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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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

- Support, as it is an international body. -- Earl Andrew - talk 06:25, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
Support: per arguments above --MATThematical (talk) 18:10, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

(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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

"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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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, and~~sport 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)[reply]
You know, I'm ~~almost~~ impressed by that. Excellent, works for me. Victor Yus (talk) 19:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Yeah that is exactly what I was awkwardly trying to say. -DJSasso (talk) 20:14, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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 ~~are~~were independent of the subject.

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

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) [reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
~~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)[reply]~~
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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

~~--Tryptofish (talk) 21:56, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]~~
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)[reply]

Works for me too. Victor Yus (talk) 11:03, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Would "so" be better than "thus"? --Tryptofish (talk) 14:06, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
You are right, and that's a reasonable concern. How about this:

--Tryptofish (talk) 17:11, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
OK, then, how about this:

~~--Tryptofish (talk) 18:56, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]~~
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]~~
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
~~Nutshell and WNBA~~
~~The following was asked in "Nutshell 2" thread above:~~

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?
The ongoing Afd Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Amy Sanders is an example where the athlete met NSPORTS but GNG is questioned along with inclusion criteria in NSPORTS for players in the WNBA. Some comments in the Afd include
"the guideline's assignments of what leagues make someone notable havbe been challenged in various sports, and I don't think there's reallly full consensus on them"

I don't know if people in Europe care about women's basketball any more than they do in the US"

"She played in the highest-level professional league she was permitted to play in. Period."
To me this indicates that there is a disjoint over the criteria where presumption should be granted. Is being the top level league sufficient? Is coverage of players in the league a factor? What is the consensus on criteria to be applied if the WNBA (or any league in any sport) is to be revisited or added?
Moreover, what is the criteria used to judge open-ended statements like these currently in NSPORTS:
"or any other top-level professional league" in WP:NGRIDIRON

