I entirely support the insistence that these "famous/notable" players sections should be held to account for their content, and would like to see something similar for the increasing Notable matches" sections. However, I would suggest that the sections where this template is being posted do not so much suffer from unverifiable content (as the warning now says), but unverifiable criteria, thus leaving it open to NPOV failings. For example, at the Italy page, It is probably not difficult to verify that Luigi Cevenini was a midfielder who earned his first cap in 1915: the problem is that there is no clear reason why he is on the list and Armando Castellazzi, for example, is not. I would suggest that the template should also not merely warn against adding others, but should challenge those who wish to maintain the section to provide and apply inclusion criteria. I would read the discussion at WP:Footy as justifying that. Kevin McE (talk) 17:17, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's very difficult to get people to take ownership of the material, I have blanked some of these unsourced POV sections, and they get reverted very quickly. When I ask the individuals to WP:PROVEIT they seem to argue that someone else added the material, and that they only restored it. This template is undesireable, the sections should be blanked or fixed, not templated, but there is too much resistance to either, deploying it across the 1000s of articles with these list seems like an huge task. Fasach Nua (talk) 20:25, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been aware of some of the reversions: I have a few nft articles on my watchlists. I think that your style has sometimes been unnecessarily confrontational, but as I say, I agree with the direction of your drive. I agree that the need for the template is undesireable, but given that there is a need, I would suggest that it might be more directive towards editors, rather than simply warning the reader to beware of the info. Maybe the text could be closer to

This is a list of sports persons with no clear inclusion criteria, and as such should not be treated as encylopedic. Please help to improve Wikipedia by ensuring that there is specific reason for the selected players. It would be useful to establish WP:CONSENSUS for such criteria on the talk page. If no criteria is forthcoming, the section is liable to deletion. Please do not remove this message until the section contains only entries conforming to verifiable criteria.

Make it a dated template, and when posting it, put on an edit note that you would envisage deleting the section in 3 months if not acted upon. If editors don't get their act together in that amount of time, they don't have much interest in the section. How would that sound? Kevin McE (talk) 21:14, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it seems reasonable, I think it should include the terms famous and notable, as these are the two problem areas. Most other lists are fine. I wouldnt be so sure about the three month thing, but I think it is a process of graduial desensitisation Fasach Nua (talk) 08:12, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that there is no set of criteria for inclusion in these sections, and they have existed, mostly uncontroversially, for years until now. I think it would be wrong to put a time limit on this until after a criteria has been devoloped. -- Grant.Alpaugh 22:11, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would have to agree with Grant, about the date stamp, this a problem covering 1000s of articles, if not 10000s and is a long term project. I have tagged these sections multiple times POV, OR, and fact, this is the first one to have stuck beyond an hour, so I think that is a positive step.

