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Roller Derby

I'd like to propose a specific set of guidelines for roller derby league related articles.

Roller derby leagues are presumed notable if they:

  • Have team members who are on the national team for the Roller Derby World Cup;
  • Have competed in intercounty, interstate or international bouts; or
  • Are nationally ranked.

Roller derby skaters are presumed notable if they:

  • Have competed at the Roller Derby World Cup; or
  • Founded a notable league and participated in intercounty, interstate or international bouts.

I'd be open to including something like spectator attendance, but if you have 4,000 people in attendance to home bouts, you should be able to qualify under WP:GNG as there should be some media coverage of the league. As for skaters, there aren't any articles yet, so it probably isn't a big deal but I'd like to have something stated because most sports have individual athlete guidelines. --LauraHale (talk) 00:02, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not totally clear on your proposed guidelines. It's certainly possible that a roller derby league does not meet any of those three points -- has a member on the national team, have competed in interstate bouts, or are nationally ranked -- yet the team meets the general notability guideline that you've linked to -- "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article... " So the team would still be notable, and therefore an appropriate subject for an article, even though they don't qualify under the three points -- right? — Mudwater (Talk) 00:21, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
If a team qualifies under WP:GNG, then it qualifies there. Wikipedia:Notability (sports)#Association football allows for youth players to qualify under GNG, even if they don't qualify under the guidelines for the league. This is just a proposed guideline for leagues that are more borderline when it comes to easily finding verifiable independent sources for notability. --LauraHale (talk) 00:29, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
I see. And presumably the same would apply to individual skaters. That makes sense. — Mudwater (Talk) 01:05, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
To what extent does roller derby belong here, as opposed to WP:ENTERTAINER where we place, for example, professional wrestling? --Tryptofish (talk) 17:02, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Like it says in the lead section of the roller derby article, "[after the 1940s] it predominantly became a form of sports entertainment where the theatrical elements overshadowed the athleticism. This gratuitous showmanship largely ended with the sport's contemporary grassroots revival in the first decade of the 21st century. Although some sports entertainment qualities such as player pseudonyms and colorful uniforms were retained, scripted bouts with predetermined winners were abandoned." So roller derby has now become a fully legitimate sport again. — Mudwater (Talk) 17:39, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Have we reliable sources saying so? Ravenswing 19:09, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] are a few. Almost universally, the starting in 2000 redefining of the roller derby is as a women's only full contact, amateur sport. --LauraHale (talk) 19:35, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
What Mudwater says. Outside the USA (and to a large extent inside it), roller derby is supported by the country's national roller sports federation. They have access to sport development dollars through that organisation and, in some cases, can directly access funding from national and state institute of sports. --LauraHale (talk) 19:20, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

The more I look at the sources provided here, the less enthusiasm I have. I see the sourcing for the recent reorganization of roller derby (albeit only in Australia, per the sources listed), but nothing that really gets to the sport versus entertainment question. Several of the sources are not intellectually independent of the subject. At an absolute minimum, any guidelines to be added here would have to clearly differentiate between roller derbies that were entertainment, and those more recent ones that putatively are not. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:30, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

It goes beyond the putative, all the way to the factual. Roller derby has evolved a lot over the decades. A lot of people are familiar with the entertainment-heavy and partially scripted version, from the 1960s, 70s, or 80s. The big revival started less than ten years ago I think, and has really picked up steam recently. Now it's a legitimate sporting event, mostly played by amateur women's leagues, but with a style or culture that has some camp or punk elements. I do agree that there should be good sources for all this, and the roller derby article already has some. Here's one that I found with a quick google search: Chicago Roller Derby: The Quick & Dirty. "If you haven't seen roller derby before, you might have preconceived notions about the sport and how it is played. It's not like WWE Wrestling, or God forbid, their kitschy spinoff GLO aka the "Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling". No, roller derby is a real sport for sure. In 2011, you won't see scantily clad babes without helmets, checking other women into the side rails. And unlike the video clips from the '70s, there's no antics: no slapping, no head-butts, no headlocks, and no pigtailed women pulling each others' hair." And so on. — Mudwater (Talk) 19:10, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
To repeat: (1) That's a blog. I'd feel better with better sourcing. (2) How does the proposed guideline differentiate between the "new" and "old" versions? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:15, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
You're right, the Chicago Now article is a blog. I hadn't noticed that. Here's a good one though: <ref>Neale, Rick (June 24, 2008). "All-Female Roller Derby Elbows Its Way In as a Legitimate Sport", USA Today</ref>. — Mudwater (Talk) 23:48, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
It's recognised as a sport by the roller sports bodies in the US, Australia, UK, Canada and Sweden, for starters. Pre-2000 roller derby was, certainly from the 1940s on, sports entertainment. If that was to be considered under this proposal, there was no World Cup and no national ranking of leagues, so leagues and skaters of the time could only potentially meet the second points of the two lists of criteria. Warofdreams talk 14:46, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

This is a general remark, not specific for roller derby, but no teams (or "leagues" should be assumed to be notable when they "Are nationally ranked" if there is only one national competition, not a multi-tiered competition system. If you have a minor sport with only one league of ten teams and a few hundred spectators per game max, then these teams aren't notable for playing "at the highest national level". Specific sports guidelines are intended as explanations of in which cases it can be expected that they will meet the GNG, not as a series of rules where the GNG doesn't need to be met. Fram (talk) 14:51, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The issue for roller derby is, generally speaking, no national organisation which creates a national league or national competition. What you have is a case of various tournaments that may be regional or national or even international. You also have the possibility of interstate and intrastate bouts that can be organised similar to what you'd call a test match or series on the international level. That's how it works in Australia in any case because there is no national competition. (Ditto in the United States and Canada.) Thus, you have an organisation that nationally ranks them. In other countries, where the level of play is less organised, there is no organisation that provides national rankings. The guidelines I proposed were built with WP:GNG in mind: If you're nationally ranked, you should have the media coverage. If you're competing in interstate and international bouts, you should have media coverage. (These tend to involve bigger venues seating a few thousand people for one, and the organisers work hard to get media attention because of the outlay of cash.) In Australia, the major teams that qualify under those guidelines would have a few thousand attendees. *babbles* Hopefully that clears things up. My goal is to make it easier to get rid of Antihero Derby Alliance and Hard Knox Roller Girls where there appears to be nothing notable about the league in the article. At the moment, when looking at most roller derby articles, the default assumption appears to be "If a league exists, it is notable." Hence, the desire for clarity. --LauraHale (talk) 20:46, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I appreciate the USA Today source that Mudwater provided. It does make the sport/entertainment distinction very clearly, and is the kind of source that I have been asking for. Reading the rest of that piece, I notice how much there can also still be entertainment-like events. I think it's very important that anything added here serve to, as LauraHale points out, get rid of stuff that isn't really substantive, and not lend itself to being gamed to accomplish the exact opposite. I looked at all those links from various countries, and my reaction is that they are not intellectually independent of their subject. In other words, they are just saying that we have determined that we are a real sport. Not as credible as a news source saying so. I wonder, then, whether the thing to do is to only list the points about the World Cup, and say that anything else is governed instead by WP:ENTERTAINER. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:58, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I think you are misunderstanding the other links - they are not produced by roller derby organisations, but by skate sport organisations which have recognised roller derby as a sport. Warofdreams talk 22:47, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Going marginally off point: I could probably pull together a bunch of sources if I went looking. There are just issues with roller derby. From the perspective of some one who has given herself a crash course in the topic, we basically have two, possibly three sports with the same name. The first was the roller derby distance races that pre-date the 1940s, for which there are a number of sources. Trove has a number of sources supporting this. That sport morphed into the entertainment related roller derby that dominated the 1950s to 1990s and is mostly what is chronicled in the history of roller derby article. Starting around 1998, 1999, we see the existence of roller derby as a women's only sport that is played on the grass roots level and is non-entertainment. In the USA, the entertainment roller derby overlaps still with the women's only sport. Outside the USA, the sport is pretty much defined as women only. (There is a good article in the recent Time magazine that talks about roller derby in Colombia for example. Skate Australia doesn't recognise any men's leagues to my knowledge. There aren't any men's national teams, nor is there a men's roller derby world cup.) I'd argue there is a pretty good case that the roller derby article should be rewritten and treat the default as the women's only sport (as that is what I think most people come to it for: What the sport is now) with the entertainment and men's/mixed derby being disambiguated in order to clear up the confusion. Otherwise, we'll end up with more non-notable POV pushing issues like we have with this AfD and all over the talk page. Beyond that, with out spending much more time researching the topic, Skate Australia's thing is probably the best link I can find off hand. Roller sports (though not necessarily roller derby unless the international federation is supporting it, not just national members) is getting support from national federations, and these national federations are getting Olympic related funding. Badly, playing connect the dots which I know we shouldn't do, that to me says it is a sport and it is intellectually different than the entertainment sport of the 1950s to 1990s. --LauraHale (talk) 22:37, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I broadly agree with that, although some of the dates could do with shifting a little. The men's game exists in Canada and Europe, too, but everywhere it is much less prominent than the women's game. The difficulty in splitting the sport in three is that, while stylistically it is appealing, the move from the first incarnation to the second was gradual, and there were some elements of sports entertainment even before the origin of the Transcontinental Roller Derby in 1935. The modern revival initially didn't distance itself much from the traditional sport - that came about over the next few years, particularly through the role played by the WFTDA. Warofdreams talk 23:02, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I just saw the section get added. I didn't think that would fall under NSport but since it is here: Off the top of my head, I see no mention of a legendary league Roller Games that has been around for almost half a century and was on national TV. How many other leagues like this are not included by this guideline? This makes me question the proponent. Trackinfo (talk) 07:47, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
They are guidelines for the modern, women's sport of roller derby and how to address these leagues specifically, almost all of which are found in Category:Roller derby leagues. The televised, entertainment form of roller derby that predates the modern revival would probably fall under entertainment notability or general notabilty and would not be applicable here. --LauraHale (talk) 08:02, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

break (roller derby)

I'm really not satisfied that what has been put on the page has gotten consensus here. I'm concerned that the guidelines are too inclusive. I'm going to delete the parts that I think should be discussed some more, and we can put them back if there is really consensus to include them here. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:23, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the section again, I also don't see the necessary consensus here for this. This is a relatively new, emerging sport, where it isn't yet clear what will be notable and what won't, and no indication of what "major" bouts and competitions are. NSPORTS is intended to put down some established, accepted standards where it can be presumed a priori that (nearly) everyone or everything covered by it meets the GNG. There is no evidence yet that the proposed inclusion rules for Roller Derby meet this standard (e.g., does having a player at the world cup make the team notable? We still have to see whether the player will receive sufficient significant coverage, never mind the WP:NOTINHERITED claim that the team would become notable for having a notable player. There are world cups for everything, from barbecuing[8] to homeless football[9], but that doesn't mean that everyone involved or everything related to someone involved becomes notable. The GNG has global consensus, and this or other SNGs shouldn't decide after a short discussion with limited participation (and enthusiasm) that it isn't valid for such and such. Note the very first line of NSPORTS: "This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) will meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia." Fram (talk) 09:35, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree; the general notability guideline should apply. There is absolutely no reason for the tendency towards deletionist exclusion shown here. Dualus (talk) 17:21, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Although I raised the concern about consensus, I'm still receptive to putting some of it back. I do think there could be some value in what some might consider "deletionist exclusion"! I just felt that things like inter-county sounded too vague to fit with GNG. What I'd like to see is a better point-by-point justification for anything to be included. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
What reasons at all remain for any sort of exclusionary deletionism now that the Foundation has functional off-site backups? The practical cost (including monetary cost, labor, and risk) of additional disk space storage for the projects has effectively decreased by two orders of magnitude because of this technical achievement, and I would love to see our notability criteria follow suit. Dualus (talk) 17:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, we're still an encyclopedia, rather than an indiscriminate information dump site. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:46, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree, and believe that inclusion is far more discriminating than exclusion. Dualus (talk) 20:26, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I am in agreement with the criteria as LauraHale presented it. While I also am aware of Tryptofish's concerns that the inclusion criteria is too broad, I also want to point out the fact that this is an underexposed sport, and as such, verifiability is more difficult to achieve. As many articles in this sport are currently being questioned for notability and AfD'ed, it would be a good idea to at least have some criteria to work with. Also... notability guidelines are not a suicide pact. Just because we throw out a rough criteria, doesn't mean we can't polish and tweak it as necessary. Trusilver 20:40, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I would argue for modifying it like this: [10]. I believe it improves on the original draft because:
  • It removes the ill-defined "nationally ranked".
  • It removes intercounty bouts and tournaments, which seem to me to be rather unlikely to be notable.
  • It clarifies the language in the note at the end, by using the standard "presumed" terminology.
  • It adds explicit language about entertainment pertaining to older versions of the "sport".
With those changes, I'm OK with including it. I note that the editor who deleted the whole thing did so based on the argument that it would be too inclusive, and the editor who agreed with deleting it argued instead that it wouldn't be inclusive enough. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:00, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
I think that's a fair compromise. I'm in support of the language. Trusilver 21:06, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
I continue to oppose restoring this until someone explains how it would be more work if the inclusion criteria were general instead of roller derby-specific, which is WP:CREEPy. Dualus (talk) 00:27, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure I get the distinction being made here between intercounty and interstate. I gather the implication is that intercounty puts them closer together, and makes the event less noteworthy due to convenience. Counties and states vary in size all over the place, so not sure how enforceable this may be. Not to mention that Canada uses provinces, other countries use different geographical designations. Otherwise, I'm happy to see the direction this is going in. Echoedmyron (talk) 15:16, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Excellent point. Why should the granularity or nomenclature of a country's political divisions influence the inclusion of sports teams on Wikipedia? Remove specific notability rules when they aren't being used to clarify the general criteria, per WP:CREEP. Dualus (talk) 21:26, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Echoedmyron, you are right about the fact that it shouldn't be US-centric. In the US, where I live, counties are pretty small, so it's less about closeness/convenience than about the fact that a competition between two county teams would be ridiculously trivial in comparison to what we say about any other sport. No way would professional football (US), baseball, or basketball have intercounty competitions at the fully professional level. Based on what you pointed out, I would leave out any mention of either intercounty or interstate. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:23, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
I also agree. My personal believe would be the minimum level of notability for ANY sports team or figure would be competition at a national level. The problem I'm finding with roller derby is that the level of competition isn't as clear as it is in other sports. Thus making it difficult to determine if any given group or individual is notable. Trusilver 07:08, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Basically, I oppose any inclusion for roler derby at the moment. The sport is not settled enough, making it impossible now to decide a priori what events and circumstances make a team or player notable. NSPORTS is intended to be an easy reference to check whether it is likely that a player or team will meet the GNG, as indicated in the intro: "If the article does meet the criteria set forth below, then it is likely that sufficient sources exist to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." Many people here seem only to read the second line of the intro, and to forget the first and third one. Is there evidence that e.g. a player in the world cup would make the team notable? No, that's a pure guess. Feral Fairy is supposed to play on the world cup, and is a member of the Rainy City Roller Girls. The combination "Feral Fairy" "Rainy City" yields very few results and no reliable independent sources though, so it seems as if so far, a player at the world cup doesn't mean anything for the notability of the team (the may be notable anyway, but not because they have a player at the world cup). Which other tournaments and bouts are "major"? No idea. Not a good basis for a SNG either. Things may well get clearer in the next few years, but for now, there are no good rules-of-thumb to create a realistic guideline for it. That's not being deletionist or inclusionist, not having a SNG doesn't mean that roller derby can't have articles. There are no SNGs for much older (and Olympic) sports like speed skating / shorttrack, table tennis, martial arts like judo or karate, field hockey, and so on. Finally, if the section gets reincluded, please don't put in the "Professional sports persons" section, since there really aren't many (if any) professional roller derbyists: and please don't make roller derby the only one that is (mainly) about teams/leagues, in a section that is otherwise purely devoted to individuals (players, coaches, managers and referees). Fram (talk) 07:47, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Um, I'm pretty sure that Fram meant there should not be a set criteria for such articles at this time. I see nothing that proposes deleting articles. If you look closely, Fram even says, "not having a SNG doesn't mean that roller derby can't have articles". Echoedmyron (talk) 23:30, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, it does help to read what I write, as I did not and do not propose to delete all or even most roller derby articles. On further investigation (i.e. rereading the first sections of NSPORTS), it became clear that the suggested section not only doesn't belong in the sports-specific section, but also not in this guideline at all. "It is not intended that this guideline should apply to sports clubs and teams; for these the specific notability guideline is WP:ORG.". (bolding mine) Fram (talk) 09:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
That rather contradicts the first sentence: "This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) will meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia". Perhaps a new section is needed to resolve this? Warofdreams talk 16:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
No, the first sentence makes it clear that this guidelines adresses persons, and leagues/organizations (in the traditional sense of the word), so the Premier League or the NBA are covered by the guideline, but individual teams are not. That roler derby teams for some reason desrcibe themselves as "leagues" is confusing, but the links in the first sentence of the guideline make it clear that the guideline si about the traditional "leagues", and not about the creative naming of teams. Fram (talk) 12:07, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
My guess is actually that when it was decided recently to make it clear that teams don't fall under this guideline that no one thought to change the first sentence. I would argue that even leagues should fall under wp:org. But that is a different discussion. -DJSasso (talk) 12:27, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
No objection to that, but indeed this should be mentioned outside the roller derby discussion before it gets removed. As long as it is clear that as the guideline now stands, the disputed roller derby section has no chance of being included here, no matter how inclusive or exclusive it is, since it falls outside the scope of this page. Fram (talk) 12:33, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Just to clarify: leagues don't actually describe themselves as teams. The leagues, for the most part, have teams within in them. Most have "house" teams that play each other at home, and one or more travel teams, generally all-star type teams, that play travel teams from other cities. (For example - the teams that play for rankings within the WFTDA are travel teams that represent leagues. To make a very broad comparison, take the NHL - it would be like the NHL being the league, the various teams within being the teams, and say an all-star team playing a team made up of star from say the Swedish Elite league would be the travel team. It's a rather unique way of doing things to be sure. For derby, the leagues are notable - under a to be determined criteria - yet typically the league gets used as short form for their travel teams when discussing bouts against other teams' travel teams. My impression is that news media articles tend to focus this way. The house teams would not be as notable, and tend not to get written up in the press to the same extent. A league article in my view ought to mention the house teams, with emphasis on their travel teams, and if the league is a member of an organization such as the WFTDA, their rank within should be covered, along with a history of bouting against other leagues' travel teams. The long and short of it, as others have said, is that this is a still evolving sport with a unique set of circumstances. It may simply be too soon to consider developing and enforcing a strict set of criteria for establishing notability. Certainly not every league will have members playing on national squads, and the degree to which a travel event is or isn't notable is really fuzzy. We've also seen on the main roller derby article debates about whether or not the WFTDA should be considered the defining organization or not, so I don't think we can simply say that being a member of the WFTDA establishes notability when other organizations may also have worth. I think a better place to start might be for sorting out the sourcing requirements for roller derby articles - I think we can all agree that the New York Times and ESPN are reliable sources, but what of the Derby News Network, which clearly will have more of a basis for the accuracy of its reportage through familiarity of the teams and the sport, and certain bloggers who again will know what they're talking about more than a sports reporter who feels the need to make dated references to old incarnations of the sport. This is likely not the place for that discussion - I had floated the idea to a handful of editors of a WikiProject a while back with the aim of improving roller derby articles in general, but nothing came of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Echoedmyron (talk • contribs)