"any other major senior level international competition" in WP:NTRACK

"any other top-level national league" in WP:BASEBALL/N

"any other major elite international event" in WP:NGYMNASTICS

"other such league" in WP:NHOCKEY

"similar major professional sports league" in WP:NBASKETBALL

"similar international competition" in WP:NGOLF

"similar international competition" in WP:NTENNIS

"similar exhibition games" in WP:SPORTSEVENT
~~These are all likely arbitrarily applied and unaided by the nutshell as it is currently written.—Bagumba (talk) 02:00, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]~~
I put this point in the above AFD, but to recap: notability by NSPORT or any other guideline is a "presumed" quality, not a guarantee. If consensus decides that a topic may pass NSPORT or any other notability guideline but not suitable for an article, deletion can still occur. Short of changing the "played a single pro game" criteria, this is probably the best way to consider athletes from lesser professional sports that simply do not get the coverage that leagues like World Cup or NFL get. --MASEM (t) 02:15, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And consensus can always fall back on WP:IGNORE. However, I believe there is opportunity to improve NSPORTS without resorting to overriding guidelines or policies (which I've rarely seen happen with AfDs and NSPORTS). One could also look at past archived discussions (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5), to see a discussion almost monthly about presuming notability on a group of players and confusion over the role of available sources on notability. IMO there is misplaced focus on playing in the top level or subjective inherent notability as opposed to focusing on whether sources exist. However, past confusion seems consistent with the existing nutshell of "actively participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level such as the Olympics". If sources are the driving factor, it needs to be the emphasis in the nutshell as opposed to "major" competition or "highest level".—Bagumba (talk) 05:44, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for providing this example. I'm trying to figure out to what extent these issues arise from the wording of the nutshell, versus to what extent they arise from the wording of the rest of the guideline page. I see evidence of both. I'm not comfortable with the conclusion that the nutshell should focus on the sources, as opposed to the accomplishments, because the whole point of this or any other SNG is to provide guidance as to how to use the accomplishments in order to be able to predict whether or not there would be sources that are required by GNG. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:00, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Source should be a greater focus in the nutshell, but I did not say it should be the exclusive focus. Similar to WP:BIO, I think we can consider having a multi-point nutshell (e.g. sources, leagues, accomplishments) and not necessarily feel restricted to cram everything in one sentence. Still it should be 3–4 points at most.—Bagumba (talk) 19:43, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It won't be a nutshell then, though, will it? It will be an opening paragraph. Which is not a bad thing - every Wikipedia article I've seen has no "nutshell", but generally tries to give the general gist of the subject in the first one or two sentences of the article. And that works pretty well. I don't know why everyone seems to think we have to do it differently on these guideline pages and try to cram everything into a little box with a little picture icon beside it. If you can find a good nutshell for a page, then sure, why not (in most cases the pages don't contain anything that it's going to be worth most people's while reading). But if you can't, then just say too bad, and introduce the subject with an opening paragraph in the normal way. Victor Yus (talk) 20:11, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~MMA & other event based Sports Notability~~
There is an ongoing debate whether or not MMA events (UFC ones in particular) are inherently notable. One of the arguments against it is Wikipedia:SPORTSEVENT which from how I read it, applies to seasoned sports like NBA Basketball, MLB Baseball, NHL Hockey and NFL Football which all have seasons amongst teams with an overall champion being determined at the end of the season. With event bases sports like MMA, Golf, NASCAR, Tennis, Formula One and others, there seems to be no policy that can be followed for how events are determined notable or not notable. While all other event based sports have come to a consensus on which events are notable enough for inclusion and what's not notable, MMA seems to have a major problem coming to this consensus. So basically I'm just wondering what would need to be done to get a set policy for event based sports like how Wikipedia:SPORTSEVENT#Individual_games_or_series exists for seasoned sports. --Kykykykykyky (talk) 04:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You're correct...wiki guidelines are too generalized to be able to be of much use for fine tuning what it notable in particular sports. But that's probably the way it should be as there is no "'one size fits all approach'" that will work with every sport. That's what the individual sports Projects are there for. Tennis has had to argue and vote many times before we found what seems to work, and set it down in our guidelines. We still find things we missed and occasionally tweak things when pro tennis changes its rules from time to time. I believe hockey does the same. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:09, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the input. The trouble is, is that MMA event articles are continually getting put up for AfD and recently other events have been put up for deletion under the same reasoning Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/2004_Estoril_Open. Even events that contain a championship fight which would satisfy the notability based on this sentence (The final series (or single game when there is not a series) determining the champion of a top league, e.g. 2009 Stanley Cup Finals, or Super Bowl XLIII, or 2006 UEFA Champions League Final) are being putting up for deletion in favor of 2012_in_UFC_events. I think it would be a shame to see MMA, Tennis, Golf, NASCAR and other event based sports articles continue to get deleted because of this lack of clarification.