs of articles I started in good faith (and later edited by many others) resulted in deletion. The questions are as follows:

1.) What makes an individual regular-season game notable? Seemingly, WP:SPORTSEVENT would define that, but after a recent AfD, apparently not.

2.) What makes an individual play within a game (regular or post season) notable?

This is something we should work on straightening out. What I am referring to are:

This article is the example of the individual play. In many ways it was a routine play. But what it resulted in received a lot of media hype for a few weeks thereafter, is still mentioned in football coverage every now and then, and will likely be for many years to come. I know I am using the OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument, but yes other articles about individual plays do exist, such as this and this.

This article is the example of the individual game. If you look at the play alone, it was very much a routine regular season game. But if you look at the coverage, there were non-routine elements to it, particularly the fact that it was the first game in NFL history played between brothers who are head coaches. That in itself received a lot of coverage, including the name that was given to it that was the name of the article's title. Of course, as for "otherstuff," there are indeed articles about certain regular season games that have been given special titles by the media.

It is hard to gage notability of either of these based on amount of coverage because normally, sports games are so heavily covered by nationwide media, even from outside a team's hometown, that it is just as easy to call everything routine. So what actually do you define as a notable play or game? And why, other than votes and the "routine" argument being overwhelmingly used, were these two examples ruled as non-notable? I am starting this discussion not only over these two examples, but so there could be a general guideline for the future. Hellno2 (talk) 00:10, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Here are the discussions that led to the deletion of the articles: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wide left and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Harbaugh Bowl. Eagles 24/7 (C) 01:02, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

We have articles on team pages for a reason, which is the proper way to add information of individual games. For the notability of games, we have to base the articles on the game historical impact, or historical significance. Sports games, while national, it is typical WP:ROUTINE coverage, and all these thousands of professional games that's played is going to be covered in sports pages no matter what. Wikipedia isn't a sports aliamac. With the importance, the game must show something that is particular that will lead to a significant rule change, or lore, such as Wide left (which is still being described as one of the most significant football plays of all-time), or 2007 Appalachian State vs. Michigan football game, which was the only time a top 25 Division I school lost to a Division-II school. There is no information on why the Harbaugh bowl is considered to be historically significant other than the brothers trivia and with future implications. Secret ^account 05:35, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

• I have to agree with Secret on the specific response to these articles (though I disagree that Wikipedia is not a sports almanac. Per WP:5, Wikipedia incorporates almanacs). While you obviously put good work into these articles, there isn't a reason for either to be stand alone articles. For a placekicker to miss the tying field goal (or a quarterback/receiver to drop a game-tying/winning pass) is not exactly remarkable. It should be noted at 2011 Baltimore Ravens season and 2011 AFC Championship Game, but does not require its own article. The "Harbaugh Bowl" article is simply an unremarkable game that happens to have a piece of trivia attached. I would note that it was the first time brothers coached against each other in the coaches articles, each team's season article, and 2011 NFL season, but not as a stand alone article. Resolute 13:21, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

• One thing I disagree with is the excessive labeling of stuff as "trivia." What may seem unimportant to some means a lot to others. It is a personal point of view. I have seen stuff labeled as "trivia" when indeed there are articles that focus on it. That is not a trivial detail. And while a game itself may be routine, the details surrounding it may not be. For example, while the Harbaugh Bowl as a game was a routine game, the details about the brothers was not. The Manning rivalry is one-of-a-kind in the NFL; there are sources that talk solely about the Mannings, plus their dad too was an NFL QB. The GNG requires that there be sources solely devoted to the article's topic, and in the example name, this would pass GNG. Hellno2 (talk) 16:22, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

  News organizations are free to write stories about trivia. That does not make it encyclopedic content worthy of stand alone articles. And I'm sorry, but yes, the fact that two brothers coached against each other is trivia. That does not mean it does not merit mention within Wikipedia. Only that it does not justify a stand alone article about an unremarkable game. There are numerous existing articles that it can be added to. Resolute 17:48, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Exactly.. the fact that they faced each other is notable but what happened in the game itself really isnt. Spanneraol (talk) 18:25, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Here is the definition of "trivia." To summarize the definition in one word, it means "unimportant." Now, can someone explain how, for example, the unusual competition of brothers in a game in unimportant? True, the game is played in the same manner as any other game when this happens. But the why society reacts is very different from any other game. And that can be big. That's what such articles are really all about. If you limit yourself to judging notability by the manner in which a game is played, even superbowls should not have articles, because they are played in the same manner as regular season games. They are just labeled as special games. Hellno2 (talk) 23:40, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

If you take away the fact that the two brothers coached against each other, no article would be created. I doubt anyone would argue that. So tell me, why do we need to write a separate article to convey what can otherwise be covered in one sentence: "This game was the first time two brothers coached against each other"? Why can that one sentence not be covered at 2011 Baltimore Ravens season and 2011 San Francisco 49ers season? Resolute 02:15, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

There were several paragraphs of sourced information describing the two brothers coaching against each other. And more was being added over time by other users. Plenty enough for an article. Hellno2 (talk) 16:02, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

• The sources for the articles need to demonstrate WP:CONTINUEDCOVERAGE to make a compelling argument to keep.—Bagumba (talk) 21:16, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
• Agreed with Resolute and Bagumba. Not everything you find personally interesting needs an article here. The fact that this game or that had opposing coaches who are brothers, or a kicker who missing a game-crucial field goal emphatically is trivia. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:08, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Notability of Monday Night Comeback