Professional eSports

Is there a criteria for professional esports players? Redefining history (talk) 15:18, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

  • There is none defined with in this project. That would fall under the scope of the video project, IMNSHO. Professional video gaming is not a sport in the sense that this project covers. The simplest option is to rely on WP:GNG, though I am not sure how many of these video game players actually get wide coverage. Resolute 16:36, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Where is the video gaming WP:BIO page? Redefining history (talk) 23:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

There isn't one, as such. The closest thing to a notability guideline is WP:WEB, so it's really WP:GNG that applies. The project mentioned above would be Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:27, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I think esports is a sport. Redefining history (talk) 01:49, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

For those of us unfamiliar with the term, can you clarify what it is and why you think it fits under this guideline? Does it consist of more than playing video games? Cbl62 (talk) 01:55, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Electronic sports Redefining history (talk) 02:07, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
And in addition, i think every game which is played professionally should be considered as a different sport, such as Starcraft 2 and Dota 2. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redefining history (talk • contribs) 02:12, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I think there are some arguments to be made that professional gaming is moving into sports territory. It has many sporting elements such as tourneys, coaches, training facilities, amateur and professional tiers, etc. In South Korea, there is no question that it has sport-like legitimacy. It's on the rise in North America and Europe, partly due to groups like Major League Gaming. (Look at that sporty logo!) One could argue that if motorsports can be included, this could too. (People + machines + competition = sport?) On another note, what do we do with professional poker players? GNG? The Interior (Talk) 02:39, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, in China, their ministry of sports listed e-sports as the 99th sport. Outline of sports#Electronic_sports describes this. Poker could be classified as a mind sport (i am not knowledgeable in poker, maybe someone else will argue for it) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redefining history (talk • contribs) 03:04, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
99th? That doesn't really help our argument. The Interior (Talk) 03:07, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Why not? this shows that e-sports are classified as sports in several countries and china is an example. Redefining history (talk) 03:33, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

There actually was a note in the guideline that reflected that e-sports did not qualify under this guideline...it appears it got misplaced so its been readded. -DJSasso (talk) 18:34, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I really take issue with including e-sports in this guideline at all. They are competitions, sure, but so are spelling bees. Are we going to treat spelling bee contestants, as well as science prize competitors, here? Of course not. I'm not wild about that paragraph that was added, and, if anything, would rather that it say that those kinds of things are not covered by this guideline, without purporting to differentiate between notable and non-notable. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:13, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
With WP:CIRCULAR as an admitted caveat, I find it useful to look at how the lead paragraph at Sport is written:
"Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree of skill, especially at higher levels. Hundreds of sports exist, including those for a single participant, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. Some non-physical activities, such as board games and card games are sometimes referred to as sports, but a sport is generally recognised as being based in physical athleticism."
I think that last sentence is very relevant here. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:23, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
There is a strong element of physicality in gaming that isn't present in chess, cards, or spelling bees. Gamers talk about "actions per minute", a metric that measures how many moves they can process, and input properly through the interface. It is a physical hand-eye coordination that makes people successful in these activities. There are similarities to motorsports - reaction time, operating a machine at a skilled level. I don't think e-sports can be written off as non-physical. Just some thoughts. The Interior (Talk) 19:33, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm, you do make a good point with respect to motorsports (and I suppose golf), but I think there is a distinction between athleticism in the sense of physical activity, and "actions per minute" in the sense of manual dexterity. (Pickpockets are not athletes.) Please correct me if I'm wrong, but most video games do not simply score victory based on actions per minute, but rather on the outcomes of those actions. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:42, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Football requires lots of strategy as well. As do many other sports require a balance between physical and mental abilities. --Odie5533 (talk) 19:52, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I have no problem changing the wording. I was just replacing the original wording that was as I mentioned removed or dropped by mistake in the split. Consensus definitely appears to not supporting egames being here and we can certainly change to that, but at the moment this is better than nothing. (I would note my re-adding it was a BRD technically...so you BRD'd a BRD.) -DJSasso (talk) 19:47, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
It's hard to keep track. Anyway, it's good that we are discussing it. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:51, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
The point that we allow the guidelines as we do with physical professional sports is that they are broadly covered internationally in many forms of media - print, television, radio, etc. The amount of attention they get thus allows for the reasonable assertion that playing in major international competitions will be an indication that sources exist for that person either directly as a result of playing in that competition or from their history of why they got into that competition, or both.
For other "sports" like chess, poker, eSports, etc., this broad coverage just does not exist to the same degree. There are limited reliable sources that cover these, making the competition itself notable, but the players do not have the same likelihood of having existing sources or sources after the fact. Some may become notable regardless if that is caught by mainstream press, but not an assured occurence. Hence why the non-physical sports do not have the same allownaces as the physical ones. There also tends to be the fact that participation in these types of esports is self-directed (eg anyone can be a good poker player) compared to more physical sports where the top pro and ametuer players are weeded out through team selection and performance. --MASEM (t) 19:50, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, about your argument on "(eg anyone can be a good poker player)", this is different for esports. not every single person have the reaction/hand-eye coordination to compete in the highest level. and not every single game can be deemed competitive, especially MMORPGS. IMHO, the games that could be covered in esports are only Counter Strike, Starcraft, Warcraft and Defense of the Ancients, and despite the pubic population playing these games, they only play in specific rooms where we could call "publics". only a small group of them are actually fully paid to "entertain the audience", which is also another element of sports, as thus we call them professional esports players. For your point on notability, prominent gaming sites such as GosuGamers, MyMYM and sGamer are supposedly deemed biased and thus not a notable source by wikipedia. However, this argument is based on the opinion that the sites are acting in the interest of the games/players. I would like to point out that these sites actually works the same as sites such as goal.com and other sports sites, could they possibly be acting in the interest of FC Barcelona and Arsenal at the same time when publishing the transfer of cesc fabregas? Or when they feature a player due to his/her performances will it be accused of acting in the interest of the player? i would like to rule out this possibility. These gaming sites reports facts about the happenings in the gaming scene and thus should be deemed as the notable source for esports players. Other responds to arguments : "most video games do not simply score victory based on actions per minute, but rather on the outcomes of those actions." : this applies to most sports too, if you run the most in a football field does it guarantee that you will win?

On another note, i think there is a general misconception. eSports players do have teams. In DotA, where 5 man is needed on a team, teams like MeetYourMakers, Natus Vincere, Invictus Gaming, Moscow Five exists. And every team signs players (transfers exists too, just like football), and in my opinion this is very sport-like. Other games such as Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 are based on 1v1 matches, and this could be comparable to Tennis singles, badminton singles and table-tennis singles. Redefining history (talk) 08:40, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

In addition, these teams are generally backed by strong sponsors, especially Invictus Gaming, which is owned by currently wealthiest man in China, Wang Jianlin. Redefining history (talk) 01:23, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I have been told numerous times that this should be under WikiProject: Video Games, however I would like to point out that the video games project seems to be focused on the video games itself, while the competitive playing of certain video games, a.k.a. e-sports, should fit in "sports" instead. Redefining history (talk) 04:42, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Is there a problem with using WP:GNG in the absense of establishing an outline specific to the sport? At some point all sports athletes have guidelines under GNG and Athlete and if e-Sports competitors do not meet those criteria then perhaps e-Sports still has some way to go. Every sport that is professional now went through a period when they were not. Growing pains are exactly that. --Falcadore (talk) 06:26, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Which is precisely why i brought up a discussion here. Alot of sports athletes, who has appeared, for example, one game in some "top" football competition in the 19th century gets a wikipedia article not due to the GNG but due to the SNG. video games guidelines does not fit into esports. And the sources we have for esports does not satisfy the sources required for GNG which i perceive is due to some misunderstanding of such sources. I don't understand, when you type the player's name in google, you get tons of articles about them. Yet one by one the articles are argued as unreliable and you have to dig to find reliable sources. And when i find them, all they say is "it shouldn't be too hard to find reliable sources, so these players are non-notable". ... Redefining history (talk) 10:22, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
he has trouble understanding the concept that the GNG requires "SUBSTANTIAL coverage in reliable sources that are INDEPENDENT of the subject." He has started this argument in about 12 different places. Since he can not find sources to satisfy the GNG he hopes to make an end run around it here. The first reply to him here [11] sums up the situation nicely. Basically this has all been explained to him countless times now. Personally I feel that since the overwhelming consensus at the videogame project is that these articles do not belong here and should not have special consideration I don't think the conversation should continue here. However he will just continue here until he feels he is not winning his argument and just move on somewhere else. Ridernyc (talk) 18:04, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Look at this Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Links. Half of these links doesnt even satisfty as independent sources. I would like to contest on what is an independent source here. Does a site that only covers football be counted as independent sources when it comes to football players? Does a site that only covers basketball be counted as independent sources when it comes to basketball players? Redefining history (talk) 04:20, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Why would a site fail as a source solely because they cover basketball (or any other sport)? Would you even try to argue that Golf magazine wouldn't be a reliable source or that a feature article in said magazine wouldn't be significant coverage? Independent has nothing to do with their subject matter. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:26, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
I believe that is exactly his point. If you follow the discussions to which Ridernyc refers, this is the argument that has been used against the independence of the sources used for notability in many articles on professional gamers, and he is trying to show by analogy that these criteria are misguided. You seem to agree. Inkwiry (talk) 17:12, 23 October 2011 (UTC)— Inkwiry (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
No, we don't agree. Ridernyc seems to have a firm grasp on WP:RS, Redefining History (and apparently you) don't seem to understand it that well. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:21, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry you feel that way, but I would rather you respond to my comment, instead of attacking me. All I am saying here is that the way I understand Redefining history, he is trying to compare the standards used for sources in football, etc. to the standards some people have asked him to use for sources in esports. I think he would agree fully with your statement above, and he is further claiming that you should also apply those standards to esports. You may argue that doing this is silly until we establish whether or not esports are sports, as we are trying to below, and I would fully agree. So we should probably go ahead and move down there now. Inkwiry (talk) 17:25, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
I think i've gotten an answer at the wikipedia IRC help..
  • Chatlog as following:
[12:25] <redefinehistory> Does a site that only covers football be counted as independent sources when it comes to football players? Does a site that only covers basketball be counted as independent sources when it comes to basketball players?
[12:25] <+Alpha_Quadrant> It depends on the website
[12:25] <redefinehistory> goal.com
[12:26] <redefinehistory> please tell me why and why not
[12:26] <+Alpha_Quadrant> Generally, if they have a reputation for being reliable amongst the common public, then yes
[12:26] <+Alpha_Quadrant> it they have a bad reputation, or if they are relatively unknown, then no
[12:26] <redefinehistory> could you help define "have a reputation for being reliable amongst the common public"
[12:26] <redefinehistory> ?
[12:27] <redefinehistory> please?
[12:27] <+Alpha_Quadrant> how many people use it as a trusted source?
[12:27] <redefinehistory> how i do know that .. lol
[12:27] <+Alpha_Quadrant> usually the alexia rating
[12:27] <redefinehistory> ok wiat
[12:27] <+Alpha_Quadrant> I'll check
[12:28] <+Alpha_Quadrant> *Alexa
[12:28] <redefinehistory> what satisfies the criteria?
[12:29] <+Alpha_Quadrant> it looks like it it fairly well known.
  • My argument is, since football sites covering about football teams/players and basketball sites covering about basketball teams/players is considered independent, so why not dota sites covering about dota teams/players and starcraft sites covering about starcraft teams/players? (Note : for those with an argument "the players post the news iteself", the esports community is not so small. They have journalists and all and the players/managers never post news itself on these sites. There are also websites of these players/teams itself in which they are the primary sources and should not be considered independent/disinterested) These sites are different from the "fanpages" listed out in the video gaming sources as it isn't something like a fan-based community posting about rumours on the game itself and should be compared to those sites of basketball/football/other sports.
  • Another Chatlog:
[12:29] <redefinehistory> could you help me check this site? http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gosugamers.net
[12:29] <redefinehistory> does it count as well known or something?
[12:30] <redefinehistory> compared to this http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/sgamer.com
[12:30] <+Alpha_Quadrant> redefinehistory: hmm, the first one appears to be used by other reliable sources
[12:31] <+Alpha_Quadrant> suggesting that it may be reliable
So check these sites out, it should be considered reliable
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/prodota.ru
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/pchome.net
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/mymym.com
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/178.com
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gosugamers.net
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/sgamer.com
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/replays.net — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redefining history (talk • contribs) 07:07, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Redefining history (talk) 04:49, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I would like to ask for permission for someone (if no one, i can do it too) to draft a proposal for e-sport. Redefining history (talk) 10:31, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