--Kykykykykyky (talk) 04:40, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That happens in tennis from time to time... but it's usually by someone who hasn't bothered to read Tennis Project Guidelines or someone who hates the sport in general. It's a bother but almost always it's overwhelming to keep. If the same person nominates over and over the same type articles with no success, an administrator steps in and slaps them on the wrist with a ruler. It rarely ever goes further than that in tennis. I personally can't help on MMA events as I know zero about it, having never even watched an event. Good luck. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:57, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fyunck, on the assumption (based on what you've said above) that you haven't been following the MMA mess, all I'll say is that this seems to be a very clear-cut WP:FORUMSHOP to me. The community's patience with MMA editors and their meatpuppet friends has been worn thin at AN and ANI over the past few months. —Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 05:09, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. I was just giving a general overlay of how things work. If editors are gaming the system or doing inappropriate things, it was not my intention to condone those. Consensus building is still essential. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:03, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry but I am a new editor. I figured that this would be a good place to see what the consensus was for event based sports and how those groups of editors in charge of those particular pages reached that consensus. I've followed this particular issue for two months now and am trying to contribute in a productive manner. I'm sorry that others before me failed doing so.--Kykykykykyky (talk) 05:18, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I dropped in here to check what notability guidelines it mentions for tennis events in particular and other sports events in general since we have an AfD case at tennis at the moment. What is immediately evident is that the article offers a wide coverage of notability guidelines on sports persons (and seemingly sensible ones) but insufficient guidance on sport events notability. From an article titled "Notability (sports)" I would expect it to cover both sports 'persons' and sports 'events' notability guidelines adequately. There is a section on organization and games but that is comparatively meager (and overly focused on the US). It for instance does not explain what the criteria are for defining some individual games or series as "inherently notable". Another omission is that it mentions "games", "(individual) seasons" and "series" but not "events". These shortcomings should be addressed to improve notability guidance. And this seems to me like the proper place for that so I don't quite follow the comment made by Strange Passerby.--Wolbo (talk) 10:45, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Check the WP:AN and WP:ANI archives. MMA editors have been trying to change Wikipedia guidelines on notability against consensus their way for the past few months. This seems like just another fresh attempt at that, in a new venue, hence WP:FORUMSHOP. —Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:21, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really think you're being fair to me right now. I see that articles are getting put up for deletion and really it's just all up to the admin who reads the AfD and their personal opinion on what's notable on that very day. This problem stems from the ambiguity of this particular article and is a problem that all event based sports could possibly face if Wikipedia:Notability_(sports) stays the way it is. Again, I'm sorry that MMA has been such a terrible landscape for Wikipedia for the last few months but I'm trying to help make Wikipedia a better place. I can't help that I'm new and that others before me were not constructive. --Kykykykykyky (talk) 13:36, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In liue of anything specifically written out here, I suggest consulting WP:NEVENT that describes notability guides for news events. I realize that a game or a planned sport event is usually not the same as the breaking news events originally intended to be covered by NEVENT, but at the same time the concept applies: while regular games/events get widespread coverage the day after the event simply due to the popularity of sports, they have no long-standing coverage, and thus should not be given their own articles. --MASEM (t) 13:55, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
After reading trhough Wikipedia:EFFECT#Lasting_effects, I see this particular sentence: "Events are often considered to be notable if they act as a precedent or catalyst for something else." Events that transpire do have very relevant notability in their respective sport in the sense that these events are what is determining the champion (ex. races determine who's the leader of the Sprint Cup Series in NASCAR, who gets to participate in the FedEX Cup in Golf, the top 8 for the ATP World Tour Finals in tennis and eventual Championship fights & number one contender fights in MMA and Boxing). --Kykykykykyky (talk) 15:57, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Arguably it is the season as a whole that leads up to deciding these elements, not one single game in isolation (whether it is based on a win-lose records or a points system or whatever). Yes, one game/match will influence the final standings, but not in isolation. Compare with, say, the NFL or MLB league championships that are a single game or set of games that in isolation determine who will move forward. I have no idea of the structure of MMA but it sounds like it is structures like the PGA/NASCAR in that it is a season-long points total that determines who competes in the finals, and not one single event in isolation. That's the difference here. --MASEM (t) 16:35, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well actually the way the MMA is set up is that there are no seasons. Each event is it's own entity and fighters fight anywhere from 1-6 times per year on different events. Fighters fight head to head and the winner moves up in standing (which there is no official ranking for) and eventually fights in a championship fight. Of the 38 events since Jan 1, 2011 there have been roughly 17 championship bouts. This isn't like other season based sports like NFL, MLB or NBA where there are hundreds to thousands of games per year with the champion being determined at the end of it, instead there are 15-30 very important (in terms of standing in the organization) events with multiple (7-11) bouts happening on each of these events.--Kykykykykyky (talk) 17:06, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Given that there's 17 championship fights per year, that makes much of the coverage routine, when you compare it to even NASCAR or golf/PGA.