• I just reviewed Monday Night Comeback for a DYK nomination. Does that meet continued coverage as you see it? – Muboshgu (talk) 00:07, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
  • It was a good game, and the editor seemed like he put a good amount of work on it, but the game clearly ain't continued coverage, or any impact for that matter. I'll say the Harbaugh game is more notable than that Bears game. Secret ^account 00:26, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
  • The proclamation of greatest comeback are from non-independent sources of NFL and Chicago Bears. Could be suitable to go into the season article, but not as a measure of notability for a standalone article. There is also a reference from a Yahoo contributor, which is not reliable. The other continued coverage is for Green's tirade in a commercial, which can go in his bio.—Bagumba (talk) 23:01, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Little League

Are "Little League" organizations forbidden? I have one that has been around for over 50 years, and was run at State level (USA). I'd consider that relevant, just a thought. (Looking for comments)

Twillisjr (talk) 17:52, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

It would need to have significant independent sources to satisfy WP:ORG or WP:GNG.23:04, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Motorsports criteria

Point #2 seems to impose stricter requirements on historical figures than contemporary ones. Is this appropriate under WP:RECENT and, broadly interpreted, WP:NPOV? – hysteria18 (talk) 19:13, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Swimming notability

Hi. I have a book from 1929 that contains various world record holders in swimming endorsed by the International Federation de Nation Amateur, a governing body for swimming founded in 1908 in London. Would these world record holders be automatically notable? I'm talking mostly standard distances for now included the men's 100m freestyle, 200 metres freestyle, 300 metres freestyle, 400 metres free styles, 500 and 1000 metres, also for the breast stroke in similar distances and the back stroke. --LauraHale (talk) 06:47, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• I think a bona fide world record holder in a major swimming event should be considered notable. Cbl62 (talk) 06:50, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks. There is something in athletics, but no comparable section for swimming so I wasn't sure. --LauraHale (talk) 07:18, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

NCOLLATH

Recently, the articles of a number of All-American college baseball players have come up for deletion. Some have been deleted and some have been kept, but I have made the argument that WP:NCOLLATH #3 "gained national media attention as an individual, not just as a player for a notable team" strongly suggests that All-American college athletes are inherently notable by having gained national media attention as an individual. What do you make of this?--TM 21:36, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

The last time this came up, it was determined that college all-americans were not inherently notable and had to pass GNG. As far as baseball all-americans I dont really see a whole lot of media attention for them, other than just as a list in the back of the sports section. Spanneraol (talk) 21:47, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Curling notability

Hello! I would like to propose an addition to the tenth provision on the curling notability guidelines, which currently reads "Is a member of the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame." The proposed change would read "Is a member of the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame or the WCF Hall of Fame." The World Curling Federation recently announced the creation of the World Curling Federation Hall of Fame, which includes recipients of the Freytag Award, an award which the World Curling Federation has given annually to an exemplary curler. The WCF Hall of Fame is similar to the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame, but also honors curlers on the international level. Prayerfortheworld (talk) 21:52, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is a brand-new award, although it has also incorporated an earlier one. How are we supposed to judge whether, over the course of time, their selections will prove to be a good rule of thumb for WP notability purposes? I note that the majority of inductees (included from the earlier award) are in fact redlinked. --Hobbes Goodyear (talk) 23:28, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

It is true that many inductees are redlinked, but it must be noted that there is a dearth of curling articles, and that the subjects in the WCF Hall of Fame may not have an article even though they are notable. Also, many of these inductees already meet other notability criteria in WP:NCURLING. Prayerfortheworld (talk) 21:16, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

• • Support, as it is an international body. -- Earl Andrew - talk 06:25, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support: The mere fact that something is new doesn't equate it with non-notability; should, for instance, the National Hockey League institute a new (say) defensive defenseman award, there'd be an article created for it in ten seconds flat, and no one would say boo about it. This is a hall of fame created by the recognized world sanctioning authority in this sport. Ravenswing 07:55, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support: per arguments above --MATThematical (talk) 18:10, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Nutshell

Two people have tried to restore this nutshell: An athlete is presumed notable if the person has actively participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level such as the Olympics, and [my bolding] has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. Can you not see that this is very wrong? For a start it should be or and not and. (Significant coverage... is a sufficient condition by itself, by definition, and this page implies that Olympic-level competitition is another sufficient condition by itself. So definitely not and, right? But then this page in fact gives a whole host of other sufficient conditions in addition to these two, and many of them are way different (having played in a professional football league, for example, which most people will not think of as a comparable level to the Olympics). So if we must have a nutshell (which I think entirely unnecessaryin fact), then it should say "significant coverage... OR Olympic-level.... OR many other things which you can find listed on this page". Though it would probably be more accurately phrased as saying that significant coverage is the defining condition, but we will normally accept any of a number of other conditions in lieu of actually exhibiting the significant coverage.

I am again commenting out this nutshell, since no nutshell at all is certainly better than a hopelessly misleading one. Please do not readd it without addressing at least the most serious of the objections pointed out here. Victor Yus (talk) 11:53, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately you are incorrect. Being an Olympian by itself is not a guarantee of notability, you still have to have independent coverage. This guideline goes to great lengths to make it absolutely clear that all these guidelines are an and situation. Unfortunately your understanding of these guidelines is completely wrong which is why you seem to think the nutshell is wrong. These guidelines are just a guide as to when the independent coverage is likely to be met but you do still have to eventually proove that the subject has the coverage whether it meets these or not. That being said please stop editing the page until you have a consensus to do so. -DJSasso (talk) 11:59, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

All nice and good, but the way Victor Yus is describing it is how it is actually used in practice AND in line with the bolded statement in the first paragraph: "The article must provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline, or the sport specific criteria set forth below."