This is my draft of the proposal, others might want to add into it:

  • E-sports (Note:These competitions are all offline)
Has achieved the following placings in the following major international competitions :
Has achieved the following placings in the following major international competitions :
Has won the following major domestic/reigonal competitions :
Could someone help out with this?
This too

Redefining history (talk) 13:15, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I support the "won the following" listing, but I am not sure participating in the other ones is quite enough. Do all of them have preliminary qualifiers before the main tournament? --Odie5533 15:48, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
I object to participation at major tournaments. It isn't consistent with many of the smaller sports here. The Paralympic Games will be the second largest multi-sport event in 2012. Athletes competing in it do not get articles: They need to medal to assume that they should meet WP:GNG. If participation is important here, I'd need to see several examples of low ranked players who would qualify for WP:GNG based on their participation in one of those tournaments. --LauraHale (talk) 19:07, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Along the same lines as what I've said in other discussion threads, you need to show that (nearly) everyone who meets the proposed criteria has received independent, notable coverage, before the criteria can be used to establish the presumption of notability. isaacl (talk) 20:49, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
I went looking for the "World DotA Championship" and a list of team members for the Australian MCiTY team that competed in this tournament. The team name MCiTY is what appears on an official announcement of teams competing in the tournament. I can't even find a list of players that compete on that team. If I can't find a team roster that contains a list of competitor names, I'm not sure how these players could even begin to qualify under WP:GNG. I'm not opposed to it, but the criteria really need to be refined to what is likely to be notable or even assumed should be notable. --LauraHale (talk) 21:07, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
It has been established in numerous places --see my comments above-- That none of these players pass the GNG. In fact if you look at The International (Dota 2 Competition) which is an article this editor created last night, I'm not even sure the tournaments themselves pass GNG. Only a few brief mentions in reliable sources and the sources seem padded with tons of primary sources. This is an attempt to in fact create an exception to the GNG or to try to convince people that primary sources and fan sites can be used to establish notability. Ridernyc (talk) 22:01, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
MCiTY didn't participate in the WDC, the only competition MCity participated on the list is the SGNDT, which they achieved an awful placing. Yes, the ESWC and WDC all have qualifiers, and The International consisted of teams handpicked by "icefrog", the creator of dota/dota2. My article on The International was created through the AFC process and reviewed as passing the GNG.... what's wrong with it. Changed "participated" to top 4. Redefining history (talk) 03:13, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Just because it came out of AFC is no indication it will survive AFD. You keep trying to do that, trying to attach meaning to different polices and processes. You are also once again side tracking the issue the PLAYERS need to pass the GNG. Even if these tournaments are notable it has nothing to do with the people who play in them passing the GNG. You have been trying for going on a week now and have still yet to show how a single player will ever have a hope of passing the GNG. Ridernyc (talk) 03:28, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I got confused part of the way through this.....are we actually entertaining the notion that playing video games is a sport and should be included under this guideline? Niteshift36 (talk) 04:00, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
The more appropriate place to do this would have been at the video game project. However when he went there he hit a brick wall and was told that they needed to pass the GNG and that they don't pass the GNG. So we are now back here where people are at least talking to him. Also I would like to add this needs to be cleared up because multiple people have tried using this guideline at the AFD's for these players [12]. Ridernyc (talk) 04:08, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
There is an argument above about this. Where e-sports have physical components while poker doesnt. Redefining history (talk) 06:33, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

As the list for events has been refactored, adding more events to the list and saying they won is not going to help with the argument regarding notability. If Redefining history is genuinely interested in earning consensus for a policy related to the notability standards s/he has proposed, Redefining history needs to, on this page, provide an example list of these athletes/competitors who meet those standards and provide sources to demonstrate notability under WP:GNG that would entitle them to have articles created about them, regardless of the proposed policy. The point of notability policy on this page is not to maximise the number of articles allowed under policy but to make it more clear for articles that are marginal. Example: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Romsey Town Rollerbillies (and to a lesser degree Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Modern Athletic Derby Endeavor ‎ ) is an AfD related to a roller derby league. Before this, there was no clear policy what roller derby leagues were notable. The guidelines clarify it and make it clear who is and is not notable from that perspective and what sources should be there. So [User:Redefining history|Redefining history]] , please provide example competitors from your model and show us how they meet WP:GNG on a wide scale.--LauraHale (talk) 04:50, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Please read my chatlog on the wikipedia IRC above. If those sources are considered reliable, i would have a lot of examples to show you. Redefining history (talk) 06:03, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
I help out on IRC too. And my read is that each source will need to be independently verified. I looked at one cited in the article linked to. It appeared to be okay. But other pages on the site did not appear to be written by journalists. In any case, please provide multiple sources demonstrating WP:GNG for people meeting the criteria listed. Otherwise, complete impasse and you're really never going to get consensus. --LauraHale (talk) 06:18, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Which articles and sources you are referring to? Tell me which article and i can list down the sources+author+date right here. Redefining history (talk) 06:39, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
My bad. I'll provide consensus support for your proposal if you can find sources that meet WP:GNG for the following people, that by your own definitions, would be notable under your proposal:
I apologise for the length of the list. If these guidelines are to be created, the vast majority should easily meet WP:GNG and until we have several examples of that which can be tested, then the guidelines don't work. In using WP:GNG, please make sure that there is at least one source that does not mention the event next to their name and at least one source that says mentions the event and where they placed. --LauraHale (talk) 07:13, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, i apologize that i am not knowledgeable enough on starcraft and that is just a rough list. However, i am knowledgeable enough in DotA. Some of the people you listed there aren't from the starcraft/dota section. please note on the games i have listed on my proposal. These are the 3 dota players you listed out.
Dendi speaks out 2011-01-22 Ulrich Hanten
Ks.Int adds Dendi 2009-03-18 Chris H.
ASUS Spring special featuring Dendi 2011-05-30 Ulrich Hanten
SGamer interviews Dendi 2011-09-17 Dexter F
[13]
Dendi答网友问:数字ID有含义 没领过薪水 2011-2-18 雨夜未央
Na'Vi.Dendi:WDC最难忘 Na'Vi潜力巨大 2011-1-23 princelin9
[战队 Dendi回归Ks.int 我是Levent的纷丝] 2009-3-18 Improbity
DTS人员危机:Dendi携Artstyle加入Na'Vi 2010-12-26 princelin9
Na'Vi take home $1,000,000 2011-08-21 Ulrich Hanten
Puppey Interviewed by Natus Vincere TV 2011-10-20 Kai Chua
Video: ASUS Summer Special featuring Puppey 2011-08-15 Ulrich Hanten
Na`Vi's Puppey talks about Dota2 and Gamescom 2011-08-26 Ulrich Hanten
Video: Na`Vi's Puppey speaks up 2011-08-04 Dexter F
Puppey's state of Nirvana 2010-06-08 Linus Staaf
Puppey tops MYM Champions League 2011-05-09 Terrence Wong
Mousesports adds Puppey! 2008-11-24 Robert Reagen
Puppey interviewed ahead of HFGL 2011-09-02 Dexter F
Na'Vi take home $1,000,000 2011-08-21 Ulrich Hanten

There are alot on other sites i listed as well. same for Dmitriy “LighTofHeaveN” Kupriyanov. And as these 3 players are ukrainian/russian, even more significant coverage are given to them in prodota.ru. However, im really really sorry that i dont understand russian. Redefining history (talk) 07:44, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

GosuGamers is far from an independent reliable source. It appears be a blog that sponsors events. [14] [15] Ridernyc (talk) 08:50, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Plus this was also gone over at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard 5 days ago [16]. Like I said when he fails to get an answer he likes he just tries a slightly different tact on another talkpage. Ridernyc (talk) 09:09, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

It has a blog and forum feature, but it isnt a blog, and the information in the blogs and forums are never taken as references. It doesnt sponsor events. Please state more reasons why it isnt a reliable source. I will answer to them all. Scrap my arguments from 5 days ago, I feel prepared this time. Here you go http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gosugamers.net Redefining history (talk) 09:10, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Really they don't sponsor events? sure about that? I already linked to this above but I guess I'll do it again <http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/16743-be-part-of-the-2-500-winner-take-all-roccat-dota-gosucup-4>. And no I will not explain to yet again why they are not a reliable source to establish notability. It like everything has been explained to you numerous times and you ignore the explanation every time. Ridernyc (talk) 09:22, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Oh my, im talking about top teams who attended offline events here and you are talking about an online event where no top teams participated... That event is for the community instead, and has a measly prizepool of $2500, it has nothing to do with all the top events with $1 million prizepool and top teams/players im talking about. If you are talking about bias, give evidence. Redefining history (talk) 09:26, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Please read my chatlog on the wikipedia IRC above. EDIT:since you hate it so much to scroll through my arguments, i would paste it here.

Quoted from Redefining history (talk) 04:49, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • My argument is, since football sites covering about football teams/players and basketball sites covering about basketball teams/players is considered independent, so why not dota sites covering about dota teams/players and starcraft sites covering about starcraft teams/players? (Note : for those with an argument "the players post the news iteself", the esports community is not so small. They have journalists and all and the players/managers never post news itself on these sites. There are also websites of these players/teams itself in which they are the primary sources and should not be considered independent/disinterested) These sites are different from the "fanpages" listed out in the video gaming sources as it isn't something like a fan-based community posting about rumours on the game itself and should be compared to those sites of basketball/football/other sports.
  • Another Chatlog from wikipedia irc:
[12:29] <redefinehistory> could you help me check this site? http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/gosugamers.net
[12:29] <redefinehistory> does it count as well known or something?
[12:30] <redefinehistory> compared to this http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/sgamer.com
[12:30] <+Alpha_Quadrant> redefinehistory: hmm, the first one appears to be used by other reliable sources
[12:31] <+Alpha_Quadrant> suggesting that it may be reliable

Redefining history (talk) 09:23, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Please read your own chat log "suggesting that it may be reliable". No one ever told you it was actually a reliable source. Ridernyc (talk) 09:26, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
So? Im making a claim its reliable. You can contest to it, not making such kind of attacks.
  • Description from alexa : Offers StarCraft, WarCraft and DotA Gaming news, interviews and matches information.
What blog?

Redefining history (talk) 09:31, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Remember the little conversation we had on your talk page about endless arguing? Ridernyc (talk) 09:37, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, since a new point is brought up, it should be discussed and countered if it is wrong. Why arent you countering my argument? instead making all the links to previous arguments (in which i have new points here) and telling me to stop. Is that really how wikipedia works? At least give time for other users to review my arguments here. I'm answering to a constructive argument by LauraHale, he/she didn't get the chance to review my arguments and you are here insisting me to stop. Redefining history (talk) 09:41, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Also please stop going back and editing your talk page comments [17]. And with that I end my involvement in this circular argument with you. Ridernyc (talk) 09:48, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Ridernyc, I am genuinely interested in this topic and feel that many of Redefining history's points are more valid than you give him credit for, yet I agree with you that he seems to be scattering this issue all over and in general wasting a lot of people's time through his redundancy. Perhaps you can clarify which page you think should contain the discourse on the question of whether these websites he's asking about should be considered "independent", etc., for the GNG? I would like to go there and read/discuss. Inkwiry (talk) 20:31, 23 October 2011 (UTC)— Inkwiry (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
There is no need for further discourse unless new sources are provided. Going to 13 different places showing the same sources and getting the same answer is just wasting everyone's time. In over a week he has failed to come anywhere near establishing notability. There comes a point where it becomes abusive to the system and I think we have passed that point. He is on an ideological campaign at this point to prove us all wrong. Ridernyc (talk) 20:49, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
The correct place to discuss this would be here Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Esports news. I admit mistake over posting arguments outside wikipedia here and have since deleted them. The argument has ended with Salvdrim stating these:
  • Quoted from : Salvidrim (talk) 02:21, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Oh, and as a secondary answer, if you want to compare to sports, here's how I see it:
  • Covering sports at large would be akin to covering entertainment at large
  • Covering a single sport (hockey, volleyball, baseball) would be akin to covering a single type of entertainment (movies, music, gaming)
  • Covering a single sports team would be akin to covering a single video game (it is likely if you devote time and effort covering that topic, you're either fan or a detractor, thus not neutral or disinterested).
For these reasons, I would not consider a website about (for example) the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators to assess notability for any individual player just because it discusses it, because it is written by and for fans. A site covering hockey would perhaps be able to assess such notability if it had significant independent coverage of a single player. At least, that is how I see it, others may think differently
Which i have noted as a very very bad argument. In my opinion, it should be like this.
  • Covering sports at large would be akin to covering e-sports at large (this is very complicated, as e-sports isn't based on a single game)
  • Covering a single sport (hockey, volleyball, baseball) would be akin to covering a single type of game (dota, starcraft, cs)
  • Covering a single sports team would be akin to covering a single e-sports team
For these reasons, I would not consider a website about (for example) Moscow Five and Natus Vincere to assess notability for any individual player just because it discusses it, because it is written by and for fans. A site covering dota (gosugamers and others) would perhaps be able to assess such notability if it had significant independent coverage of a single player.
Redefining history (talk) 11:37, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Thanks Redefining history. Ridernyc, I understand fully where you're coming from. However, although there may be certain arguments that I have not seen, I have seen several arguments on the topic, including the one which the above excerpt is from. He is quite right that the argument made there was very poor/incomplete, and this also applies to all of the other arguments that I have seen on the topic. So regardless of whether the non-notability of these sources has been thoroughly established somewhere on Wikipedia, if it is not currently thoroughly established in the correct place then I have trouble seeing why you would refuse to direct me to this correct place in order to further the discussion there. Surely we should like to have it thoroughly established in the correct place, so that future users such as myself with similar questions can find it. And if you feel that it has indeed been thoroughly established in a discussion somewhere, I would be greatly obliged if you'd link me there, or even better post a link to it in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Esports news. Inkwiry (talk) 17:13, 24 October 2011 (UTC) — Inkwiry (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Arbitrary break

The aove is just getting ridiculously difficult to follow (especially when Redefining history keeps changing responses after they've been responded to). Before we start worrying about all the criteria etc, the basic question that I think needs answered is: Is playing video games a sport? Coming up with a criteria is moot is it isn't a sport, right? Niteshift36 (talk) 14:26, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

"Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree of skill, especially at higher levels. Hundreds of sports exist, including those for a single participant, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. Some non-physical activities, such as board games and card games are sometimes referred to as sports, but a sport is generally recognised as being based in physical athleticism."
E-sports requires the hand-eye coordination and reaction that doesn't exist is the so called "mind sports" like poker and chess and board games. The "operating machines" (in e-sports case, a computer) is comparable to motorsports such as operating a car/motorcycle. And i do not change my comments, instead i add things into it when it comes to my mind, but ill stop doing that. Redefining history (talk) 14:34, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • First, let me say I'd also oppose the notion of poker or chess being called a sport for our purposes here. I don't see that definition applying to video games. This whole "hand/eye coordination makes it a sport" thing is a dodge. If your office held a typing contest, since it involves accurate physical movement, speed of movement (actions per minute) etc, you'd apparently call it a sport. I can't see any amount of look-at-it-with-your-head-tilted-and-one-eye-closed justification making me consider playing a game while seated in a Lay-z-boy recliner as a sport. Niteshift36 (talk) 15:39, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Where does that definition say anything about strategy? Archery is an Olympic sport. Hand-eye coordination, simple mechanical action. Not much in the way of strategy though, is there? Niteshift36 (talk) 17:09, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Niteshift36, I would say it more this way: the subset of electronic games often known as "esports" have numerous unifying characteristics that simultaneously distinguish them in many significant ways from the rest of video games. While I do not see a strong argument that they are covered by Wikipedia's definition of a sport, I think a very strong argument can be made that they have more in common, fundamentally (whatever that means), with sports than they do with other video games. And I think it is possible if not likely that they share all the characteristics of sports which are relevant to Wikipedia's decision to give sports a separate set of notability guidelines. But I'm a bit of a newcomer here and still learning about these things, so that's where I'd like people like you to help me explore the argument.
Also note the following sentence from Wikipedia's page on "sport": "Air sports, billiards, bridge, chess, motorcycle racing, and powerboating are all recognized as sports by the International Olympic Committee with their world governing bodies represented in the Association of the IOC Recognised International Sports Federations." While I had trouble following the citation for this claim, it was likely at least the case at one time (the page is probably just gone now), and regardless it is at least indicative of how some people have different ideas from yours on the definition of a sport (chess, incidentally, is a game played "while seated in a Lay-z-boy recliner", probably even more so than esports are - but in reality neither one normally is of course). Above, I explain what I think we should focus on here, instead of people's various definitions of sports. Inkwiry (talk) 19:43, 23 October 2011 (UTC)— Inkwiry (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • And since I've already said I'd dispute chess being called a sport for the purposes of this guideline, telling me that chess can be played in a Lay-z-boy isn't very persuasive. (And when I watched guys on TV, they were in recliners BTW). Second, telling me what other sports are recognized by the IOC is kind of pointless, especially when the IOC doesn't recognize video game playing. Niteshift36 (talk) 21:05, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Sorry, my previous comment should read "Below, I explain what I think we should...".
I wish you would stop choosing individual statements from my arguments, stating them on independent of context, and then claiming that they are "not very persuasive" or "pointless". Chess and the IOC list are simply examples to show you how people's opinions on the definition of "sport" vary widely, which is the key point of the proposal I make below. Please read it, if you haven't yet. I would like to hear what you think of it, because I think it could help us make this argument much clearer. Inkwiry (talk) 18:01, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
  • This is a very good idea. Let me try to further direct the focus of this argument. The way I see it, the entirety of the objection to esports as sports lies in the ideas of physical activity involved, as mentioned in the Wikepedia article on sport. Let me know if that is misguided, but I believe I can provide plenty evidence to convince you that esports meet most other reasonable criteria for sporthood. So then the question becomes one of how we define things like "physical activity", "physical athleticism", and "use of physical fitness", which has been discussed to some extent above (as well as below).
However, I would like to stress that the definition of sports is and has always been a fuzzy thing. In general, I would argue, we develop a notion of "what is a sport" each on our own, subjectively, and then we proceed to collectively attempt to define sports in a way that matches our notions, excluding everything we intuitively think is not a sport while still including what we think is one.
So I think that when discussing this issue, we should keep in mind that our current definition is really little more than our best attempt at codifying our intuitive sense (which is not at all unanimous anyway) of what is and what isn't a sport. Thus, especially in light of the fact that notability guidelines are not rules but guidelines, intentionally leaving tricky individual cases to our discretion, I propose that we shouldn't be examining so much a given "dictionary definition" or "consensus definition" of sports, so to speak (and there frankly is no consensus, as the Wikipedia article is careful to point out), but instead considering:
  • What are the specific characteristics of sports which make it important for Wikipedia to have a set of notability guidelines specific to them?
  • Does competitive video gaming fit that description?
It is on these questions that I would like to suggest we focus the argument, until they are resolved to our satisfaction. Of course, if we decide that esports do certainly fit the dictionary definition of sports, then that will more or less resolve these questions, but I have a feeling there will always be strong opponents to the idea that video games involve "physical athleticism". Inkwiry (talk) 19:43, 23 October 2011 (UTC)— Inkwiry (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Oh well, i just remembered there are typing games as well. Therefore, if typing is going to played competitively (notably) and reach the fanbase and community other well-known esports games like dota and starcraft have, why not consider typing under this guideline? the problem is, typing is much less entertaining to watch (lol, anyone will get excited by typing?) and entertainment is a huge part of sports here. Redefining history (talk) 22:44, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • It doesn't matter if you "get excited" about it or find it entertaining. Golf doesn't interest, entertain or excite me, but it is a sport. Video gaming is not a sport. Niteshift36 (talk) 23:40, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I think there is something wrong with your point. Even if you are not entertained by golf, the huge community and coverage on golf would make the point that golf is somehow entertaining to these people. The point about why typing competitions cannot be included in WP:ATHELETE guidelines is, the fact that these typing competitions (are there any at all?) are not receiving sufficient coverage to pass the GNG. Henceforth, if typing gets enough attention from the public, why not include it inside WP:ATHLETE? The fact that chess and poker are being brought up to disprove esport's inclusion under WP:ATHLETE is due to the fact that all of chess, poker and esport has enough coverage, or even more than some of the sports listed under WP:SPORTS. And the point is made on why esport is different from chess and poker, satisfies the sports guideline, and should be included under sports, please argue along that line. Redefining history (talk) 07:51, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Niteshift36, I agree with you. But this response is not very relevant to my comment. I would love to hear your response to the actual proposal I made. If you disagree with it, I would love to hear what part of my argument for it you find lacking, because I felt it was pretty thorough but I could easily have made a step you don't agree with. That will be very helpful in keeping this discussion on track. Inkwiry (talk) 16:41, 24 October 2011 (UTC)— Inkwiry (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Actually, I see no reason to debate it any further. From what I've seen, every experienced editor in this discussion has said that oppose including video game playing. Redefining History has presented nothing new. There is no reason for each person to go through this whole circular waste of time. Niteshift36 (talk) 23:26, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I feel that the arguments of The Interior and Odie5533 has been supporting me all along. I agree Inkwiry is a new created account and could fall under SPA, but he does make valid arguments too. I see nowhere the question on the APM and reaction requierments of e-sports being physical been answered and I feel that you should focus on responding to the question that really hasn't been responded to. Redefining history (talk) 01:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Summary

This whole thing is actually split into 2 arguments.

  • 1. Is E-Sport a sport? If yes, it should fall under WP:Athlete
  • 2. Does sites like gosugamers satisfy as "reliable" sources? If yes, e-sports players generally satisfies the GNG.

Before commenting on this, read all the arguments above. Redefining history (talk) 14:38, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

The Gosugamers site appears to be moderated forum that pulls some news. That would fall under WP:SPS, and thus would not be reliable for meeting the GNG. Also, most of the stories on specific players just say they placed. That's not secondary coverage that the GNG requires. --MASEM (t) 15:04, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Where did you get that? Redefining history (talk) 15:22, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Only crews on gosugamers, who are journalists in their specific areas, are allowed to publish news in gosugamers. It is not a self-published source. Redefining history (talk) 15:25, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
"most of the stories on specific players just say they placed." What? how about those features and interviews? Redefining history (talk) 15:28, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
For those who still has the misconception on gosugamers/sgamer/mymym and other such sites... I would like to explain. These sites actually has forums/blogs features, however, they are not the main focus of these sites being brought up here and does NOT satisfy being reliable sources. Hence, all content on these forums/blogs cannot be cited. However, i am talking about the news features of these websites. For example, the news section of gosugamers is maintained by journalists employed (is there a better word?) by the company to update the latest news about players, teams and competitions in certain games (most prominently dota and starcraft). It is generally reputable and cited by other reliable sources (this is from the alexa rankings). It is disinterested (the argument is "if football sites reporting about football teams/players/competitions are reliable, so is dota sites reporting about dota teams/players/competitions). I think it has everything to satisfy as a reliable source. Redefining history (talk) 15:47, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
There's nothing on their pages that indicate they're journalists. Their "about" pages indicate they're admins that happen to publish news. There doesn't appear to be editorial control beyond whom are selected as admins. --MASEM (t) 15:56, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, they call them "editors", but they act like journalists.
"There doesn't appear to be editorial control beyond whom are selected as admins" so that it isnt some form of moderated forum?
I need to go to sleep here, ill answer everything posted after this tomorrow. Redefining history (talk) 16:00, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Oh, and. They aren't "selected", they are employed. Redefining history (talk) 16:04, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Okay, i've been following the site for a year now, i'll tell you what the "editors" do. They travel and go to competitions for coverage (e.g. reporting about the happenings of the competition), interview the players, report latest news related to the players/teams/competitions. Just like any other sports journalist. The "About" page hasn't been updated for a very long time i think. Redefining history (talk) 22:54, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
IMO, answering question 2 first would be a good idea, as it allowing some pages of e-sports players to be created on wikipedia in the first place. Then we can discuss about question 1. (I brought everything here since i dont want the discussion to go on multiple talk pages) However, that is just my opinion, other opinions are welcome. Redefining history (talk) 15:38, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • That makes no sense. This page is about the notability standards for sports. If this isn't a sport, then what we think about the notability standard is moot. If we did it your way, when I wanted to talk about the notability standard of actors, I'd got to the page for the math project. Niteshift36 (talk) 15:41, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Exactly. It seems pretty clear to me that your first question is the only one relevant on this particular forum; if it is not a sport, discuss this elsewhere. As the first question is being discussed specifically in the above section, let's leave it there, because (as has been said) the discussion is becoming insanely convoluted, mostly through your efforts I might add.
I have felt Ridernyc's comments to be somewhat antagonistic toward you in general, but he is by and large correct. You need to stop moving from place to place in attempts to get different answers to the same question. I think a lot of your questions are valid and many of your claims hold up very well under close examination, and you have done some good work towards figuring out what kind of criteria we should look for. But instead of repeating your assertions every time you can find a new person, try to say each thing once, say it well, and say it in the forum where it belongs; if you want to say it again somewhere else, cite/link to it instead. Convolution, broken-off lines of argument, and unnecessary repetition are extremely counterproductive to everyone's goals here. Inkwiry (talk) 20:06, 23 October 2011 (UTC)— Inkwiry (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
That's the reason im focusing all the argument on this page. So stick the argument on this page, will ya'll? Redefining history (talk) 07:54, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
Sounds good. Thanks! Inkwiry (talk) 17:13, 24 October 2011 (UTC)— Inkwiry (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
At the same time he said this he went back to the Reliable Sources Notice Board and restarted the debate there. Ridernyc (talk) 17:34, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm confused. Is that not the proper place for that discussion? The debate here should only consist of whether or not "esports" ought to fall under the sports notability guidelines, as I see it. Is the problem that you feel satisfied that that discussion has been resolved, and he does not? Based on what I see at the Reliable Sources Notice Board, it is far from resolved, but I may be missing something. Inkwiry (talk) 18:11, 24 October 2011 (UTC) — Inkwiry (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
Sorry, to clarify, when I say "that discussion" above (both places) I'm referring the discussion on whether the sources in question ("esports news websites" generally) are reliable under the GNG. Inkwiry (talk) 18:14, 24 October 2011 (UTC)— Inkwiry (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


I feel very strongly (and it appears that some other editors agree with me, although their comments can appear to have been buried under the lengthy lobbying by those who want to add this stuff to the guideline) that e-"sports" are not a "sport" for our purposes here. I doubt that we can resolve the issue by discussion amongst a small number of editors here. Editors who want to add e-sports to this page will, therefore, need to obtain consensus in a policy RfC before adding it to the page, as far as I am concerned. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:39, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Personally I feel we should have an RFC about adding a line that explicitly states this guideline is not covering professional gamers. Far too many people trying to point to this at AFD. It is very clear that there will not for the foreseeable future be any consensus to have this guideline cover gamers. The problem is twofold one there will never be consensus that this should even be covered by the sports guideline, second there will never be consensus that this group of people have enough notability to justify inclusion in this guideline. This is why I told redefining history to make a proposal at the video games project. There are multiple issues here that I feel will never be overcome. Ridernyc (talk) 19:54, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
I'd support doing that without an RfC, because, in contrast, it does nothing to change the status quo. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:58, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
The only reason I mention RFC is because I know what a certain editor is going to do and it would nice to have an RFC to point to. Ridernyc (talk) 20:03, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
Understood. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:07, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
Niteshift36, do you have anything to counter my argument above there? Doesn't that mean you agreed? Redefining history (talk) 22:56, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
You may not buy it, but it fits the definition well and should be included. Redefining history (talk) 22:57, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
Counter your argument? You really have no argument. You're simply trying to force the definition of real sports to fit the faux sport of video gaming. So far, every experienced editor in this discussion is saying no. The only one supporting it is you and a dubious WP:SPANiteshift36 (talk) 23:22, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Let's Just End This

At this point it impossible to even comment anymore because redefining history has made such a mess of the conversation thread with endless arguing and inappropriate editing of comments. As a result until such a time as NEW sources are found that establish notability I'm moving on. Consensus is clear that this guideline at this time will not apply to any professional gamers. At this time I invite someone who has less involvement then me to draft a RFC to make this point clear in the current guideline. This has gotten old fast. Ridernyc (talk) 00:06, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Explain to me where has the consensus been reached. Redefining history (talk) 01:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
RH, it's not that consensus has been reached any which way, it's that consensus for the inclusion of e-sports in this guideline has not been achieved, nor does it look likely. I would like to re-examine these issues soon without the AfD's confusing the matter. I think maybe drafting your comments to be brief and concise would be a good step for any subsequent discussion. The Interior (Talk) 01:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for this, please also do examine on the sources I have presented and I think i have made a strong argument on why it should be reliable. (which is the part under summary and the part just before Arbitrary break) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redefining history (talk • contribs) 01:27, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
I've been following this and your posts (with great difficulty). This discussion is a good first step to frame the arguments that could be used in a later Request for Comment. However, at this time, I don't see much to be gained in extending this thread. The Interior (Talk) 01:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
As a result until such a time as NEW sources are found that establish notability I'm moving on. If you want to comment on a possible RFC you are welcome to. Otherwise I will not respond to you unless you bring something new to the table. Ridernyc (talk) 01:24, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
I've read every single of your argument. As i have proven your previous arguments on them being "fansites" wrong, you have done nothing to prove the sources unreliable. There isn't a need for new sources, just that you need to go examine the sources I have presented abit more. Redefining history (talk) 01:29, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
As i have noted, there has been NO answer on my argument just before the arbitrary break above. Redefining history (talk) 01:32, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I have decided to just start the RFC you can find it bellow. Ridernyc (talk) 01:57, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:BASE/N change suggestion

I believe any player who wins an MVP award in any American professional baseball league (except for in the independent leagues, perhaps), either major or minor, should be declared "inherently notable" and a stipulation to that nature should be added to WP:BASE/N. Alex (talk) 17:05, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