WP is a work in progress, I think editors want their pet articles free of tags, and aspire to GA, and FA status, and they should get rid of the template themselves by meeting WP:V. I think removing the template in this manor [1] [2] , is entirely unacceptable. Fasach Nua (talk) 09:27, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the way you added the tags, without an edit summary, as if you were trying to slip in under the radar given your history of pointy editing, is entirely unacceptable. -- Grant.Alpaugh 14:00, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to do several hundred repetitive edits by hand and type out edit summaries in each of them feel free, it would save me a lot of work. Although I think the text of the template is sufficiently well worded that the average wikipedian could understnd why it has been added, however if you can think of clearer wording then perhaps that might help. Fasach Nua (talk) 14:34, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Given the subsequent creation of WP:NOTED PLAYER, I don't think there is a need for the verbosity about encyclopoedic worth etc discussed above on this template. The current wording is concise and informative per the current situation [3] and I would ask Fasach Nua not to own the template, which it looks like he is doing by reverting two different editors now on the basis of the situation before the proposal came into being. MickMacNee (talk) 17:52, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But the issue is not so much verifiability, as the lack of inclusion criteria, which is not mentioned in the current phrasing. The present phrasing suggests that NOTED PLAYER has a status above that of a proposed guideline. If it is to be argued that verifiability is the issue, then this is not merely grounds for improvement, but for deletion: it would seem fair to warn editors of that rather than the rather weakly phrased request in place at the moment. Kevin McE (talk) 18:53, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The template wording mirrors the standard approach on the OR template, which only indirectly infer to the threat of deletion by linking relevant policies (WP:V). I see no need to explicitly warn users further, or give readers lectures on what being unverified might mean to them. MickMacNee (talk) 19:29, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree with Kevin, it is not unreasonable to give editor's due notice regarding potential deletion. These lists are the worst kind of OR, they have no encylopedic merit at all, and if not improved will be deleted in full, most OR is generally a sentence or two in an otherwise reasonable paragraph of text. Fasach Nua (talk) 07:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Temperate language should be used. There's no need to build an outcome or POV into the template while the whole issue is under debate. Wiggy! (talk) 12:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a clear outcome, if the information cannot meet WP:V then it is deleted, that is policy. The changes you have implemented is to change the meaning of the template from one regarding a specific problem, ie no inclussion or exclussion criteria, it is not intended to be used on all notable player sections, some such as Scotland use verifiable criteria, and have therefore not been templated, if you feel there is a need for a an additional generic template to be added to all noteable players sections even with a criteria for inclusion then it should be created elsewhere, this one has a specific purpose Fasach Nua (talk) 12:38, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have made a generic one with wiggy!'s content at Template:Famous players generic for general use Fasach Nua (talk) 12:40, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is unneeded. It is self-evident that any cleanup tag should not be removed until the issue it is attached to has been resolved. We don't need to bloat this template to three lines just to point this out. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:45, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... I see what you're saying. I agree, the "do not remove" point is indeed unnecessary. However, the verifiable wording is very necessary. If the entire sentence is removed, it seems like talk page consensus is all that's needed to remove the template which is not true. The goal of this template is to push for verifiability of the content, not to encourage small pockets of editors to come up with their own criteria for inclusion in the list/section without any references. How about we reword it to something like this: Lists of "famous" or "notable" sports persons with no clear inclusion or exclusion criteria should be avoided. Such lists should be removed or replaced with verifiable lists of players recognized by the club, league, or another reliable source and be properly referenced. --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 18:28, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds great to me. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:12, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's pretty stupid when you consider that lots of people wanted the inclusion criteria for these lists to be 'played x games' or 'scored y goals', which you won't find in any external reliable sources. This template has been a standing joke since it was created, and I very much doubt it has led to the improvement of a single article. MickMacNee (talk) 15:46, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Anecdotally, I can think of several articles that it's improved. Misuse does not imply uselessness. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:13, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Chris. We can see from the discussion above that just removing the unreferenced sections doesn't work. This is a more passive approach to addressing the problem without angering people. I was about to start using it in a few articles, but was not happy with how it was worded. The new wording should make it clearer what the final goal is (have everything referenced). --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 20:27, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone with moire template technical knowledge than me add a date field. Now that it states that such sections "should be removed or replaced", (good change) do we have an opinion or how long the temp[late should be allowed to remain in place without either of these things happening? Kevin McE (talk) 01:30, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It already has a date parameter (just add |date=December 2009 and it will show up). There are other templates like this ({{Unreferenced}}, {{Refimprove}}, and {{Primary sources}}, and while all provide a date parameter, none seem to provide guidance on how long they should be left around. I would say use the date parameter and later (after a few months) remove it if it hasn't been referenced. Note that there have been a lot of complaints about adding this without an edit summary. I would recommend a good edit summary and probably a talk page entry when this is added to any page. I know that means more work, but it shows proper respect to the regular editors of the page (if you're not one of them). That's how I plan to use this template. --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 04:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thumperward Chris Cunningham decided to revert the change saying in his changelist description "rewording failed to heed convewntion for cleanup template layout. try a simpler one, based on talk suggestion". First, a revert is a bad call I believe as it puts back the wording that induces editors to come to their own consensus on an article talk page which ignores the Wikipedia-wide problem with these sections. Second, Can you please point us at examples of the convention you refered to? The template I modeled my suggested message after is {{Trivia}} (which gave me the "should be avoided" wording), and {{Unreferenced}} (which gave me the idea for the removal text, and the "reliable sources" advice). So I guess I believed I was already following convention. Clearly you believe there is a different convention to follow. Please explain. --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 16:34, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The idea that this template's wording or even existence ever had consensus in the first place is quite wrong. And the issue is not references, because as I said, even the pro-template crowd were seemingly quite happy with editting these sections to meet totally arbitrary inclusion criteria not used by any source, as long as it could be then said, 'well, at least it is WP:V now', ingoring the fact that arbitrary criteria are what they are, meaningless and pointless from a content POV. The fact is, any local consensus formed to address the template in a way that actually makes sense for that team, is actually valid, because every single attempt to agree on a site wide way of fixing the issue has ended up in no consensus. MickMacNee (talk) 18:10, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could you clarify your suggestion as to how we should deal with lists of "Notable players" that are no more than collections of editors' favourites? Kevin McE (talk) 23:21, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Given the fact you edit warred to keep the link detailing all the historical efforts to resolve the issue off of this template, I cannot take this 'request' for suggestions seriously at all. MickMacNee (talk) 23:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can't explain other editor's motivation and I won't try to generalize the motivation of the "pro-template crowd" or the "anti-template crowd". But I can explain my own motivation. I'll start by stating that no soccer club article at the WP:FA level has an unreferenced notable players section. I'm working on getting the Seattle Sounders FC article to FA status and have had to remove such a section (a few times) because it would never pass the WP:FAC review. However, believe it or not, I am also interested in the improvement of other articles, and once the Sounders FC article becomes an FA I hope to apply the learnings from that process to other articles. These sections are rampant right now and, with this template, I'm trying to create a "delicate" way to address the problem without unnecessarily angering the editors of those articles. Every time I add the template to the article, I will simultaneously start a new section on the talk page and invite comments. It will, no doubt, be reverted occasionally, but it will be a nice way to ease editors into facing the fact that these sections are completely arbitrary and need to be based on verifiable recognition from the club or league.