It clearly says: or MakeSense64 (talk) 12:14, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

(Thank you MakeSense, but I'll add what I typed before the edit conflict): Well even if you're right about that, then the current nutshell is still wrong. It should in that case say something like "An athlete is notable if ....significant coverage... ; it is often assumed(?) that such coverage exists if ...Olympics... or certain other conditions are met. The nutshell you've restored is just wrong whichever view is taken. And you are in no position to tell other people to stop editing the page without your permission; clearly no nutshell has consensus at the moment, so none should appear (and certainly not one that is prima facie wrong). Victor Yus (talk) 12:15, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

The nutshell is supposed to summarize what is in the guideline. The lede says "or" and all the sport specific criteria say something like: "A xyzsportsman is presumed notable if he:..." followed by a number of sports specific criteria, but no mention that they need to satisfy GNG as well. MakeSense64 (talk) 12:21, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Depends on how you read it perhaps. But this sentence is what explains the purpose of this page "This guideline provides bright-line guidance to enable editors to determine quickly if a subject is likely to meet the General Notability Guideline." Which I take to mean this page only helps you guess if it meets WP:GNG which the community acknowledges is the true test of notability. And why it says "Please note that the failure to meet these criteria does not mean an article must be deleted; conversely, the meeting of any of these criteria does not mean that an article must be kept." To make it even more clear that what matters is WP:GNG. -DJSasso (talk) 12:26, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree on that. But then the second paragraph of the leded also supports the "or". Quoting: "Failing to meet the criteria in this guideline means that notability will need to be established in other ways (e.g. the general notability guideline, or other, topic-specific, notability guidelines)."

Why would that sentence be there if GNG is always a requirement regardless whether the sports specific criteria are met or not?

And if GNG is always required, then there is little point in having this sports specific notability guideline, then we should just look for GNG right away.

Anyway, the current nutshell says "and" while the first sentence of the lede says "or". We will have to fix it one way or the other if we want this guideline to make sense. How did so much ambiguous phrasing get into policy and guideline pages with nobody noticing? MakeSense64 (talk) 12:37, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I think the somewhat ambiguous wording is because of the nature of the guideline. Basically its meant as a temporary reprieve for articles that are likely to have sources but they haven't been found yet. If you make it a concrete wording one way or the other then it removes the ability of the guideline to function as its intended. ie as its worded now something could be kept today because it meets one of the points listed on this page, but 5 years down the road if it still doesn't have any sources it could theoretically be deleted for not meeting GNG. Making it a concrete must meet GNG or else removes the purpose of this guideline which is to protect articles that likely have sources from over-zealous nominators. -DJSasso (talk) 13:09, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

This page seems to suffer from the same problem that many other Wikipedia instruction pages have; things aren't explained clearly because different writers have slightly different views, and the easiest way to get "consensus" for anything is to write a Schrodinger's cat-like fudge that doesn't say one thing or the other, so that everyone is at least happy that it doesn't say the thing that they disagree with. But that happiness doesn't extend to the poor sods who have to read the page any glean information from it; they are left clueless or badly misled. For pages such as this to be useful, their purpose and meaning need to be set out very clearly; if there are significant differences of opinion within the Wikipedia community, then that fact can be reported explicitly if necessary. (This is all off the topic of the nutshell, which as I think we can all see now, is blatantly wrong as it stands.) Victor Yus (talk) 13:16, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say stop editing without my permission. I said stop editing until you have consensus. That is how wikipedia works. Your changes were objected to and restored to the original per WP:BRD. Until you have consensus to make your change again you are supposed to discuss. Perhaps you aren't aware of how things work on wikipedia, but everything works on consensus, and with a lack of consensus things default to the original. -DJSasso (talk) 12:23, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

The original being what? A blank page? Anyway, there is consensus now, I hope, that the current nutshell is absolutely wrong, regardless of which of your or MakeSense's interpretation is more reflective of Wikipedia practice. Until someone can suggest anything better and get consensus for it, I think the only rational solution is to remove the misleading nutshell. Victor Yus (talk) 13:09, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

The original being what it was prior to your attempted change. Eitherway consensus usually takes a few days to be reached. Especially since there were a few other people who reverted you who have yet to comment. -DJSasso (talk) 13:10, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

You mean we can all see that something is wrong, but we have to leave it like that for a few days just in case someone else hasn't seen it yet? Pointless and stupid bureaucracy in my opinion, and not in the spirit of wiki at all, but all right, let's do it your way. In the meantime perhaps we can try to reword some other sections of the page so that it becomes clear what the overall philosophy is supposed to be. Victor Yus (talk) 13:20, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

In the worst case it will need a RfC, to which the various wikiprojects who rely on this guideline can be invited. I have yet to see an AfD where it was argued that notability guidelines were met, but the article was deleted because it failed GNG. But maybe there are such cases. If so then it would support the "AND" hypothesis. Let's wait what others have to say. There is no hurry. MakeSense64 (talk) 13:22, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

It does happen sometimes but not all that frequently, has happened to a number of "players" in hockey from around 1900 where players played on championship teams but all that could be found about them was their name and that was it. But yeah patience is what is needed. -DJSasso (talk) 13:30, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Those calling for patience seem very IMpatient to revert my simple changes without really bothering to understand them... But no, you're both wrong now. About the nutshell, at least. The "AND hypothesis" would imply not only what you say; it would imply that there are cases where someone met the general notability conditions, but their article was still deleted because he hadn't been in (something like) the Olympics. Clearly absurd. The wrongness of the present nutshell is (almost) basic logic, and we shouldn't be wasting valuable time talking about it; it is wrong quite independently of the knotty philosophical difference that we've been talking about here. Victor Yus (talk) 17:29, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