It's hard to argue about that for the major leagues. I don't know about the minor leagues. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:18, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Well I know Jake Lemmerman won the Pioneer League MVP in 2010, but no idea for 2011... In any event, I'd say anything below AA is a non starter here. AA & AAA MVPs I'd at least consider, but those guys probably would easy pass GNG anyway. Spanneraol (talk) 19:16, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Where, exactly, is the problem that the proposal seeks to address? In other words, at what level of the minors have there been disputes about whether an MVP is or isn't notable? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:29, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
I've always figured that SNGs should not determine "inherent notability", but rather represent what is assumed to be notable. In short, what passes Wikipedia's core policies? If there is enough evidence that winners of the Pioneer League's MVPs receive enough non-trivial coverage in reliable sources such that a biographical article can be written, then sure. But if you can't show that winners of these awards pass WP:V, WP:RS, WP:BIO, etc., then no, the criteria should not change. Resolute 19:37, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree that it should be demonstrated that the winners for a given league award have nearly always received notable coverage before all winners can be presumed notable. I made this comment regarding league award winners in a different sport, but it can be applied here, too. isaacl (talk) 20:14, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes, it needs to be made very clear, in case anyone misunderstands, that this guideline indicates "presumed notability", but never overrides GNG to confer "inherent notability". --Tryptofish (talk) 20:34, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't believe that this is enough to presume notability upon, but it could be cited as an example of something that supports notability. As a primary reason for presuming notability? No, not at all. And as clarification for the above, the minor leagues are not considered to be "fully professional" anyway, so those leagues, the National and American Leagues, already have articles for those players. — KV5 • Talk • 21:16, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I would need evidence that winning any of these awards is worthy of a presumption of meeting GNG. WP:NSPORTS says "This guideline provides bright-line guidance to enable editors to determine quickly if a subject is likely to meet the General Notability Guideline." Also, there is enough dispute over existing sports guidelines that tag on the ambiguous "or similar" leagues catch-all, so I would not support a more careless description like "all leagues". Prove that a player winning a league's award should be presumed to meet GNG, and then explicitly itemize such leagues (if any). When in doubt, don't add to specific notability guidelines, editors can always demonstrate GNG. Many editors don't realize that NSPORTS is just guidance, and it explicitly says "In addition, standalone articles are required to meet the General Notability Guideline"—Bagumba (talk) 21:32, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Perhaps there is no need for a change for major league players, because they will pass long before becoming MVP, and we should not make any change here for minor league players. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:35, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
The reason I suggested it is I often see people claiming "Was an All-Star x amount of times" as reasons for notability on AfDs, however that is a very tenuous argument that doesn't fit with any of the guidelines set forth in WP:BASE/N. I posit that league MVPs were also very like All-Stars, so by adding their notability to the list of "inherently notable" traits, it would eliminate the ambiguity of the "was a minor league All-Star" argument for at least a chunk of the minor leaguers. Alex (talk) 22:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
I would suggest a different approach. Unless we find a player characteristic for which multiple AfD are continuously voted "keep" based on meeting GNG, e.g. players who have played one game in MLB, there is no need to legislate yet another rule here in NSPORTS. Otherwise,we will spend more time discussing it here to get a change than any actually time that will be saved in AfDs.—Bagumba (talk) 23:30, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment: Some fairly turgid thinking above. For openers, what kind of question is "Who won the 2011 MVP Award for the Pioneer Baseball League?" Back atcha, Muboshgu - without looking it up, who is the chief executive of Ulanbaatar? Of Canberra? Of Abuja? Who won the Van Cliburn competition the last time out? Can you name the winner of any Van Cliburn competition? The userboxes on your user page indicate that you're interested in politics and music, but it's unlikely you know these people, however much they're chief execs of national capitals or winners of the world's most noteworthy piano competition. That's why we don't base notability criteria on whether we've heard of subjects or not.

    For a second, the "fully professional" bit has been eliminated from WP:ATHLETE ... and given that WP:ATHLETE has always enshrined amateur athletes, it wasn't a useful distinction beforehand either. That being said, the notion that baseball's minor leagues are not "fully professional" is a crock, because they are each and every one of them exactly that - the players are paid for their services, and in many cases handsomely so.

    For a third, what does AfD have to do with this? AfD should, and usually does, follow the existing guidelines, and it isn't the proper venue to argue that they should be overturned.

    Finally, there is certainly a purpose to discussing this here - plainly there are those who feel that MVPs would, as a rule, pass the GNG and so ought to be considered presumptively notable. Ravenswing 01:46, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

  • I agree with the proposal. Although I am less concerned about the presumptive notability of Rookie League MVPs than about players in top minor leagues before those leagues became development leagues (and represented the teams of such current Major League cities as LA, SF, Baltimore, Toronto, etc.). Rlendog (talk) 18:34, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Triathlon standards

I'm a little fuzzy on the standards for triathlon. 1.Have competed in Triathlon at the Summer Olympics or have had a podium finish at the Pan American Games or Commonwealth Games. Since the generally accepted standards for sports in general states "1.have participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level such as the Olympics.", isn't this sort of redundant? Standards #2-4 say a podium finish at specified events. Is that an overall podium finish or age group? If it is overall, these are some pretty steep standards, especially compared to some of the other sports. If it is age group, that presents it's own issues. Can anyone clarify the intention? Niteshift36 (talk) 04:09, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I believe its overall podium. Reasoning being that triathlon winners compared to some of the other sports get very little coverage in the way of reliable sources. Remember these are just guidelines as to when they are likely to meet GNG. If you have sources that the person meets GNG already then what this page says is moot. -DJSasso (talk) 13:06, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
  • If it is overall podium, then I'd argue that the standard is far too stringent. Look at the ones for Ironman events. It's only the world championship events. Every Ironman event has pro's competing in it. Since the pro should already pass notability, an amateur who gets an overall podium finish at any IM event has done something pretty notable (and it happened yesterday). Regardless, limiting the criteria To only the championships is overly restrictive. A guy could beat a bunch of pro's at a IM event and not be able to use that as an indicator of notability, but playing half an inning of pro baseball or one down of pro football would work. BTW, winning age groups at many IM events can lead to being a pro, but placing overall at an event won't get past this criteria. Does that sound right? Niteshift36 (talk) 16:33, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Nothing on this page is an indicator of notability. This page only indicates when there is likely to be press coverage to pass GNG. GNG is what determines notability, so if that guy beats a bunch of pro's at an IM event and then has news articles about him, he is notable. -DJSasso (talk) 16:42, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
  • you are missing the point. Forget GNG for a minute. Compared to the standards of other sports, the standard for triathlon is significantly more stringent and I see no good reason for it to be that steep. Niteshift36 (talk) 21:46, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
  • The whole point of this guideline is that different sports require different levels to reach notability. The old ATHLETE was a one size fits all solution. When this one was developed it was created so that some sports had higher levels on purpose. Those higher levels reflect how much news coverage those sports get, the less news coverage the higher the requirement. This isn't a failing of guideline but the main purpose of it. -DJSasso (talk) 11:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • And I'm saying the guideline for triathlon is very steep compared to other sports. What is it that you dispute about that? I've heard about GNG, which is not what I'm talking about. I've heard about the old WP:ATHLETE, which isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the specific standards for a specific sport in this guideline. Why do you think making it tougher than other sports is justified? Niteshift36 (talk) 02:09, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
  • The "toughness" is relative to the amount of coverage the sport gets in the news. A triathlete that doesn't meet these is not 99% likely to meet the GNG which is what the guidelines for each sport have attempted to be set at. These are meant to be as close to a guarantee as we can get that the subject will meet the GNG. In the triathlon anything below this level doesn't meet that level of sureness that it meets the GNG thus we defer to the GNG. Other sports athletes get written about much lower level so they aren't as tough so to speak. -DJSasso (talk) 02:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
  • That doesn't even make sense. Less coverage means fewer opportunities to achieve notability. That should have no bearing on how difficult it is to pass notability standards. A football player need only play a single down in one of 6 different leagues and he is considered to pass this criteria. That is hundreds of opportunities each season. A triathlete winning the Ironman Texas would not pass notability, only those who make the podium in the world championships. That is only 6 chances for men and 6 for women. The fact that football gets more media coverage shouldn't make it easier. If anything, the standard should be harder since they should be passing GNG easier because football gets so much more coverage. Niteshift36 (talk) 02:41, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Exactly less coverage means fewer opportunities to achieve notability. This guideline doesn't confer notability it just tells you when there is likely enough coverage that a person will pass the GNG. The more coverage the easier it is to pass the GNG. So football players will pass the GNG sooner than a triathlete will. This guideline does not judge notability. I think that seems to be the issue you are having. This guideline only judges how much coverage someone is likely to have which in turn indicates how likely they are to meet the GNG. It is basically giving you the odds so to speak. In otherwords it is telling you that if they don't meet those criteria you are going to have to work harder to find sources for them to meet the GNG because we can't presume they are notable. 6 chances for men and 6 for women where we can almost guarantee there are sources out there, not that there are only those 12 that can have articles. -DJSasso (talk) 03:35, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
  • You're ignoring the practical, real-world use of guidelines like these. They are used over and over at AfD as "passes such and such" or "fails such and such". If you want to continue ignoring the reality or how these guidelines get used, that's fine for you, but it doesn't address my concern. Your comment about how I have to work harder is just insulting. I've never said anything like that, it's just an incorrect assumption on your part. Before I ask you any other specific questions, I have to ask if you know much about the sport? Niteshift36 (talk) 17:24, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I didn't mean you specifically I meant you in the general sense when I said looking for sources. And yes I realize how people often try to use them. Its for those very reasons that sports with little coverage have such high requirements. Because if they had lower ones people would use these guidelines as a way to keep the articles even if there was no coverage of the athlete anywhere and likely would never be. As for specifics I know some but enough to be able to alter these guidelines with confidence I don't. That should be taken to the wikiproject that deals with these articles or better yet invite them to come here and comment. They are the ones who likely worked on creating them. That is how most of the sports ones came about. -DJSasso (talk) 17:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
  • It's not a "try" to use them. They are successfully used every day. Simply put, the competition level is high enough that a podium finish at any Ironman event should suffice, particularly when some sports require simply participating. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:39, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

That is because in some sports simply participating gets you in depth articles. In any given Ironman can you say that is the case? I am guessing not likely but I don't know the sport to say so for sure. As I said a discussion amongst people who know the sport should probably be had. As for try vs. successful, if the article has sources on it that meet the GNG usually the arguments at Afd that so and so doesn't meet it are not successful because any admin who is worth his salt closing knows the GNG trumps. -DJSasso (talk) 17:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Statement to exclude Esports from this guideline

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Add text to guideline saying: "At this time there is no consensus that Esports participants are covered by the criteria of this guideline." Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:17, 21 November 2011 (UTC)


At this point it is clear there is:

1.A clear and established lack of consensus to consider "Esports" a sport. Thus there is no consensus it should be covered in this guideline.

2.It is clear that due to lack of notability of the majority of "Esports" players there will be no consensus that "Esports" players should be given special consideration afforded by a section in this SNG.

As result I make the proposal that the following be added to this guideline

"At this time there is no consensus that Esports participants are covered by the criteria of this guideline"