As it sounds like it just simply is an on-going thing with no season or annual schedule, I think the best way to handle these type of matches might be to create articles named (tentatively) "2011 events in the MMA", and summarize the major bouts including the championship. I have no idea how many single match bouts (non-championship or otherwise) there are per year, but perhaps that's a list of, say, 100-200 matches: then that could be listed in a table in something like "List of 2011 MMA matches". so that you have the first article that goes into detail of the highlighted matches, and the second that simply is like a season game summary that MLB/NFL season articles have. --MASEM (t) 17:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there were 17 title fights since the start of 2011. So roughly a dozen a year and about 15-25 events per year. NASCAR on the other hand had 36 events (all covered on Wikipedia) with the final 10 all being a part of the Chase for the Championship portion of the schedule. So in my eyes those are directly comparable to each other.
I'm just seeing a lot of ambiguity in terms of the events themselves while the biography portion of this page is very straight forward and I think that we can help rectify this as a whole in order to avoid difficultly like what we were seeing from MMA articles on Wikipedia. --Kykykykykyky (talk) 17:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm talking about the non-championship matches: if there are 15-25 events per year, how many matches per event, etc?

As for the NASCAR thing, that and probably the PGA and probably the tennis leagues are sort of unique as nearly all the events are named ones. But if you notice for NASCAR, if I pull a specific event, say "Dollar General 300 (Chicagoland)", the event does not have per-year articles, but just a summary of the event results for all the years it has been ran. Similarly with the PGA Tour, again a random pull RBC Heritage is a summary of the event over the years but no specific article with coverage of the event each year. There are a few (four that I see) that have this: the 2011 Master Tournament, so arguably if there was one major recurring event in the MMA or boxing that was consider to be a top-tier, must-watch event, I could see individual articles for each time the event was run, but that doesn't sound like its the case for MMA. (since as I understand what you are saying the championship matches are run whenever people qualify for them, and not on any set schedule).

As for the larger problem, NSPORT as you see does not address "open-ended" sports where there is no regularly defined season (MMA and Boxing seem to be the big ones that qualify here); in which case an annual breakdown of the major events seems completely inline. This still gives a way to provide results of the "annual season" and some means to provide more context for the significant, championship matches, but understanding that most of the other matches are simply vying for placement and thus no need to go into great deal barring certain exceptional cases. --MASEM (t) 18:01, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

From what I've found, NASCAR has indivdual event articles for every race since 2007. Some examples of this: 2011_FedEx_400, 2012_Aaron's_499, 2008_Coke_Zero_400_Powered_by_Coca-Cola.
I'm failing to see where in policy it states that there should be "year in review" articles for these sports rather than individual articles (like how there is for NASCAR and Tennis). What I'm trying to do here is to remove the "Well, I think that this should be like this" aspect of these event based sports articles because WP:SPORTSEVENT seems to be solely American season based sports. --Kykykykykyky (talk) 18:40, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Then there's a larger problem here that's tied to the MMA articles. I will agree that the various specific MMA events would be equivalent to the individual NASCAR events in that how they are presently reported - say, 2012 Aaron's 499 - is all short term coverage in terms of just being a summary of the pre-race and race results and would thus be considered routine reporting that otherwise is not already well represented at 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series-type articles. (Individual races may qualify for their own articles if the event is notable beyond just the racing aspect, but I believe these are extremely unique cases). Similarly, this philospophy applied to MMA articles would mean the individual events aren't notable but year-by-year summaries would be appropriate. But it could be that consensus is the other way: that the individual per-year NASCAR races are notable, and to be unbiased, this would make the individual MMA/UFC events (the equivalent type of event) notable as well by the same manner...
Except that the only thing I will flag will be the type of sourcing available. NASCAR and golf are definitely published across the board in newspapers that are independent of the soruces, but MMA events seem to be highly localized to media specific to it. The lack of apparent independent coverage - a requirement for notability - is going to be the other factor to consider here. --MASEM (t) 18:56, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~I appreciate your understanding in dealing with me here. :) I'm new and I would like to help make Wikipedia a better place.~~
So in terms of independent coverage I think that what goes on is that major newspapers don't cover these events full on (unless it's a major Golf event, then there seems to be more of a focus on it). These events do get covered with a great bit of detail when that event is in town so to speak. When it's near, it gets covered by the local (major) newspaper and this happens continuously in each of these types of events. So if I were to go through and find a good deal of newspaper sources for each of these events we'd be much closer in terms of what you (and Wikipedia's sourcing guidelines of course) are looking for?--Kykykykykyky (talk) 19:58, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My personal stance is that articles like 2012 Aaron's 499 are a problem primarily because they are routine-type covers (just reporting the pre-race and race results but not any significant impact of that otherwise beyond the series standing), but I will work on the assumption that they are accepted.