My biggest concern about the change was that it referred to "certain" criteria, but was so vague about what those criteria were that it was unhelpful. It also tended to imply that the criteria are lower than they really are. As for or/and, I don't feel as strongly about it, but I would tend to feel that the two features paired by "and" tend to go hand-in-hand. It's difficult to envision a genuinely notable (for Wikipedia's purposes) subject who doesn't fit with "and". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:54, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I think the "and/or" distinction becomes very important for the borderline notability cases. We may have an athlete who passes the sports specific criteria, so is "presumed notable". But we may have only one independent reliable source with in depth coverage about him. If we use "OR" then we will make an article about him (of course it will be a very short article). If we use "AND" then we will not make an article because GNG is not satisfied. So, Victor Yus is right in his criticism on that point. AND and OR are two very different logical operations that will give different outcomes based on the situation. We cannot have it both ways, so the phrasing in this guideline should be improved. Once the guideline is written more consistently it will be easier to agree on the proper nutshell text, because it is supposed to summarize the guideline. MakeSense64 (talk) 06:37, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree it is incorrect for the nutshell summary to state that an athlete is presumed to be notable if condition A is met and the general notability guideline is met, since in this case, the subject indeed is notable and there is no need for the presumption of notability. I believe a succinct summary needs to explain the concept of presumed notability as a way to avoid undesirable article instability in cases where no notable sources are given, but there are very good reasons to believe that they exist. isaacl (talk) 05:25, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

That's correct. The person is "presumed notable" if he meets the sports specific criteria in this guideline. If a person also satisfies the GNG criteria, then we cannot say he is "presumed notable", then he "is notable". So the current phrasing in the nutshell makes no sense.

How about rephrasing the nutshell along these lines: "An athlete is presumed notable if the person has actively participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level (such as the Olympics), as explained in the sports specific criteria. An athlete is always notable if he has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject."

That would do away with the and/or question, while retaining the content that was already there. MakeSense64 (talk) 06:18, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

The problem with that is that if you read WP:GNG it also states that meeting it makes it so you are "presumed notable", there are cases where people with coverage are not considered notable. ie people who meet WP:BLP1E. And there are a few areas of this guideline that are meant to overrule GNG. ie the sections about highschool athletes who get lots of local coverage but nothing national etc. in otherwords fluff pieces. So that nutshell would be equally or moreso wrong. -DJSasso (talk) 11:43, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad we seem to be in agreement that the current nutshell is wrong; that was clear to me from the start, regardless of anyone's interpretation of notability philosophy. (If we must have a nutshell, then MakeSense's suggestion, ahem, makes sense, though I don't agree that "...such as the Olympics" gives a good representation of the kind of criteria we actually have in the sports-specific list, many of which involve lower-level events, maybe requiring achievement and not just participation).

On the more difficult question of that philosophy and explaining it properly, we should probably do the explanation in one place, on the main notability page. Then each of the individual notability pages (like this one) would merely summarize and link to that explanation, then move quickly on with its own business, which is to list the specific notability criteria (rules-of-thumb, or whatever name suits them best under the prevailing philosophies) for subjects in the topic area in question. Victor Yus (talk) 11:34, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that we really are all in agreement about that. I'm having trouble buying into the arguments about "and". Reading what the nutshell actually says, it does not say "and passes GNG". I realize that it summarizes the gist of GNG, but the nutshell never mentions GNG by name. So that brings me back to those borderline cases described above. If someone really satisfies the part before the "and", but does not satisfy the part after the "and", that's a borderline case indeed! We're talking, in effect, about the nutshell using the plural to refer to reliable sources, and what happens when the reliable source is single. If an athlete really performs at that very high level, why would there be one source but no others? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:58, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't really know what you're saying. But do you agree that if an athlete, or anyone else, has "received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject", then by that token they are presumed notable? They don't additionally have to have appeared in the Olympics or something similar? Victor Yus (talk) 20:12, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry. If someone is like that, then they have passed GNG, and there is no need to look here to evaluate notability. When NSPORT works as it is intended to do, it essentially predicts who would pass GNG if editors could track down all the sources. So, I guess I would agree with you about someone who passes the part of the sentence in the nutshell after the "and" (the part about receiving significant coverage), but fails the part before the "and" (the part about having actively participated at the highest level) – but I would also regard it as a case that this guideline does not have to address, because GNG does. But I would disagree about someone who passes the part before the "and" and fails the part after the "and" (or, at least, I would regard it as an odd situation), which makes it problematic to change it to "or". --Tryptofish (talk) 20:23, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it might still be problematic (though better) to change it to "or". But you can see how it's definitely wrong with "and"? I don't mean it's a false statement with "and" - in fact it's a trivially true statement, and that's the problem - this page does not exist to state an obvious logical tautology ("if someone passes GNG and something else, then they pass GNG", which is effectively what the nutshell with "and" says). Victor Yus (talk) 20:28, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, I now see much better where you are coming from. I'm going to reply in a way that is much more pragmatic than logical. I understand now, and pretty much agree with, what you say, as a matter of rigorous logic. But, pragmatically, I see this guideline page as existing not for logicians, but for editors, particularly the most clueless amongst us, who come here confused about what will or will not survive an AfD. The "or" may lead the less analytical reader of the nutshell to think something is notable when the community will think otherwise. The "and" may not be logical in the way that you point out, but it won't send anyone down the wrong editing path. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:34, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I believe there was a time when the sports-specific notability guideline was seen as setting a higher bar than the general notability guideline, since most athletes have some newspaper coverage. I think this has been replaced with the general consensus that routine news coverage is not sufficient to establish notability, and the sport-specific guidelines are only intended to provide guidance when it is reasonable to presume that the general notability guideline (excluding routine coverage) can be met. It could be that the current summary dates from the previous philosophy. Perhaps a summary like the following would better reflect the current viewpoint:

If an athlete has actively participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level, such as the Olympics, it is highly likely there is significant, non-routine coverage of the athlete in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, establishing the athlete's notability.

isaacl (talk) 22:01, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, for an athlete to be notable they should meet both the criteria laid out for their sport and GNG. You can have a high school quarterback (American football) with lots of coverage but he isn't playing at the highest level of his sport so he doesn't meet this guideline. Conversely you can have an Olympic rower with absolutely no coverage anywhere, he's reached the highest level of his sport but he's doesn't meet GNG. He can be mentioned in a list of Olympic rowers from his country but he shouldn't have his own page. I realize that my opinion is not shared by all but that's why we have these discussions. J04n(talk page) 22:19, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Notability is not conferred just because someone competes at the highest level; classic example being a football player who plays 1 NFL game. I think we should require substantive coverage (not routine mentions) of the player in question. One way we could do this is by allowing a grace period - if you can establish that X competed at a high level, the article can be created, but if after 6 months or 1 year there are no significant references that turn up, it can be put to AfD. There are thousands of stubs for soccer players that are never going anywhere - is this really valuable to the project? --KarlB (talk) 22:33, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Although we agree in principle I disagree with the grace period idea. What is the rush to have an article on everyone? The significant coverage should be found before someone writes the article. To use your example, the player could be in a list of players who played for that particular team, his name cam be a redirect to the list. J04n(talk page) 22:40, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

The grace period comes in handy for older athletes, where sources have to be found in libraries. By allowing creation of the article, other researchers can dig up references. But if no refs are forthcoming, then the article can be safely deleted. I'd much rather your way (i.e. sources required from the start), but there is a very strong lobby here for creating articles on sports figures, so a compromise must be found...--KarlB (talk) 23:00, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear, you're talking about what you think ought to happen, not what you think does happen at present, am I right? So as regards the original question of the nutshell, it's not correct to say "and" at present, even if some people (like you) would like to see a Wikipedia where "and" applies? I mean, the nutshell is supposed to summarize what the page says, and the page is supposed to describe current practice. The page definitely says "or", we can all see that (and correctly, right?, since it corresponds to what we accept is current practice, and also what the main WP:Notability guideline says). So if we're going to summarize the page in a nutshell, we also have to say "or" - it most definitely will send people down the wrong editing path to say "and", because people will read it as "if and only if" and assume wrongly that only much-reported Olympic-level sportsfolk get articles on Wikipedia, which is just not true.

The obvious solution, in fact, is not to have a nutshell. This is simply not the kind of page that can be put happily into a nutshell. It doesn't expound some great principle and then witter on about some of the detailed aspects of that principle, as WP:Notability or WP:Verifiability does. In the case of this page here, it's the details that are the essence. You can't put all those sports-specific criteria into one or two sentences. All you can say is "this page contains a list of criteria that are usually accepted in practice as confirming that an athlete is notable". If there has to be a nutshell (there doesn't), then it ought to be something like that. Victor Yus (talk) 06:46, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

As for current practice, I guess the honest answer is that it isn't as consistent as that, more like something where consensus is arrived at AfD by AfD. Beyond that, about whether there should be a nutshell at all, I'll answer much as I did previously, that however logical that argument may be, what matters much more to me is the practicality of making it easier for our users to avoid stumbling into an avoidable dispute. I think the existing nutshell helps with that. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:39, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Only at the expense of lying to them. It might also have the opposite effect in fact. Suppose I notice an article about an athlete who has not competed at anywhere near Olympic level. And I've read and believed the nutshell of this page (interpreting "if" as "if and only if", as most humans would in this case). "Aha", I'd think, "this article fails one of the two necessary conditions, so it has no business being in Wikipedia. I'd best get rid of it." And then get into an entirely inappropriate dispute, when others rightly oppose its deletion on the grounds that what the nutshell says is a pile of s... nuts. Victor Yus (talk) 05:58, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

If that is the reason they put it up for deletion then they would be correct to have done so. An article can be deleted if they fail either of them. This page is merely a guide as to when it is likely that GNG is met. If they fail GNG in most cases they shouldn't have an article, if they fail this in most cases they probably shouldn't have an article. Thus it really is an and situation. Because meeting one predicts the other is met. -DJSasso (talk) 11:54, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

What you propose is one way in which Wikipedia might operate, but it stands in complete contradiction to what this page says, AND what the general notability page says, and I don't believe that for the most part Wikipedia operates in that way. If it really is an "and" situation, then the guidelines will need to be corrected. But for now, the page says "OR", and the nutshell says "AND". Since the nutshell professes to summarize the page, it can't say something totally different from what the page says, even if you would privately like the page to say what the nutshell says. Is this not totally obvious? Victor Yus (talk) 12:37, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

That is exactly what the page says and it is most definitely how the wiki operates. The page goes out of its way to indicate that GNG needs to met and that the guidelines on this page are just here to help you understand if GNG is likely to be met. And to repeat again, the page does say this. -DJSasso (talk) 14:42, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

No offence intended to anyone, but the logic being used here is so incomprehensible to me that I've left a note about this situation at the main WT:Notability page. Victor Yus (talk) 12:56, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

"And" is definitely wrong. NSPORT does provide proper discrimination for routine/local coverage as cautions on the GNG to prevent every profession game or every local athlete from being covered, but that's general advice. The criteria that NSPORT is built on are all assumptions that should the person meet it, the GNG can eventually be met once sources are found and added to the article, but they don't require the GNG to be met at the start. The "and" also causes problems with athletes that do meet the GNG but don't meet these guidelines. There was an AFD I distinctly remember of a young int'l footballer that was signed up to play for a major team but hadn't yet played in a game, but had already received worldwide coverage of his ameteur/school play and that singing. In that AFD, some were arguing since the player didn't satisfy any of the criteria (he hadn't played a pro game yet) that he failed notability, which is just wrong. The GNG was met, above and beyond routine/local coverage, so the player was kept. The nutshell, like all other subject-specific guidelines, should be "GNG or these criteria", not "and". --MASEM (t) 13:05, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