It is clear that while these individuals may have notability in the future and some of them may be notable now, there is no consensus at this time to allow this guideline to cover their inclusion in the project. Ridernyc (talk) 01:52, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Please read the comments on Professional eSports section above before commenting on this. Redefining history (talk) 02:09, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Note Here Ridernyc just stopped me from posting related arguments above to here and considered it disruptive. If that isn't allowed, all I have to say is, all the comments Here should be seriously considered before deciding this. Redefining history (talk) 02:21, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Are you freaking serious? You wanted to cut and paste all that crap inot this section? Of course those should be removed. Your cut and paste antics made earlier discussions more difficult than needed. Just stop with the repeating already. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:21, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Note I just had to undo a massive disruptive edit by Redefining history where he tried to copy a massive block of text from above [18] If you continue reediting comments, coping comments or re-factoring other peoples comment I will take you to AN/I. Ridernyc (talk) 02:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
he is also continuing to not follow proper etiquette and posting comments out of order. Hopefully we can keep the confusion to a minimum. Ridernyc (talk) 02:30, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • (Truth be told, the only change I'd make would be to use "so-called "E-sports"" in the text. I'd wager that "video games" remains by leaps and bounds the most widely used term for the things. Ravenswing 04:26, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Support: The proposed guidelines read like a notabilty requirement for each sport here, didn't provide much main stream news coverage to highlight WP:GNG. It feels like a best fit would be in the video game category, or in the web content category, as those areas are better equipped to dealing with topic specific references to establish notability. (I might not know Cricket, but knowing other sources and how sport sources are evaluated, I know enough to say this type of source would qualify and that one would not. Can't do that for video games.) --LauraHale (talk) 03:06, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Support: From the Wikipedia article Sport: "Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree of skill, especially at higher levels. Hundreds of sports exist, including those for a single participant, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. Some non-physical activities, such as board games and card games are sometimes referred to as sports, but a sport is generally recognised as being based in physical athleticism." All subsections of NSPORT currently fall under the "physical activity" realm of "sport" (and if you want to say motorsports aren't a physical activity, you've clearly never participated in them). Additionally (as has been heavily discussed elsewhere on this talk page) NSPORT is most useful in cases where it may be difficult to satisfy GNG at the time of article creation (as sources may not be readily available, especially in the case of older subjects). "E-sports" are modern enough that any sufficiently notable individuals or events should have no issue readily meeting the GNG. Notability issues pertaining to "e-sports" should be handled at WikiProject Video Games, not here.  Cjmclark (Contact) 03:46, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Strongly support: Playing video games is not a sport, despite trying to twist the definition of sport. Gamers may or may not become notable, but that guideline should be under video games, not sports. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Support though not because it isn't a competive sport like most others, but just because of sheer lack of reliable coverage at this time. Maybe can be revisited in a few years, seeing how that wind blows. --MASEM (t) 05:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Why is such a statement even necessary? It's fairly obvious that video games do not fall within the confines of a sports article and thus I don't see the need for including a statement to that fact on this page. It just seems silly and serves no practical purpose. Spanneraol (talk) 05:17, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
    since it has been used in a number of AFD's for gamers it is not fairly obvious to everyone. Ridernyc (talk) 05:20, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
    example [19] Ridernyc (talk) 05:24, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
    But the wp:athlete part is being ripped apart with no real merit. Antonov is probably notable as a world monopoly champion might be... but not as an athlete. And just because a few squeaky wheels say something is no reason to put a note in an article denying it. If twenty wikipedians say the sun is blue we aren't going to put a line in an article about the sun that says "consensus says the sun is not blue." I agree with Spanneraol, and putting in a silly line as asked for here actually gives esports more merit. Consensus shows it is not credible as a sport and is not notable as a sport. When this poll is over and done with so should the debate be. If someone then tries to add something to the guideline, delete it and refer them to this rfc. No need for anything more. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:24, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
    This recent flurry is by no means the first attempt to claim that video gamers are "athletes" and should be covered by WP:ATHLETE. It won't be the last. It shouldn't also be a surprise to anyone here that a guideline which doesn't specifically preclude something is cited by many as Not Forbidding It, and therefore it's okay. We demonstrably do need such a phrasing, and it needs to be far more visible than an archived discussion. Ravenswing 13:37, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose the wording. As per Spanneraol and my own comments above. We don't need anything at all added about esports to the sports notability guidelines. Consensus says it's not a sport so that should be enough and we can refer editors here if needed. Maybe it should be in some subcategory or wikiproject of video games, but not here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:43, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment: Redefining history is haunting #wikipedia-en-help connect, asking people if his sources are verifiable and help with notability. He also wants video gamers to be like sports, and that is why they need to be included. (Implication: Help him so he can win this battle.) He's been aggressive with this, and as some one who occasionally helps new users, I'm finding him incredibly disruptive as he's been told these things on this thread and in the room. This behaviour is beginning to feel like canvassing. --LauraHale (talk) 07:52, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I think it long ago passed beginning to feel and is full out canvassing and forum shopping at this point. -DJSasso (talk) 11:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I have tried several times to firmly give him advice. In almost every case he ignores the advice asks about sources, and usually make all sorts of accusations about me. He also went back to Realible Sources board last night and made a series of strange inappropriate edits there. I think at this point a topic ban might be on the horizon. Ridernyc (talk) 12:43, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Support if it keeps people from trying to argue that people who play esports fit under this guideline. Clearly there is no consensus that they do so it needs to be spelled out that they don't. -DJSasso (talk) 11:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Support while noting that the wording can be revised. Putting a lid on this silliness is what matters most now. --Tryptofish (talk) 13:25, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Support, though no change in wording is necessary. Video game players are not athletes, and Starcraft is not a sport. People who gain notability through their skill at a video game fall under the general notability guidelines. Resolute 13:34, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose We include golf, curling, figure skating, motor sports (!), and roller derby. With as wide a swath of competitive entertainment as this, it would be difficult to come up with a definition of "sport" that included every sport on this page and did not include competitive gaming. It has been suggested that e-sports don't qualify since they lack the physical aspect of other sports: we imagine nerds in computer chairs doing nothing but pounding keys and moving their mice around frantically, and think this hardly lives up to the arch-athlete archetype of the likes of Lance Armstrong. But this begs the question why we include motorsports, where the "athletes" have little more physical activity than sitting in a chair and turning a wheel.
As it happens, professional gamers share critical characteristics that make them a good fit with this policy from the standpoint of encyclopedic categorization; they are entertainers who entertain through engaging in competition in a public venue. This policy is better suited than any other to explain how and when they can be notable. As an aside, competitive gaming is a very important category of public entertainment and the lack of clear guidelines has led to a "wild west" scenario in the actual article space. causa sui (talk) 17:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
That is not what this RFC is about we have already established there is no consensus to cover it in this guideline. This is simply to add a statement of no consensus to the guideline. Ridernyc (talk) 18:12, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Not to be snarky, but see WP:TALKEDABOUTIT. Consensus is allowed to change, and that prior discussions have occurred does not preclude me from sharing my opinions on them after the fact. causa sui (talk) 18:17, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
In this case it is very there will be no consensus. Consensus will not change because there is none. There is a clear divide one 2 major points. If you feel you want to make your voice heard and try to establish a consensus take part in the massive conversation further up on the page. Ridernyc (talk) 18:27, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
(ec)Clearly you aren't aware of the amount of physical strength and activity it takes to actually turn that wheel. While I agree that motor sports is at the very edge of acceptability. eSports don't even come close to motor sports so if motor sports is a stretch then eSports is light years away from being a sport. And it is quite a stretch claiming that competitive gaming is an important category of public entertainment when almost no one covers it. If it was important people would cover it. -DJSasso (talk) 18:14, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
To the strength point, I could easily compare the strength required to turn a wheel to the extremes of reflexes and precision in small motor control exhibited by esports competitors. When we watch motorsports, we aren't entertained by the strength required to turn the wheel or think that we enjoy watching a race because we imagined the drivers straining in their chairs; rather, it's the excitement of public competition that makes it a sport. On importance, it is extremely important outside of the United States; in Europe it is quite significant, and in South Korea it is a national institution. English Wikipedia historically does not restrict itself to the "sum total of human knowledge (in the English speaking world)". WP:WORLDVIEW has some guidance informing my beliefs about this. causa sui (talk) 18:17, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
If that were true the people supporting these e-athletes wouldn't have so much trouble finding sources which they currently have an extreme challenge doing. -DJSasso (talk) 18:29, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
This, to me, points to the fact that NSPORTS should be covering any organized competition that is covered in reliable sources, which would include things like poker, chess, esports, etc. I actually do think that's a better long-term result since there would no longer be arguments whether something actually is a sport - as long as there is some body that organizes the competition, it is what would fall under NSPORT. That said, to actually have a specialized call out section on NSPORTS, there would be required to have broad body of coverage of that "sport". In other words, I probably can argue that there's room for some poker players that win some of the major competitions given that poker is covered by ESPN and SI at times among other sources. But for eSports, nope. There is just not any type of broad coverage that even these more "thinking man's" sports get. --MASEM (t) 18:33, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
The physical aspect of motorsports goes far beyond "turning a wheel" (which also requires extreme reflexes and precision to maneuver a vehicle traveling at accelerated speeds). There's the endurance required simply to finish a race and the speed and efficiency of the pit crews. Not to mention (as with the majority of other physical sports) the risk to life and limb. If folks start getting hospitalized playing DotA (other than for carpal tunnel and diabetes from all-night energy drink benders), maybe I'll revisit this. Also consider that cheerleading (an extremely physical undertaking) has had and still has trouble gaining recognition and acceptance as a "sport." I find it highly unlikely that video gaming will achieve that distinction first. And before anyone jumps on the old "why do you hate nerds so much" train, I don't. I'm a nerd. I love video games. I just don't believe they fit under the definition of "sports" that is applied here.  Cjmclark (Contact) 03:49, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
You're both very wrong about this. The derth of sources is not a result of their non-existence, but the fact that they are so rarely written in English. causa sui (talk) 18:41, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
No one said they had to be English sources. No one has provided non-english sources either in any of the cases I have seen lately. -DJSasso (talk) 18:42, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Djsasso's got it - there's no requirement that sources be in English. But they do have to be reliable. As I best understand the eSports case, I could probably find a lot of websites in Taiwanese or Chinese for these but most of them aren't reliable, being fan, team, or league blog-type sites. --MASEM (t) 18:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't know how we'll compare credentials, but if you think Taiwanese and Chinese sources would be the best place to look, you might want to do some critical re-examination of your familiarity. ;) As it happens (I doubt you'll be surprised to learn this), I am one of several hundred thousands of non-Korean fans of Korean esports, where competitive games are marketed as a sport, players and teams are sponsored by enormous corporations including Samsung and Shinhan Bank, where the very best players receive lucrative endorsement contracts, games are nationally televised live and daily on dedicated gaming channels, etc. South Korea is a Valhalla of competitive video games and, if I read Hangul, I could provide you with an avalanche of reliable sources. Unfortunately, I don't, so all I could point you to would be forum posts on TeamLiquid.net where other fans who do read Hangul often post translations of newsprint articles about professional games (which appear in the sports page next to - or often ahead of - physical sports). It's a tricky situation from a policy standpoint since WP:BIAS suggests we should be covering this and taking it seriously, but (again because of WP:BIAS) we fail to execute on it, because most of our editors don't read Hangul. All the same, a quick Google search (I spent about 10 minutes on this) has turned up some indications that there is coverage for eSports events: [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28]
I think the upshot of all this is that while we may think that very few competitive video game players are notable, some definitely are (Lim Yo-Hwan, Lee Yun-Yeol for example) and it would be helpful to have some guidance in policy governing where the bar is and how they should be handled. causa sui (talk) 19:03, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
  • (←) I couldn't help but notice a prior section where we are discussing "4000" people in attendance as a threshold for notability of a roller derby competition. Having watched the live broadcasts of multiple Shinhan Bank-sponsored team and individual leagues that literally filled stadiums with tens of thousands in attendance for live national broadcasts, it's amusing to have to defend the notability of e-sports. causa sui (talk) 19:26, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Reply: The 4,000 number for roller derby was not an issue regarding whether or not roller derby is a sport, but rather an issue of attendance as it pertains specifically to derby for bouts and whether there is an expectation of the league in question qualifying under WP:GNG. Leagues with bout attendance under a number like that seem unlikely to get media coverage and are unlikely to pass WP:GNG. Is there a similar situation where you think total number of in person spectators can lead to a reasonable assumption regarding coverage to meet WP:GNG? --LauraHale (talk) 22:43, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
  • It's probably a good idea to put new comments underneath older ones rather than above them so they don't get missed. (I almost missed your question.) That being said, my reply is pretty much the same as the one below to Ravenswing. A complete reading of the thread will make clear that both questions (are esports and their competitors notable, and are esports a "sport") are being discussed here, and that I've replied to both questions at different points. causa sui (talk) 00:30, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Reply: Did I miss the part where a certain number of people filling a stadium qualifies an event as "athletic?" If so, then there are many leading politicians and evangelists who would qualify as "athletes," having filled some very large stadia. In any event, you're setting up a straw man here. The notability of so-called "e-sports" is not the issue here. It is whether video game players should be treated as professional athletes for purposes of notability. Should the partisans of such players put together notability criteria of their own, and get the consensus vox populi at WP:N, WP:BIO and or WP:GNG, that's another matter. Ravenswing 20:03, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Actually, both issues are being discussed simultaneously in response to my original comments. I know they're long posts but I hesitate to rehash what has already been said when I basically argued that esports count as a sport if motorsports do. Maybe you can respond to those points up there? causa sui (talk) 20:33, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure about the point of this RfC. It is trying to find consensus that there is no consensus? The Interior (Talk) 20:54, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
The point of this RFC is to stop people assuming there is consensus that this covers Esports. We should not have to rehash this argument in every AFD, there is plain and simple no consensus for this guideline to cover Esports. If we can't even agree that we don't agree it is a very sad day for the project. Ridernyc (talk) 21:01, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
If that is your view, then you should !vote to support the new wording, by all means. causa sui (talk) 21:32, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I think you need to consider that there's two levels that this guideline can cover a "sport": The first is whether the sport should even fall under NSPORT; the second is whether we need specialized criteria for that sport within NSPORT. Most agree that eSports does not need the second within NSPORT, but are not outright dismissing that eSports may be coverable under NSPORT in the future through the first point. It's an organized competition, and thus should be within NSPORTS bounds. That doesn't mean we need to give it any specialized criteria. --MASEM (t) 21:47, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
I think a major point isn't whether or not this should be covered by NSPORT, but why this can't be covered by Wikiproject Video Games, where they are better equipped to deal with this? Was there any form of consensus regarding why that wikiproject has not created guidelines and why sports should be creating these guidelines instead? --LauraHale (talk) 22:47, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
WP:VG has no notability guidelines outside of the GNG. This is not to say that a eSports player wouldn't be under the VG project should they be deemed notable, just that we don't have specialized guidelines for their inclusion. --MASEM (t) 22:53, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Then shouldn't the project go about creating their own set of guidelines? The project may also find it useful to help with the issue of whether specific games are notable, and include developers. WP:VG folks making the argument of "We don't have one/can't be bothered to create one for content that relates to us and where we have the subject mastery to determine whether video game specific industry sources meet the guidelines for WP:NOTE" appears to be a poor one for why it should be included here. In my opinion, this is a video game problem, not a sport one. That WP:VG has dropped the ball is not reason enough to include their topics on sport. --LauraHale (talk) 23:17, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
100% agree with LauraHale above. This is a waste of time here. They got tired of discussing this at WP:VG so it got dumped here. That is where it belongs and where the discussion should live or die, not here in sports. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
It's not that we pushed it here. Sure, eSport players would fall within the VG project at the primary level. What's our project's notability guideline? The GNG. We don't have specialized guidelines for anything including players. We didn't drop the ball, nor was it us that pushed this argument here (That was Redefining History's actions). That said, I think there's a much larger picture that NSPORT needs to consider (that of any organized competitive "sport" being within its pervue, even if such guidelines don't presently exist at the moment) but that is clearly confusing the issue. The short answer is the eSport players are under the VG project, and the VG project's default notability guideline is the GNG. --MASEM (t) 23:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Plenty of projects have added to the gng because their expertise in deciding things far outweighs the general wikipeida populous. If your project, since you said we, is using gng and you need things more specific to fit the requirements of video games then yes... you have dropped the ball on creating a guideline. Don't you talk about notability at your project talk page? Heck, I'd be bold, create a page on a player, give some really good english sourcing, throw a couple video game categories on the page bottom, and see if it stands up to scrutiny. Post the page link under your project talk page to make sure everyone there thinks it's ok. If they don't then you're out of luck. But getting this discussed more here where it doesn't belong, where it's been crushed by consensus, where this poll is not even about it being here but about putting a line in sports notability guidelines to the effect that esports are not sports (to stop newbies and spammers)... that is wearing very thin. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:47, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
You are absolutely missing the point of what sub-notability guidelines are supposed to do, and why NSPORT is by the far the most complex SNG that we have. We expect that by calling a topic notable that, in time, that topic will meet the GNG if it doesn't already. The SNG criteria are designed not say "we should include articles on these topics just because" but because by meeting one of the given criteria, there is a very strong likelihood that in the future, sources will have been generated and located to meet the GNG.
At the VG project, we have considered if we needed any specialized notability guidelines and determined that no; this is partially because much of the history of video gaming is readily accessible on the net, so its not a matter of locating sources, and unreleased games, subject to the idea of vaporware, would still require meeting the GNG. When it comes to specific people involved in video games, there's no reason to defer away from the GNG and general advice of BIO. And thus, the same with those who play eSports. It is not a competition that is regularly covered in reliable sources, to the point where individual players are very likely to be notable. Ergo, there is no need to call out anything beyond what's already established across all of WP.
The problem that the NSPORT guidelines are written to, and what you're arguing, is that you're working that you need to include specific classes of athletes because they have meet a certain mark. While most of these will lead to being able to be source by GNG standards, that is not how they were selected. The process, though can meet the end result of the GNG, is backwards from how notability guidelines should be written. Effectively, no project is required to have notability guidelines, so saying that we're here because the VG project doesn't have one is ridiculous. Again, the reason that this convo is here is because one user did not grasp the idea of how not to canvass. --MASEM (t) 02:06, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Masem, the ball appears to be dropped because you have not created notability guidelines. redefininghistory showed your project needed to create guidelines. You said your project's notability policy is WP:GNG. If that's the case, then this discussion should easily be able to reach consensus that WP:NSPORT does not cover professional video game players. I've mad a bold edit to WP:VG to create your notability guidelines. This shouldn't be handled in sport where we don't have the expertise to deal with it.--LauraHale (talk) 01:10, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
And related point for Masem: Sports does not have the knowledge base to deal with the sourcing issues for professional video game players. The only way we could get the knowledge would be to make WP:VG a task force of sports. The larger point is missed when you insist on calling them eAthletes. eathlete has 18,000 google results. Professional video game player has 958,000 results on google. (For me.) This suggests the concept of least surprise would again favour WP:VG being the home for such a notability guideline. --LauraHale (talk) 01:21, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
Why is this even an issue? Playing video games is not an athletic endeavor. Simple as that. Let the Video Game Project handle it... wasting this much page space on this issue is silly. Spanneraol (talk) 01:47, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
It's an issue because there are hundreds of thousands of (at least at one point in their lives) skinny geeks out there who were shunned and teased by the jocks in school, and the notion of being classified as "athletes" after all is intoxicating. Ravenswing 03:26, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I hope that the two most recent "oppose" commenters will understand that this RfC is not a proposal to declare that e-sports are not notable. Rather, it would declare that this particular guideline is the wrong place to be looking for guidance about the notability of e-sports. That's all! Maybe there are plenty of subjects who are clearly notable based simply on WP:GNG, no problem. Maybe other projects should, or should not, develop another guideline, but that question should be discussed there, not here. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:07, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
I'd rather use the term "professional video game players" to refer to these individuals... when i hear esports I think they are playing Madden... not sure how "starcraft" is considered a sport.. e or otherwise.. next thing you know professional Pokemon players will want to be included. Spanneraol (talk) 14:34, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
    • Arguably, NSPORT should cover any player of an organized notable competition; this removes the barrier that is being brought up between sports that are 100% physical like baseball and soccer, part physical + part mental like golf and car racing, and 100% mental like poker and esports.
    • What that doesn't mean, at this time, is that this guideline immediately needs to have specific sections calling out to poker players or esports players, because at the present time, we would not be able to identify criteria that players may have (winning specific tourneys, etc.) that would assuredly lead to sourcing to meet the GNG in the future. But by starting from the presumption that this guideline is where more specific criteria for players of any organized competition (more specific than the GNG) should be given, that would make future growth of unorthodox sports have some home. There may never be a need for any of these specialized criteria, ever. I certainly wouldn't argue that we need one at this immediate time for esports players, but I do caution against shutting the door out to the possibility of having one in the future. Again, by considering any organized competition, you remove the arguments trying to qualify whether sometihng is a sport or not based on how much physical nature there needs to be involved. --MASEM (t) 15:15, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
    I agree with Masem. Though I do think it would be useful to have guidelines for esports, poker, chess, etc in this guideline since (1) it is best suited to cover all competitive public entertainers and since (2) the current lack of direction in policy has led to a "wild west" scenario in the article space, the important overlap in the opposition to this RFC is that putting the proposed text in the policy will lead to a severe WP:TALKEDABOUTIT problem that would serve to bar future evolution of the guidelines. causa sui (talk) 17:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
    I'm not going to open the can of worms about the mental aspects of physical team sports. How about a WP:NCOMPETITION for all those orphans that don't fit the bright line definition of "sports" (poker, video games, spelling bees)? Or do we all envision a day when game show contestants fall under NSPORT?  Cjmclark (Contact) 21:06, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
    I don't see why not, though I would say that with the right definition we aren't going to be including game show players or the like. Such competitions are generally organized on a series of regular games and events that lead to a season conclusion finale to determine an ultimate winner for that season. Game show contestants are one-off. There's other means to make a distinction without having to evoke sports being a physical-vs-dexterity-vs-mental aspect. --MASEM (t) 21:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
    So are we looking to redefine the notion of "sport," or are we operating using the most widely accepted definition in English (since we are en-wiki)?  Cjmclark (Contact) 21:30, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
    Actually, were this approach to be accepted, I would consider that this should be changed to "Notability (competitive events)", of course, leaving all Sports redirects in place. Again, the reason I say this is that it is easier to make distinctions between the organized competitive events and those like game shows, than it is to determine what qualifies as "sport" in today's day and age. --MASEM (t) 21:47, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
    (edit conflict)Something like "Notability (competitive entertainment)" might do the job. For me, the abstract goal is to have some kind of policy guidance backed by considered discussion and clear consensus as to what the notability requirements are for competitive entertainers who aren't typically thought of as "athletes", and therefore have fallen through our conceptual cracks. It's not important to me to convince everyone to say "e-Athletes" or "e-Sports" or whatever. Mainly, I think this policy has enough conceptual overlap in the areas that are important to building the encyclopedia, which is why I'm pushing for inclusion here, and it sounds like Masem is thinking along the same lines. Another policy might be workable if people can't get over the cognitive dissonance, but from the standpoint of encyclopedic categorization, this really seems like a good home. :-) causa sui (talk) 21:55, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
    I would disagree with changing this page to reflect something more than sports.. these guidelines are already quite long.. adding in poker, chess, video games, pokemon competitions, spelling bees, whatever else floats your boat really takes the focus off sports.. sports has a definitive definition as athletic competitions.. we should keep this page narrowly focused on it.. as to your above description of game shows being one off as opposed to winner of a season... well when you have things like survivor and amazing race... those are season long game shows... this page should stay as a sports page only... not muddy the waters. Spanneraol (talk) 21:52, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
    Well, they can certainly have a page on "Notability (competitive events)" or "Notability (competitive entertainment)". And they can have their video game players locked in under it's guidelines. Just keeps sports out of those pages. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:17, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
    All "organized competition" = sport? Really? Including, say, pie- or hot dog-eating contests? After all, you even have reliable sources, given that the winners of some of these competitions feature in national media, never mind Guinness citations. Political contests are certainly "organized competition," and many of them are likewise notable.