To that end, NASCAR and golf events are reported nationwide regardless where they happen (though I would agree local events solicit more coverage often because of the impact on the economy, as well as certain sports gaining more coverage in certain areas of the US simply due to regional differences). Ergo, there is non-local, independent coverage of the event. So to that end, that seems appropriate.

As best as I can tell from the MMA/UFC events, there's not a whole lot of coverage of these events from newspapers. So if there is only local coverage (likely to draw people to the event and not so much focused on the sporting aspect), there is a lack of non-local, independent coverage. So that's going to cause a problem.

That goes back to my point that articles on the specific events are a problem to start because it does create a bias against the sports that have some - but not highly detailed - coverage. That's why my suggestion is normalizing the MMA articles to the effect "annual" summary articles to be equivalents to season articles that other sports have; those articles will be fine in terms of sourcing. --MASEM (t) 20:15, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with "highly detailed" within MMA is that because its coverage began in the age of the web, the detailed coverage is mostly on MMA specific sites which detractors feel are inherently "dependent". There's plenty of material, but users flock to where material previously existed, and that tends to be where things originated. This type of problem is shared with any burgeoning sport. For everything else, simply cast your gaze at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:LISTN#Stand-alone_lists. In this case, we should be able to find sources which talk about these events as a whole. This would help resolve the issue across all of sports and it would help everyone avoid drama if that were incorporated into WP:N for sports. Agent00f (talk) 20:47, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I recognize that's the problem with MMA is that, as best as I can judge by such sites, until there is more interest in the sport from non-MMA interests, its going to be hard to show any reliability of the online sources. Knowing what has been said in the various discussions of MMA articles to this point, it seems that it is going to be some time before the rest of WP considers the typical MMA source reliable.

But that's important to understand how systematic bias works. There's two ways to solve the situation : one to be more expansive but allow less-reliable sources in, or to be more restriction while maintaining use of reliable sources. That's why I've identified the various individual NASCAR races and similar yearly entries as a problem. When you compare what the NASCAR races have, what the MMA bouts have, and as an extreme, what one could do for individual NFL games (outside the end season), there is definitely an inclusive discrepency. The NFL editors don't see the need to include every game of the season as separate articles even though they would have more than enough sources to do so compared to the NASCAR articles. So, were I to have my way, unless the specific running of a single NASCAR race was more significant than jsut the end results, these all would be merged to the various NASCAR season articles and popular the overall article on the specific race that summarizes the year-by-year results (that is, it is not appropriate to have the 2012 Aaron's 499 article, but it is fine to have the 2012 NASCAR series article and the generalized Aaron's 499 article). That matches how nearly every other professional sport is handled and allows MMA to replicate that structure so that sport can report to the same degree. --MASEM (t) 00:03, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"more interest in the sport from non-MMA interests". I don't think the significance of this is quite what's attributed to it. The people who do the interviews and write the articles are still individuals, regardless of the branding. For example, reporter Ariel Helwanis's won the most prestigious journalist award for the industry two years in a row, and he writes for mmafighting.com. ESPN, Fox, Yahoo, SI, etc also cover all major events, yet their writers are not as respected (ie. access), nor their depth of coverage anywhere close to, say, Ben Fowlkes, who also writes for mmafighting (and btw, SI on the side). It's entirely possible that one of major pubs contract them to expand their coverage, but I don't expect their work to suffer should that happen. When people search for sport news/info and whatnot on the net to find pages to read/bookmark, these are the articles they'll hit. The internet has changed the media game, and wiki should to some extent recognize this. Thus, perhaps there's some arbitrary definition of "independent" source, but let's be upfront it's not related at all to the highest quality sources.