• Maybe no offense was intended, but when my good-faith comment above was replied to as being "nuts", and a post on another talk page repeats that characterization, even if it is intended as a pun, I find it inappropriate. Earlier in this talk, I said that the "and/or" issue was a relatively small deal for me, but now the effect of these characterizations is to make me much less willing to consider the change. I'll say it again: we don't write nutshells for the benefit of logicians. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

  To repeat my apology from the other page, I don't mean that you or your comment are nuts, but that the situation of having a nutshell that contradicts what the page actually says is nuts. But I can't agree that your argument holds any water - whoever's benefit we are writing the nutshell for, we need to tell them the truth. This is all so totally bizarre that I can't believe I'm having this conversation. Djsasso, can you read the second or third sentence of the guideline, which says: The article must provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline, or [my bolding] the sport specific criteria set forth below. There are other statements to the same effect as well. I don't know what page you are looking at when you claim it says and. Victor Yus (talk) 18:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much for that, really! I've been trying to think about whether there might be an alternative way to address the issue, and the following occurs to me. (It's only directed to the "and/or" part, and I'll try to address the other issues in the section below separately.) How about changing "and has received" to "and thus is likely to have received"? I think it addresses the logical matters, doesn't it? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:07, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Nutshell 2

The nutshell is obviously wrong because it says "and", as noted above; but the second problem about it is that it characterizes the sport-specific criteria by saying "...competed in... competition like the Olympics". Reading the actual list of criteria, it turns out that many of them have nowhere near the standing of the Olympics. (And often it's not a case of having competed in some lesser competition, but having achieved a specific title or place.) So if we are to maintain a nutshell on this page (which, again, I find unnecessary), then it's not just a case of replacing "and" with "or", but solving this characterization problem as well. Victor Yus (talk) 18:47, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess it's a question of how one interprets "like", how much "like" the Olympics, or how to define competition at the "highest" level. The previous, reverted, suggestion didn't work because it was far too vague. Can you suggest a more specific wording? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:11, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I propose the following changes from the current nutshell to alleviate misconceptions that participating at the highest level of a sport automatically presumes notability. It does not; it's the amount of presumed coverage that the level receives. Also, editors should not subjectively interpret what is comparable to the Olympics. I've struck through deleted text, and underlined added text, e.g. deleted and added:

An athlete is presumed notable if the person has actively participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level such as the Olympics, andsport at a level of competition that historically has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject.

—Bagumba (talk) 19:39, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

You know, I'm almost impressed by that. Excellent, works for me. Victor Yus (talk) 19:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Only real issue with that is that it doesn't say what I think you are trying to say. "...in a sport at a level of competition that historically has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject." This would indicate any sport itself needs significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent. When really it should be making it clear that its the players themselves that need to be competing at a level that historically has received significant coverage independent of themselves. It's really more of a grammar issue than anything but it is important because a number of guidelines below require things like medal finishes etc. and the wording you propose would indicate anyone who competed at any event that itself is covered in reliable sources would be meeting it. In other words there are many sports that are covered heavily but their athletes are not. -DJSasso (talk) 19:57, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Djsasso makes a good point. It should say "participated in a level of competition or achieved a level of success that historically has brought such an athlete significant coverage". Something like that, anyway. Victor Yus (talk) 20:11, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Yeah that is exactly what I was awkwardly trying to say. -DJSasso (talk) 20:14, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I think this approach is quite promising. But I'd also like to examine whether the changes would end up providing the readers of the nutshell with a lesser amount of useful information. In other words, are we giving too little guidance about what it is that results in that kind of GNG coverage? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:27, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to provide more guidance if possible, but any wording needs to address the misconceoption that arises from claims that XXX played at the highest level in country YYY or sport ZZZ, or this event AAA is the Olympics of this sport, and therefore they are notable regardles of lack of coverage. Perhaps the coverage varies from sport to sport, or country to country, where this really is a per-case basis? Unless we can come up with something more specific, its the coverage that is driving factor.—Bagumba (talk) 20:43, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Incorporating suggestions:

An athlete is presumed notable if the person has actively participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level such as the Olympics, and has received sport at a level of competition or at a level of success that historically has brought similar athletes in the sport significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that arewere independent of the subject.

—Bagumba (talk) 20:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Just asking, because I really don't know: could there be a problem with a sport where those "similar athletes" have not been notable? Also, it occurs to me that we may be opening up a definition in the nutshell that would deem, for example, high school athletes to be notable. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:49, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

If similar athletes aren't notable, they would fail the criterion of having significant coverage in reliable, non-routine, independent secondary sources. High school athletes would still have to pass the non-routine standard. (It's still a problematic area, but that's the way it is today, regardless of how the summary of this article may be worded.) isaacl (talk) 20:57, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Exactly what I was trying to avoid by specifically wording "similar athletes in the sport". An MVP in one sport might be notable, but not in another sport. Can you elaborate on how this opens up the definition for high-school?—Bagumba (talk) 21:06, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yes, as I think about it, the first part of what I asked was pretty insubstantial. But I'm not so comfortable about high school athletes. To be clear, I agree with what I think is the current consensus, and I don't want high school athletes to be intrinsically notable. But I worry that the wording we are looking at could be construed to mean that they are. To elaborate on why I think that: think of a high school athlete who "has actively participated in a sport at a level of competition or at a level of success that historically has brought similar" high school kids coverage in the kinds of sources that write about high school athletes. Then we get into arguments about local coverage that's reliable, about how independent it really is. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:15, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