    But absurdities aside, may I ask a couple of questions of the "e-sport" proponents? Is there some reason why you are unwilling to establish your own notability criteria, and submit the same to the scrutiny of the throng, the same as has happened in other fields such as film, sport, academics and music? Is there some reason why you're unwilling to rest upon the GNG to govern the notability of players of these games? Ravenswing 04:15, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

    Conclusion - I think we're just feeding the fire by continuing to banter back and forth on this issue. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:35, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Clarification The reason I think this shouldn't be covered by WP:VG is the fact that there is a difference.

The interests of people at VG is perhaps about the game itself. As shown by their sources and the pages they work on, the sources mostly report on stuff like these:

  • Company X is going to release a sequel for Game Y.
  • Company X releases a new Action-RTS game called Y.
  • Company X released a fully new expansion pack for Game Y called Z.
  • Video game producer X talks about his experience in creating Game Z.

Their sources are for the purposes of the games itself, and not all these games can be played competitively as a sport (or e-sport, in this case). The only games considered as e-sports are several qualified FPS shooter games and Action-RTS games (those that are in Electronic Sports World Cup and some other major competitions) which requires well, physicality (THIS IS ARGUED BEFORE). Pokemon is mentioned above, however, pokemon doesn't require ANY action per-minute and reaction time. Thus pokemon is never considered as an esport. (Do you see anyone playing pokemon at ESWC?) Look at poker and chess in comparison, they don't require any precision and real-time reaction skills.

And the sources from esports covers these:

  • Competitive Team X wins the Finals in Competition Y.
  • Competition X is going to offer a $1,000,000 prizepool for their 2011 event.
  • Player X is transferred to Team Y from Team Z, transfer fee $60,000.
  • Player X is the man of the match in Match Y due to wonderful performances in Certain Area of Match Y.
  • Player X interviewed to give his insight about how his training goes and so on...

These sources are somewhat sports-like, if given permission to be considered reliable, would allow alot of players to satisfy the GNG and have their wikipedia page created. However, the problem with these sources is, they don't look like news media websites and look like blogs (although to me and other who have used these websites, it is obvious and stated that they are news websites maintained by journalists/editors employed by the company.) Other arguments I have heard are like they are made by obvious fans of the game etc. When i argued that football news reporting on the football scene are allowed, what i get back is "you can't compare it to sports". All i have to say is : "..." I have brought up the thing about sources in RS/N, and i don't wish it to be argued here. Only hope some established source checker to help out checking these sources.

With all due respect, that is the reason i would consider WP:NSPORTS more than WP:VG on this topic, hope that makes it clear. Redefining history (talk) 05:50, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Redefining history, you make a great argument for why this should be covered under WP:VG with your comment: The sources used would be video game sources, not sports one. One of the points of contention is that sports editors cannot fairly evaluate your sources to determine notability. Your inability to find source checkers here confirms why this is not the right venue for professional video game players. If however, WP:VG wants to become a task force of sports and Sports will accept them as a task force of Sports, then we would have the editors who could evaluate sources.--LauraHale (talk) 06:14, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
My point is WP:VG also can't evaluate the sources, not everyone there knows much about esports (VG does not cover esports, instead it only covers games). Create a WP:ESPORTS maybe? Redefining history (talk) 07:01, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
If that is your point, why do you think sports can? Professional video gamers =/= athletes. I can't honestly see cricket, baseball, gridiron football, Aussie rules, roller derby, netball, [[softball], korfball, field hockey, basketball, ice hockey, association football people as being able to evaluate these sources. The overlap in sources is non-existent. I know video games DOES cover professional video gamers. G4 covers both video games and professional video game players. I've yet to see them report on the Chicago Cubs Convention or the Chicago Blackhawks Convention, or talk about the impact regarding Australia's poker laws will have on professional video gamers. Do you have any evidence that, source wise, say ESPN would cover your players more than G4 ? Don't play the semantics game of "I say they are an athlete! so sport people can judge!" as this for me is an issue of evaluating sources, and none of the sport people have been able to help you to justify the fact that we should be put into the position that we would be forced to. --LauraHale (talk) 07:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
I've never even heard of G4 before. With a google search, I found that G4 reports next to nothing on esports but rather reports on the video games itself. Video games' relation to esports is rather like the relation of Football (ball) to football. So if http://www.soccerballworld.com/ doesn't report on football players that doesn't mean football players are not notable. The content of esports news are very sport-like. So if i'm not coming here, could you please suggest somewhere I can find experienced source checkers on this area? Redefining history (talk) 08:52, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
And in my very very very very humble opinion, the fact that the term Electronic sports is coined out points to that it is a sport. Redefining history (talk) 09:05, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
If video games relationship with professional video game players is similar to footballers relationship to football, it is all the more reason that your guidelines belong to WP:VG and signals the complete inappropriateness of it here. We don't have the people in the project to evaluate professional video gamer related sources like WP:VG does. And for the record? http://www.soccerballworld.com/ is not a WP:V source because it is primarily about selling you stuff. "electronic sports" does not have IOC or IPC recognition. And in English, the more used phrase is "professional video game player." 918 results to 1,418,000 results. Your usage is not common. If you want experienced editors, WP:VG. You've been told this repeatedly.--LauraHale (talk) 09:17, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
No, not football, i mean the ball itself. You don't get my point. If video games editors are experienced enough on esports I wouldn't have ended the argument on WP:VG. Its like telling a professional in making balls tell me the roster of Manchester United. Get it now? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redefining history (talk • contribs) 10:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
On another point, ESPN partner-up with MLG for eSports coverage and eSports featured on ESPN and ESPN to cover eSports: Teams up with MLG. It is apparent to me that ESPN has more coverage on eSports than G4. Redefining history (talk) 10:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
The most used term? The two terms are not even comparable. After looking at the results found, most of them are talking about pokemon and other RPG games. Redefining history (talk) 10:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

To User:Cjmclark about injuries, [29] [30] [31] [32] And recently DotA player WE.Mofi retired due to a back injury. Redefining history (talk) 10:59, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The bottom line is that playing video games, whether in an organised event or in bedrooms and basements over the Internet, is not a sport - even if it were playing a sports-simulation game. There shouldn't be a reason to have any reference to them on this page, though given the amount of discussion here about it, there now is one if only to avoid having this discussion again at some point down the track.
A number of other users have suggested that this should be handled by WP:VG, which I wholeheartedly agree. I thought that I'd check to see what if any guidelines they have that might apply here, and I discovered that they have a Pro gaming task force. It doesn't appear to be active at the moment, but surely that's the place for this to be handled.  Afaber012  (talk)  12:36, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Redefining history - the last link you provided is a forum repost of material from the first one, which describes itself as a "tongue-in-cheek gaming medical guide, complete with "reported" symptoms, diagnoses, causes, and treatments." In other words, a joke. The second link is a blog (not a medical journal or even a news story documenting injuries) that post some admittedly shocking photos - none of which can be definitively linked to gaming behavior. Just because they're holding video game controllers doesn't mean their injuries came from video games. The third one talks about the most likely injury (and one I already dismissed) - carpal tunnel. Injuries of that nature are both foreseeable and preventable. Getting a race car wrapped around you is not. Neither is having your spinal cord severed in a collision during a football game.
At any rate, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems pretty clear that consensus here is definitely leaning towards excluding "e-sports" from NSPORT at this time. I think the energy expended here by proponents of "e-sports" might be better used collaborating on a "competitive events" SNG as mentioned above.  Cjmclark (Contact) 13:55, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment: After skimming through the comments on this page related to the discussion, I feel that I should point out that the definition of sports should not come from the Wikipedia article. About the only time I would ever consider taking a definition from one of our articles is if it was a Featured article, and even then the sources referenced in the article is what should be cited. The sports article is currently rated C-class, and any argument based on Wikipedia's definition of sports should be reevaluated based on a different source of the definition. (Guyinblack25 talk 13:36, 28 October 2011 (UTC))
Very well - from dictionary.com - Sport is "an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc." Merriam-Webster lists sport as "a source of diversion," but also (and more in the context of this guideline) as "a physical activity engaged in for pleasure; a particular activity (as an athletic game) so engaged in." The Cambridge dictionary describes sport as "a game, competition or activity needing physical effort and skill that is played or done according to rules, for enjoyment and/or as a job." Oxford Dictionaries define sport as "an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment."
The advantage of using the Wikipedia article's definition (which is shockingly similar to all the ones listed here) is that it is based on the one thing that truly rules this place - consensus.  Cjmclark (Contact) 13:55, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for providing the additional sources.
While gaining a consensus is one of the five pillars, using reliable sources is one as well. Per WP:USERG, wikis don't qualify as reliable sources. The fact that our article on sports has a good definition is a fine example of the work we do on this site. However, caution should still be taken when citing our content as I'm sure much of our almost 4 million articles aren't up to par. (Guyinblack25 talk 16:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC))

The problems with NSPORT as currently built

The issue about eSports is tied to a much larger problem with regards to how NSPORTS and even its predecessor ATH have been approached.

First, there's a fundamental aspect about notability that is being lost here. We use notability in WP to assure that we can write good encyclopedic articles on topics; providing more than just a data dump but being able to summarize why this topic is relevant to the whole of human knowledge. This relies on the existence of secondary sources on the topic to analyze and evaluate the primary sources (in the case of sportsfigures, their raw performance data), which we can summarize and build on. Hence why the GNG is the core notability guideline that we ultimately expect all articles to met.

The reason we have the SNGs is two-fold. First, in some fields, the SNGs may actually be more restrictive than the GNG, due to the large volume of sources that could exist for mundane topics. NSPORTS does address this, in the fact that coverage of players of local and regional teams are generally not included. The second reason for SNGs is that we have recognized that there are articles from special classes, typically defined by a simple criteria, that are highly likely to be notable by the GNG but either collecting the sources to show that will take time and legwork, or that the reason for that notability is relatively new and sources will eventually be written for it but it will take time for these to appear. As described farther up this current discussion, the timeframe for these sources to appear is very long and foregiving, but is ultimately something that has to be done or else deletion is possible.

So, understanding that, the first key point to the immediate discussion is that no field requires an SNG. If the editors in that field feel that the GNG can be readily met for all the topics within its purview, there's no point in creating an SNG. SNGs have to be vetted by the entire WP community (not just interested editors) since they do have the weight of a global guideline, and that itself may be more work than necessary for no end result. An SNG should only be created if there is a regular occurrence of articles of a specific topic class being targetted for deletion that are later shown to be clearly notable when given time to locate sources. This is the second point: SNGs should only be defining criteria by need, not by want. This is how I read both ATH and NSPORT - the criteria given for specific sports all feel like these are topics that editors believe should be in WP but haven't demonstrated that they are always notable. However, as I've explained earlier and not to tip the boat, I can accept that as long as its understood these are temporary allowances and that in the future, editors can expect to see that a 5-yr old article on an retired athlete that played exactly one unremarkable game in their career being sent to AFD and end up being deleted; that is, the SNGs are "presumed" notability and thus only as good as consensus allows for them. What I do challenge more is the need to have a distinct set of characteristics for each separate sport; this makes it feel like for the less popular sports (golf, tennis, gymnastics, etc.) as well as for addressing national differences in coverage, that the editors behind those are guidelines are trying to assert their sport has as much coverage as the more vastly-covered sports like football, soccer, and baseball. Not necessarily in the same number of articles/athletes covered, but that because, presumably, we can have an article on a third-string football player with 5 minutes of gametime under their belt, we should have articles for the equivalent of amateur players in these less popular sports that have played in pro-am tourneys or the like. The depth that we can cover any one sport is limited by the coverage of that sport in reliable sources. If there are 100x times more articles on football than tennis, then I can reasonable expect the article count to be much higher.