"compare what the NASCAR races have, what the MMA bouts have, ...do for individual NFL games". Part of the distinction here is that an MMA card is around 10 separate contests of 15-25min "regulation" time. This is rather in the ballpark of regulation time in shorter games and a dozen games isn't unheard of for a season. Fighters themselves only average a couple tests per year. If we're arguing about making every fight its own entry, then point taken. But the competitions are already organized in a natural format to readers/editors who follow the subject. A more similar event example is Tennis. This isn't just fans being difficult and going against the grain for no reason, but rather promoting what would make sense to any objective observer who'll take a few min to listen. The reason why there's been such fervent opposition to the previous outside proposals for the sport is that they're being created arbitrarily with no domain expertise. For example, annual divisions make no sense, any more than calendar bimonthly divisions for football makes sense. All this has been said countless times, but the folks running the show don't listen. Agent00f (talk) 00:45, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In most sports, which are run in seasons, there is a complete reset of stats and standings between seasons; as been explained, MMA is not like this, as players' records continue to change year-to-year. Because there's a lack of any reset, we can be free to group all MMA events into time periods that make sense, and per-year is a common convention for many other (non-sports) titles. This is one way - if individual MMA event articles aren't appropriate - to still provide almanac-like coverage of the sport.

As for sources, WP has no problem with online sources, and recognize that some fields just don't have high quality academic coverage that we expect for more core topics. But that said, we can't treat MMA coverage in a walled garden (which is what was clear that some MMA editors wanted); sourcing for MMA has to be somewhat equivalent in quality to other professional sports. As a case in point, there was a recent discussion of adding eSports (professional video game players) to here, but it was quickly dismissed because the only sources that covered them in detail, while online, were far from reliable. My take on the prior discussions that the bulk of MMA sourcing is perhaps a notch above eSports, but far below the bar set by even NASCAR or golf. If there is not a good amount of reliable sources, we just can't cover it in detail. That's a fallout from WP:V and other core policies, which notability is built on. We have to find a middle ground that removes any walled-garden effect on MMA articles, even if that means other sports articles that presently exist need to be rethought too. Again, I point to the coverage of some of the specific NASCAR races are no better in sourcing and type of content than an individual MMA article, and that we don't report on every NFL game (though summarize seasons without an issue). Given that MMA is driven by the rankings of players and subsequent results of championship matches, and less about the specifics non-championship matches, this points to some broader coverage instead of per-event articles. --MASEM (t) 06:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And just to add - while there's probably a few anon editors or the like that are desperately fighting against any attempt to trim down MMA coverage at all costs, I don't think the majority involved are intending to make MMA articles a walled garden, but in attempts to define MMA notability, I believe that have unintentionally slipped too far in that direction, which is why it is putting other editors off. I think there's a larger issue that is beyond just MMA articles to be considered in light of fixing the bias. --MASEM (t) 06:33, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Strange Passerby, this is the appropriate venue for this topic. Simply compare the similarities between entries for many others sports and MMA. If MMA cards can be deleted with the same hardline interpretation of GNG or EVENTS (inherent non-notability for anything without "enduring significance", etc), then all sports are similarly affected. If these arbitrary AfD's which destroy the values of the lists are effectively perpetrated on other sports, there'd also be somewhat of a similar mess ensuing. In that sense other sports editors should be thanking those on MMA for enduring the brunt of the AfD enthusiasm. Also, your characterization of MMA editors seems to commit a wholesale ad hominen fallacy; please try to avoid this. Thanks. Agent00f (talk) 20:47, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Another MMA apologist, huh? Not surprised. Just waiting for this section to turn into another MMA meatpuppet and sockpuppet SPA fest. —Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 02:55, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We're already aware of that stance on MMA, there's no need to repeat it. Instead, can you please provide any insight into this content problem also common to Tennis, Horse Racing, etc, etc? I