It's an existing pitfall that has to be navigated with the general notability guideline. If a high school student genuinely did get significant coverage in national newspapers from some feat, the student may warrant coverage in Wikipedia, even if the feat took place at a level of competition where some participants do not get significant, non-routine, independent, reliable coverage. isaacl (talk) 21:24, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps I see Tryptofish's concern over a loophole. One HS athlete should not set a precedent for others. There needs to be a general trend. We can reword with "typically": "... has typically brought similar athletes in the sport significant coverage ..."—Bagumba (talk) 21:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

To be honest I would prefer a stronger standard in order to presume notability: "...has brought nearly all athletes competing in that sport at that level significant coverage..." isaacl (talk) 21:40, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I think the "typically" qualifier would likely exclude high-school level athletes from this presumption of GNG-compliance, and I'm not sure a "nearly all" qualifier would represent existing consensus (although I'm open to a change). Jogurney (talk) 00:56, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

My understanding of existing consensus for the basis for presumed notability is that everyone who meets a specified criterion is nearly certain to meet the general notability guideline, given a bit of legwork to dig up the appropriate sources. Accordingly, I believe "nearly all" is an appropriate qualifier to indicate the degree of certainty editors require of a given criterion before being willing to use it to presume notability. isaacl (talk) 01:14, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I like where this change is going but please please please don't be afraid to footnote explanations in more detail, such as the example HS student above. Heck, a separate para after this line to explain can't hurt either, but the point of this line is tons better than the former wording in terms of what the goal it is to do. Keep the main language short and sweet. --MASEM (t) 23:20, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I am also very pleased with the direction being taken here, but would just remind everyone that there's no requirement to have a nutshell at all. If it turns out that we can't write a nutshell that is simultaneously both short and sweet and sufficiently accurate, then we can just dispense with it, and perhaps use Bagumba's language instead as the first or second sentence of the guideline itself. (Side note: on the general WP:notability page, the nutshell seems excellent, but the first paragraph of the body text is awful; the nutshell there ought to be promoted to become the start of the text, and we could carry on writing from there.) Victor Yus (talk) 07:58, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

When I see discussion of adding a footnote to a nutshell, I get less pleased with the direction of the discussion. Can anyone show any evidence that this isn't merely a solution in search of a problem? In other words, do we have any evidence of the current nutshell leading to problems of misunderstanding in AfDs or in other discussions about content? I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but sometimes we have a tendency to navel-gaze about guideline pages, when it might be more productive to work on content. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:33, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't know about the nutshell specifically, but we've seen on this very talk page that the guideline as a whole is leading to problems of misunderstanding (since different people have diametrically different interpretations of it that can hardly all be right). I also can't envisage a nutshell with footnotes, but the solution is surely not to leave the old, manifestly wrong nutshell just because we don't know of a specific instance where someone read it and was misled by it. As I say, if we want to end the time-wasting discussion, no nutshell at all is the simplest way to go. Victor Yus (talk) 15:51, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I believe that this AfD demonstrates the existing confusion about this guideline and its interplay with the GNG. Jogurney (talk) 15:59, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Jogurney, thank you very much for that example. (And, for what little it's worth, I share your views about preferring deletion in that case.) But the example actually seems to me to confirm my suspicions. I read it very carefully, and there is nothing in that discussion that indicates a misunderstanding about the nutshell. Nothing at all! Yes, there's a lot of discussion of the sort that I think all of us see very often, about the uneasy relationship between GNG and the SNGs. No doubt about it – the community is very much of two (or more) minds about that! But revising the nutshell, or even deleting it entirely, will do nothing, nothing, to resolve that debate. Maybe someone would want to put this, and all of the other SNGs, up for deletion, but lotsa luck getting anywhere with that. Clearly, the debates about GNG/SNGs will continue to go on forever, but we aren't going to accomplish anything about that by discussing this particular nutshell. My advice to everyone is to drop it, and go work on improving a bio page. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:04, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

With respect, the only reason we're having such a long debate is that several people, including you, reverted my attempts to improve or hide the bad nutshell. If you'd just let it go to start with, none of this would have happened. If it no longer matters to you, then obviously you're free to go and do whatever you want, but please don't then insist on leaving the present, entirely wrong nutshell in place just because we can't point to a practical instance where it's done harm. If a Wikipedia article said that a bugblatter beast makes an excellent meal for tourists (was that the quote?), would you wait for evidence that a Wikipedia reader had actually been eaten before agreeing to change "for" to "of"? Victor Yus (talk) 17:22, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Please understand that it was only "my advice". I gave it sincerely, but nobody is obligated to follow it. (As for that "only reason", those events started with your edits.) --Tryptofish (talk) 20:27, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough, though you seem to be suggesting that the ancient Wikipedia philisophy of WP:SOFIXIT be replaced with one of WP:SOLEAVEITALONEANDPRETENDEVERYTHINGSHUNKYDORY. Victor Yus (talk) 08:01, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Nutshell 3

I think that this might be a fortuitous time to look back at something that I suggested at the end of the previous thread. At least for the issues of "and/or" and GNG versus SNGs, I think that the following change might be helpful:

Better? --Tryptofish (talk) 14:40, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that solves one of the problems OK, but leaves the other one unsolved - many of the conditions listed on this page are not well summed up by "has actively participated [can you inactively participate??] ... such as the Olympics". For a start in many cases it's not participation but achievement that counts, and of course many of the competitions are not international or highest-level or Olympics-like. Victor Yus (talk) 17:55, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I do realize that it only addresses the one, but maybe some improvement is better than nothing. (As for inactively participating, I suppose that could be someone who is on the team, but never got to play on the field. My impression is that typically is considered not to confer automatic notability.) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:00, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