As for MickMacNee's comments, I don't see how something can be both arbitrary and verifiable at the same time. Maybe you're arguing that a league or team's "Best XI" is arbitrary (which is debatable), but it's definitely verifiable. If a club or league has a "hall of fame" or has a tradition of retiring the numbers of players they wish to honor, that is the kind of verifiable information that belongs in these sections. --SkotyWA^Talk|_Contribs 04:19, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This has all been covered before, which is why it is so utterly tedious to have to keep repeating it, but to give you an example of the 'pro-template' crowd's suggestion for how to make a list 'verifiable' - introduce an arbitrary limit of 'played x times', include anybody over, exclude anybody under. For a club I know about, with a very long history, this sort of meaningless criteria are never found anywhere in sources, and depending on where you set the bar, you end up including utter non-entities who merely stayed at the club for a long while, while excluding the sort of players that casual readers who know the subject are just going to look at the article and think, 'what are you on Wikipedia'? So, all you end up with by 'improving' and article this way and ignoring local consensus, is to create a pointless list which does not reflect truely notable players, and worse, once you stick a silly FA star on it, fools people who don't know the subject, that some of the players listed were regarded higher than they actually were. Do not confuse my position with allowing any old made up criteria agreed to on the talk page, but if local consensus comes up with a specific list that can be backed with references demonstrating particualr players status as notables, then that absolutely has to be respected after the universal failue or wider discussions, and anybody coming along and calling this OR and unverifiable needs to be told where to go. And you really should also realise that a lot of the time, any 'hall of fame' produced by a particular club's current owners, is usually full of flaws and ommissions itself, and is most often riddled with utter recentism. The club I am thinking of began a program of announcing 'Heroes' of whatever nonsense they called it, and named pretty much anybody who played in a succesfull period in the nineties, before the concept was quietly dropped after a takeover. And unsurprisingly, after a couple of official website revisions, it is almost impossible to now 'verify' that it even existed (because, as said, it's actual quality was lampooned by RS, and universally ignored). This debate has been crying out for some common sense for years, but it just gets derailed by people chucking ACRONYMS around and not thinking about the reasons behind the actual policies. MickMacNee (talk) 14:00, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion about template formatting was had here. I did not actually revert: I came up with a new wording which was in the spirit of the discussed changes. I shouldn't need to point out that the undo button is not intended to be used as a veto, by the way. Have a read of my proposed revision: if there are no actual problems with it I'll re-add it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:55, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

...done. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:24, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I had to check out for a little while from the above discussion, and I can see that in my absence, Thumperward Chris Cunningham has reverted this again. For the most part, I guess I can live with the current wording, but would really like for it to actually use the word "verifiable" rather than just linking to WP:V. May I propose the following "tweak":

This list of "famous" or "notable" sports persons has no clear inclusion or exclusion criteria. Please help to identify clear, verifiable inclusion criteria and edit the list to contain only appropriate entries and inline citations.

This way the link to WP:V is not an "easter egg" with unrelated words linking to it. I've changed the word "define" to "identify". Editors shouldn't define the criteria, they should identify/discover existing, verifiable criteria to use. Anything else would be WP:OR. I also added the "inline citations" to the end so that it's clear that this is a requirement. Thoughts? --SkotyWA^T|_C 18:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That would be an improvement. It needs to be crystal-clear that these lists need to adhere to both WP:V and WP:OR. As you point out, a locally-invented set of criteria unused in sources is unacceptable original research. Both the criteria and the players satisfying that criteria have to be verifiable in reliable sources to satisfy both requirements. Knepflerle (talk) 19:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Editors 'invent' these criteria themselves all the time. All of there 'list all players with X caps' type 'V' suggestions of how to avoid OR, don't appear in any RS as a form of identifying noted players. MickMacNee (talk) 01:13, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've little time to even decipher what I'm supposed to have done wrong here, but this is almost certainly an example (if any more were needed) of MickMacNee assuming either a motive or an entire narrative behind an innocuous edit and then forging ahead with "righting that wrong" when there was nothing to actually fix. The words "or 'notable'" here are used for the single reason that many of the sections to which this template is applied are labelled "notable people". Whether Wikipedia uses "notable" as a jargon word referring to policy is irrelevant. I've re-added it. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:01, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd totally fogotten that a link to this faild proposal had been edit warred off the template, so I'm adding it here to aid any future visitors, lest they do what I just stumbled across, and attempt to repeat the entire conversation again on the Football project. MickMacNee (talk) 01:10, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]