think that's the point of this page. Thanks. Agent00f (talk) 03:08, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, the apparent point of this thread is "we couldn't get our way with MMA, so let's fuck all the other sports up, too!" —Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 03:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I don't understand how solving the same notability problems which put a target on ALL similar EXISTING sport entries is fucking anything up, given that's the point of this page. If you look at the links I've supplied above, in addition to all sorts of motorsport (incl. Masem's nascar example above), triathlons, etc. All of these are vulnerable to the same kind of AfD's, and it's not exactly fanboys of any sort filing them. Agent00f (talk) 03:23, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I came here to discuss an issue with Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(sports) in that it only talks about team sports that are set up in a seasoned structure. I see how the issue that the MMA community on Wikipedia is experiencing in terms of trying to come to a consensous with editors who want to strictly enforce policy. When I read Wikipedia:DOGBITESMAN#Routine_coverage & Wikipedia:PERSISTENCE#Duration_of_coverage and try to apply it to bigger events like say the Super Bowl, it's still really tough to justify it because it's routine in the sense that there's a Super Bowl every single year in early February.
I just want to see if there was a way to maybe prevent this type of hailstorm for individual sports because there is a lack of a policy regarding their events on this page. Again, I'm trying to make this place better and the last thing I want is to see more of this needless drama.--Kykykykykyky (talk) 04:05, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It does seem that the inherent lack of clarity in the guidelines is having a destructive effect here. People ought to know, when they come to create an article, whether or not the topic of their article is a legitimate one. If you have one group of people putting effort into creating articles, and another group putting effort into getting them deleted, then clearly a lot of effort that could have been put to constructive purposes is going up in smoke (not to mention people's goodwill towards the project). I suggest that on one hand the deletion wonks lighten up a bit - does it actually do anyone any harm to have articles sitting around that push the notability envelope a bit? - but on the other hand we make a proper effort to produce guidelines that really tell people, without (more than an inevitable minimum of) ambiguity and circularity, which topics we want to have articles on and which we don't. Victor Yus (talk) 06:53, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Another MMA apologist, huh? Not surprised. Just waiting for this section to turn into another MMA meatpuppet and sockpuppet SPA fest." That doesnt help the discussion at all and is quite pathetic. Next time try to move the discussion forward in a positive away instead of attacking MMA fanboys. Portillo (talk) 07:58, 23 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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 :::::I just want to see if there was a way to maybe prevent this type of hailstorm for individual sports because there is a lack of a policy regarding their events on this page. Again, I'm trying to make this place better and the last thing I want is to see more of this needless drama.--[[User:Kykykykykyky|Kykykykykyky]] ([[User talk:Kykykykykyky|talk]]) 04:05, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
 ::::::It does seem that the inherent lack of clarity in the guidelines is having a destructive effect here. People ought to know, when they come to create an article, whether or not the topic of their article is a legitimate one. If you have one group of people putting effort into creating articles, and another group putting effort into getting them deleted, then clearly a lot of effort that could have been put to constructive purposes is going up in smoke (not to mention people's goodwill towards the project). I suggest that on one hand the deletion wonks lighten up a bit - does it actually do anyone any ''harm'' to have articles sitting around that push the notability envelope a bit? - but on the other hand we make a proper effort to produce guidelines that really tell people, without (more than an inevitable minimum of) ambiguity and circularity, which topics we want to have articles on and which we don't. [[User:Victor Yus|Victor Yus]] ([[User talk:Victor Yus|talk]]) 06:53, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
+"Another MMA apologist, huh? Not surprised. Just waiting for this section to turn into another MMA meatpuppet and sockpuppet SPA fest." That doesnt help the discussion at all and is quite pathetic. Next time try to move the discussion forward in a positive away instead of attacking MMA fanboys. [[User:Portillo|Portillo]] ([[User talk:Portillo|talk]]) 07:58, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

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