So as to the first part, how about "has actively participated in a major event or won a significant honour as listed on this page, and thus is likely to have received..." ? I know it's self-referential, but logically any nutshell here should be self-referential, since as I've already pointed out, the meat is in the detail here. Victor Yus (talk) 05:33, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think that we are heading in the right direction now. I can definitely work with that suggestion, maybe pushing it only part way back to more specific description of the "major event". (And I agree with you about self-referentiality.) How far or not far we should go in terms of what we say about "event"s or "honor"s probably depends on what we are discussing in the next talk thread, directly below, and I'm waiting to see what we collectively think about that. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:05, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, seeing some further discussion below, this is what I think:

--Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I support all the strike-throughs. I'm not happy with "and thus", but can't think of a better wording that doesn't have its own issues.—Bagumba (talk) 04:15, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Works for me too. Victor Yus (talk) 11:03, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Would "so" be better than "thus"? --Tryptofish (talk) 14:06, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

I am concerned that the proposed wording could be misconstrued as "any major amateur or professional competition ... is likely to have received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" as opposed to being clear that only competitions that receive significant coverage merit the presumption of notability. This was what I was trying to achieve with the suggestions in #Nutshell 2.—Bagumba (talk) 15:37, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

You are right, and that's a reasonable concern. How about this:

--Tryptofish (talk) 17:11, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Still sounds like it's any major competition that makes the athlete likely to have received coverage, as opposed to the athlete being in a major competition that also receives significant coverage. I think we intend "major" to mean that it gets coverage, and not that its merely at the highest level.—Bagumba (talk) 18:42, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, then, how about this:

--Tryptofish (talk) 18:56, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, I think my draft proposal more directly conveys the underlying principle for the sport-specific guidelines: athletes who have participated in a competition at the highest level for a given sport are likely to have notable coverage. isaacl (talk) 21:21, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

It depends on the sport; with a major sport like football we think that competing in any professional league (not necessarily anywhere near the highest level) is enough, but with some minor sports even competing at the highest level (unless you win something) might not be enough to meet the criteria listed here. I think we're going backwards now; I don't really see what is supposed to have been wrong with the previous suggestion

To Bagumba's point, surely we do mean that the athlete should have received coverage, that's what all this is about, isn't it? Whether the competition itself has received coverage is not really an issue (though I can hardly imagine that it wouldn't, if it's a competition involving notable athletes). Victor Yus (talk) 07:03, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

My use of "highest level" was just a shorthand for whatever description of the level of competition was agreed upon. I don't believe my proposal is a step backwards; it avoids all of this wordsmithing over a two word conjunction that tries to indirectly describe the guiding principle behind the sports-specific guidelines. I believe it would be simpler to just state the guiding principle directly:

If an athlete has actively participated in a major amateur or professional competition or won a significant honor, as listed on this page, it is highly likely there is significant, non-routine coverage of the athlete in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, establishing the athlete's notability.

isaacl (talk) 07:36, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

OK, it's at least a vast improvement over what we currently have. Personally I still prefer Tryptofish's attempt (the one I duplicated just now), since it better reflects the practical purpose of this page (once someone meets one of these conditions, we presume they're notable, so as not to waste further time investigating whether such significant coverage can be found here and now). But I could go with either. Victor Yus (talk) 08:01, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I have tried to take the best elements for the following proposal. It's now two sentences, which I saw as the only way to clearly convey that it's the achievements on this page that presume notability, not just any major competition or significant honor. If it isn't on this page, editors should not take the liberty to subjectively decide what is "major" or significant" and still apply this guideline.

—Bagumba (talk) 19:20, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't say "milestone", but apart from that, add that effort to the list of proposals that I would be perfectly happy with. Victor Yus (talk) 06:45, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't like "milestone" either, and I feel that the two-sentence approach ends up making it worse, by sounding wordy and circular. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:32, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Looking back at the top of this talk sub-thread, I wonder, if we really cannot agree on how to better characterize the milestones-or-whatever-they-are, should we simply settle for fixing the and/or issue and leave it at that? At least it would be some improvement. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:35, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I think we've made more progress than that. We've already seen that changing "and" to "or" doesn't address all the problems. We've got three versions now where we can quibble over which one is marginally superior, but basically all of them are more or less fine (certainly compared with the present version or any minor variant of it). I think we really have reached the stage now where (as you hinted before) further discussion is going to be time not best spent, so let's take one version (I suggest the one of yours that I repeated above) and go for it. Victor Yus (talk) 05:46, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

How about we simplify with removal of some commas

Otherwise, I can go with Vicor's rec (with commas intact) of

—Bagumba (talk) 07:22, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, good! I prefer the second one, and here are a few very minor tweaks to it:

All I did was add "to be" in "presumed to be notable", and change "thus" to "so", and then remove the change records to make it simple to read. I'd be quite happy to go with that. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:05, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

OK—Bagumba (talk) 23:21, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Come on then, we've talked long enough about this. I'm going to put this last version on the page; of course if anyone can improve it further they're able to do so by editing. Victor Yus (talk) 08:33, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Very good, thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 00:01, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

By the way, does anyone know why the box has a different background color on the page itself than it does on this talk page? Victor Yus (talk) 08:39, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

That is really weird. I looked at the template documentation, and it doesn't say anything about that. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:01, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

See {{mbox}} which is used by the template. It is deliberate, the style changes depending on the page type. Don't know whaty anybody wants to do that though. So people get a feeling of what type page they're on perhaps. Dmcq (talk) 04:00, 27 May 2012 (UTC)