So stepping back to the eSports thing, what this all means is this: Though some may argue that eSports should be covered by the VG project and that we have "dropped the ball" in not creating a notability guideline, we're arging the first point: sure, these players may be under the VG project, but we believe that they are not regularly notable as to require a deviation from the GNG. In other words, they do fall under our notability guidelines for the VG project, which is to refer to the GNG. Again, there is no point to make an SNG if the class of articles cannot regularly be shown to be notable, and with eSports, it certainly isn't a matter of finding print articles, since the bulk is covered via the Internet.

And then stepping to the issue of whether NSPORT should cover the unorthodox sports, I again point out that while I believe it should that doesn't mean that we immediately need to create sections for each of these sports, by the first point, SNGs are not a requirement. If one considers how NSPORT could be normalized to remove any specific callouts for specific sports, you'd likely be left with 3 to 5 high level criteria, such as "winning the sport's major competition", "achieving the sport's highest honor", etc. I would argue that you can have a table for each sport (defined by projects and tasks forces for that sport) that explicitly defines what are the acceptable major competitions, etc. for that purpose (to avoid editors trying to convince that some minor trivial award is a "major competition". This is completely possible to normalize without reducing what articles are covered by the SNG, but at the same time, you can see how this then immediately alludes to the inclusion of all organized competitions played, in part, at a professional level. This removes the complex issue of how a "sport" is defined (as long as ESPN covers poker, you're going to have this problem) so that we include any competition regardless of how much physical strength, ability, or mental capacity comes into play. It doesn't break what's there, and, arguably, would likely be more favorable to a global consensus approval since its a handful of rules with project-specific clarifications rather than a mashup of several radically different assertions of notability, and looking ahead to any competitive event. Remember, this SNG does not exist in a vacuum or walled garden of sports coverage on WP; it has to maintain its global acceptance among all WP editors.

One last point to remember: just because our notability guidelines say we can't have an article on a player does not mean that we cannot cover that player. List articles for notable professional team members is completely acceptable ways of providing player information in context of a larger notable topic. --MASEM (t) 15:31, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I basically agree with this, but from a different side. I'm wondering what is really being argued here. As someone who is not a contributor to either WP:VG or WP:S, it seems there's a lot of "not in my backyard" going on that is unrelated to what is the best way to handle it for the encyclopedia. causa sui (talk) 17:12, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
It's not so much not a NIMBY thing, but understanding that SNGs are global processes, not owned by any project through likely projects are going to want to have some say in them. --MASEM (t) 17:14, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't know but I have told this alot alot of times. There are reliable sources. They are "third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", I would "Never use posts left by readers as sources. For blogs that are not reliable sources". It doesn't "include any website whose content is largely user-generated". Seriously, we need some source checker, GosuGamers does look like a blog, probably due to the engine they use to run the website. But through the editorial control : you can see they aren't some personal and group blogs. The websites are hosted by media companies, and their content are covered by the most notable journalists/editors in their area who are employed by the company. Redefining history (talk) 01:23, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
But if they are simply reporting on the results, they are not secondary, no matter how reliable they are. If all you can say about a player is what their stats are, that doesn't contribute anything encyclopedic. You need to be able to provide relevancy beyond that they play the sport to make them notable. --MASEM (t) 03:47, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Niteshift36, wording is the last issue we will talk about, stop complaining about it until its over. Masem, "Primary" is not another way to spell "bad" Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary and secondary sources. And how bout features and interviews of the articles? For why interviews can be used, refer to Here — Preceding unsigned comment added by Redefining history (talk • contribs) 05:19, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Once again, you fail to grasp the incredibly obvious. All this time-wasting about what source is primary or reliable is COMPLETELY POINTLESS if video gaming isn't a sport. This is the discussion about the SPORTS notability guideline, not the guidelines about primary sources or about GNG. If video game playing isn't a sport (and the concensus sure looks that way), then this discussion needs to go somewhere else. Niteshift36 (talk) 14:14, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
As far as i'm concerned, they aren't self-published and has quite high a traffic (check traffic sites). I think their sources are reliable and could be used to establish notability. Redefining history (talk) 05:22, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Primary sources do not establish notability. Interviews with players about themselves do not establish notability. --MASEM (t) 05:23, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Check the link Wikipedia talk:Notability#Interviews count as primary, but it says for GNG you need secondary sources. please, they are notable enough to be interviewed and blablabla read the argument yourself. Well, for a sports website, they can report results, latest transfers, some rumors, features on players, interviews with players. Is there anything else they can do? Thats all you need to establish notability. Redefining history (talk) 05:31, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Actually, wording is not the last issue that should be considered. If there hasn't at least been a consensus to exclude something that isn't actually a sport from the Sports notability guideline, surely there's a lack of consensus to exclude criteria for playing video games here. Its not a sport. If there should be a guideline that specifically discusses criteria for what to include and/or exclude on this topic, it should come from WikiProject Video games not from WikiProject Sports.  Afaber012  (talk)  06:48, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
As I mentioned, strongly, the relation between video games and esports are like balls and football. You can't ask a professional ball designer to tell me the roster of Manchester United. That is the reason i think WP:VG would not cover and is not suitable to cover esports. Redefining history (talk) 06:53, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
If there is a WikiProject on sticks and balls do you think sports should be a child project of it? The same goes for video games. Redefining history (talk) 06:55, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
On another point, ESPN partner-up with MLG for eSports coverage and eSports featured on ESPN and ESPN to cover eSports: Teams up with MLG. Redefining history (talk) 07:02, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Except that comparison you make is misleading and of little relevance. The manufacturer or designer of a ball may or may not know much about the players or the teams that make use of the ball, but how much are the coders, graphic artists, story designers, and producers of a video game expected to know about the people who play them, even in competitions? The reality is that they probably do know something about them. In both cases the makers - as part of their job - would need to know about who uses their products, how they use them, and what they think of them. Yes, they don't need to know about every competition that their products are involved in, but they likely are aware of the big ones. Regardless, what does that have to do with this discussion?
And why wouldn't WP:VG want to cover it? Assuming the games involved are notable enough to have an article, there would presumably be some mention of the competitions they're used in as part of a complete article. That last part assumes that the competition is notable enough to warrant the mention, let alone its own article. From what I'm hearing, you haven't been able to establish that. How can it not fall under WP:VG. The fact that this argument even started, let alone has gone for as long as it has, tells me that esports don't meet WP:GNG. To be considered notable, they'd have to come under a notablility guideline of their own, established under WP:VG.
By the way, the comparison that might be closer to the mark would be video games are to esports as association football is to the Premier League. The second is a specific example of the first. Now before you jump in and say "There! You proved my point! The Premier League is notable so why isn't esports?" I could have also compared it with association football and the local suburban under-10s competition I played in many years ago, which though possibly mentioned in my autobiography if I ever do anything worthy enough to warrant such a book being written, is clearly not notable. And just because I can compare it a sport doesn't mean it is a sport. I could have also compared it to politics and the US Presidential election process. That doesn't fall under the purview of WP:SPORT either.  Afaber012  (talk)  10:26, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
You're falling into what I warned about: WikiProjects cannot have their own notability guidelines. Notability guidelines require global consensus; this is a problem with NSPORT as individual projects are trying to feed into something that needs to be broad and global. --MASEM (t) 12:05, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
My comparison is not misleading. Graphic designers and coders might know something about the public's reaction etc. about their product, but about the professional scene? no. And people inside WP:VG are mostly "fans" of those designers/coders or "Fans" of the game. In most cases, playing the game doesn't guarantee knowledge on the professional scene, it happens 90% of the time. @Masem, i'm talking about GNG to you. Thanks. Redefining history (talk) 12:10, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't get you all, i am talking about GNG ..... Redefining history (talk) 12:12, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
The point we've been trying to make to you , Redefining, is that you can attempt to justify the notability of eSports players through the GNG. You just need to have independent, secondary sources to show that, and the problem is that the sources you keep citing aren't really being seen as that based on the AFDs that have occurred. What we are telling you is that because of the general lack of coverage is otherwise mainstream sources, there is no way to develop sub-notability guidelines (eg, "A player is presumed notable if they won an eSports tourney") for eSports because it is not an assurance that there will be secondary sources on that player. Thus there is no automatic notability for eSports players due to this. They can still be notable per the GNG, but also keep in mind: if all they have done is won one event, that is a failing of WP:BLP1E. --MASEM (t) 12:16, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
And for my comparison, the difference between the game starcraft and dota are probably as different as the soccer ball and the american football (ball). The difference between mario and dota are probably like javelins and soccer ball. They are so different. So if you are a fan of javelin you can tell me the roster of AC Milan? No. Most people in VG, as i have noticed, are focused on the game itself, much less the games that can be played competitively as a sport (only action real time strategy and first person shooter can be played as a sport, check Electronic Sports). Trust me, it has less connection on VG. Redefining history (talk) 12:22, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
@Masem, there is nothing about "mainstream" on the policy, they just need to be "third party" not "self-published". And i'm very sure these websites are third party, they aren't involved in the competitions/teams/players. Redefining history (talk) 12:24, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Masem, I think it should work like this. Forget the fact that i'm comparing it to sports. I'm comparing it to other "competitive events". A golf magazine doing a feature on a player would be considered notable.... So an esports website doing a feature of an esport player? Redefining history (talk) 12:28, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
And don't tell me esports isn't a competitive event. Redefining history (talk) 12:28, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
You are missing my point. If there are reliable sources going in depth about an eSports player, they can meet the GNG and have an article. That provision always stands regardless of the topic. Of course, should the article be up for deletion, you will need to convince the editors that the sources are showing that notability, but that's not a point here or there. What I am trying to say is that because of the general overall lack of eSports, we cannot make a sub-notability guideline that states "A eSports players that wins a major competition is presumed notable." because there is no guarantee that there will be secondary coverage of that player in the sources. Yes, their win will be documented, but that's not sufficient. --MASEM (t) 12:38, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

If there are reliable sources going in depth about an eSports player, they can meet the GNG and have an article. Thanks, that's all I needed. Cause not everyone understands that. They think because the sources are from Gosugamers its not reliable and lalalalala and thats why we're in so long an argument here. We need to establish consensus on that statement so I can go to the deletion review and have the articles recreated. Redefining history (talk) 13:04, 29 October 2011 (UTC) According to Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary and secondary sources, Interviews are allowed. Thanks. Redefining history (talk) 13:07, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Let me start on this, Bu Yanjun, more commonly known as PIS or YaphetS. Here are sources going in depth about him :
You are wrong about how deletion review works. You cannot use it to open a review to ask to re-evaluate notability (Deletion review is not AFD#2); it is only if there was a procederual problem when closing. What I've said doesn't change what the consensus on the quality of sources determined in those AFDs, they're using the same metrics I've just stated.
Second, of the articles above, using Google Translate, none of them are in depth coverage of Bu Yanjun. They talk about him being at an event and how he performed, but that's not secondary coverage, that's just the equivalent of a box score and not sufficient for notability. I'm not saying that the site is unreliable or anything like that, but just being name-dropped in an article is not sufficient for notability. --MASEM (t) 13:18, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
The first and the last are features on him, the second last in an interview with him. Redefining history (talk) 13:20, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
More interviews on him : http://dota.sgamer.com/201106/news-detail-91502.html
News on him : http://dota.sgamer.com/201107/news-detail-93277.html http://dota.sgamer.com/201109/news-detail-100777.html http://dota.sgamer.com/201107/news-detail-94301.html
FEATURES that go in depth about him : http://dota.sgamer.com/201008/news-detail-55988.html

Redefining history (talk) 13:27, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

You need not worry about what i'm going to do at deletion review. I have my ideas. Redefining history (talk) 13:28, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
And i just realized, sgamer covers about 100 games, gosugamers covers POKER, 178.com also covers about 70 games while phcome.net isnt even for games. I hope that will be "disinterested" now. Redefining history (talk) 13:31, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
And you won't get articles about him winning anything, cos he is in a team. Just like when Spain wins the world cup, you get "Spain wins World Cup" and not "Iker Casillas wins the World Cup"+"Sergio Ramos wins the World Cup"+"David Villa wins the World Cup"+"Jose Manuel Riena wins the World Cup"+and so on.. Redefining history (talk) 13:36, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
I google translated these sources, and none of them are as you say they are, at least for purposes of WP. The "interviews" are not in-depth interviews, and inside just some comments on a current match/tourney going on. That's not giving us any in-depth coverage of the player. The last one you claim is in-depth, isn't - it's going into how specific matches were played out, but nothing about him as a player beyond some name-dropping.
You need to stop and understand what we are looking for in sources. We need more than just what they are playing and doing at any time. We need to understand what impact they have on the larger field of eSports or at best their league that they are in. Just being a winner doesn't mean anything since these sources aren't going into depth about it.
That's likely why these sources are being rejected at AFD. They're just covering the games but not doing any analysis or the like, thus leaving them looking like blogs than reliable sources. I'm sorry if you feel different, but that's how we interpret sources here, by consensus, and if consensus rejects them, you have to accpet that.
I'll even point out that video game players like Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell (electronic sports player) are notable because of their appearance in a documentary about their rivalry, and not just because they hold the record for the game. That's the type of source we need for any other eSports players (and sports in general).
I note that you've been told all this before (a result of the ANI thread on you). We appreciate your passion for trying to get these articles to WP, but if consensus rejects them, you can't fight that indefinitely. Try working on one in userspace and bring it up to the sourcing level we need to instead of trying to fight an in-grained system that has worked for several years. --MASEM (t) 13:39, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
We need someone who understands chinese. End of story. Redefining history (talk) 13:48, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
For your understanding, this is the only english documentary i can find http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news.php?id=15687 . Redefining history (talk) 13:50, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Google translate is sufficient to give me the gist of these articles to know they are not in depth about the player.
You need to step back and realize you are fighting against the current here, and its becoming a dead horse. Many people have told you that these articles are just not going to work now on WP. Maybe if eSports takes off in a few years, then it could be the case, but not now. If you fight that too much, you may possibly be blocked from the project. --MASEM (t) 13:52, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
More interviews http://gs2010.pcgames.com.cn/news/1012/2090245.html http://dota.tgbus.com/news/201103/730653.shtml http://dota.178.com/201011/83744570833.html http://dota.178.com/201011/83712935043.html http://dota.178.com/201010/81839113549.html http://dota.178.com/201101/88240238673.html now? Some of them are about his life-story. Redefining history (talk) 13:54, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
You tell me what's wrong with my sources, and I come back to you with better ones. It's not that I don't listen. This time its in-depth. How? Redefining history (talk) 13:55, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

  • Comment I think the above discussion has gone far beyond the scope of this RfC (and this talk page) and is more appropriate at WP:RSN or Wikipedia talk:Notability. It seems fairly clear that the current consensus is that "e-sports" should be excluded from NSPORTS. The majority of those who !voted "oppose" to the proposed wording did so on the basis that "e-sports" shouldn't be mentioned here at all. Can we please get the discussion back on track?  Cjmclark (Contact) 18:44, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Support and comment - There's a distressing trend in the above discussion for some editors to be pedantically focused on conflating physical exertion/athletics with sports without ever discussing the basis for that assumption. However, I do think that in this instance that assumption is correct. Every NSPORTS guideline example is focused on an athletic competition (including some that maybe less strenuous but have always been considered sports by their inclusion in the Olympics, etc.). Moreover, the guideline would seem to fit more comfortably under the ENTERTAINER guidelines or some sub-guideline that should be developed.
    But I am disturbed by the dismissive and conclusory tone about what a "sport" is without discussion of the real issue. We need a specific esports guideline that's independent of this guideline for all the same reasons we have SNGs. There is certainly acrimony in AfD on this topic and this proposal speaks to that. Shadowjams (talk) 20:06, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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