Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 3

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Changes to lead section

We keep talking about how this page is to reflect criteria that will guarantee notability, so I've overhauled the lead to reflect that. Please feel free to revert & discuss, but I think there is no need to restate WP:N or WP:BIO here. I'm considering removing the third paragraph as well, or integrating it into the WP:NSPORT#Applicable policies and guidelines section. Feedback is welcome.  — Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 00:58, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

You deleted some brief language about statistical listings. Given discussion above in this talk, would it be helpful to bring it back? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:07, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

That wasn't my intention, feel free to re-insert.  — Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 19:40, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Given the extent to which editors feel strongly about the matter, I'm not going to simply put it back, but rather, show what it is here to allow discussion. The edit was this [1], and the material in question reads: "At a minimum, all articles must have been discussed in independent, non-trivial, reliable sources - not including statistical analysis websites or guides. In short, they should be able to meet the criteria laid out at Wikipedia:Reliable sources and Wikipedia:Verifiability#Sources." What I'm thinking about specifically is the part about "not including statistical analysis websites or guides"; the rest is really not an issue for me. My opinion is that this phrase simply states something reflected in the general guidelines, in a way that is specifically helpful in the context of athletics, but it is pretty obvious that other editors can feel strongly about saying it or not. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:55, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

My original reason for removing it was just to trim down the lead section, removing the redundant language from WP:BIO and WP:N. I really don't think there's any objection to re-inserting it.  — Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 13:17, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

The wording you put in there is fine with me. Seems to be a good compromise between the varied opinions. Thanks!  — Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 12:16, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Whew! Thanks. I put a lot of thought into the concerns expressed by editors who have disagreed with me, prior to making that edit. I'm relieved to see that it didn't set off a firestorm. Thanks, all. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Guideline

Since debate seems to be dying down, are there any sections that seem to be unfit for guideline status? I'd like to see this promoted to a guideline so we can get rid of WP:ATH.  — Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 12:21, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

We still have "has appeared in one game" for several sports. This is effectively duplicating ATH for the most part and needs to be addressed. I've address the concerns here - yes, they will be written up in box scores and have bios and their season performance and all that but that is not the type of significant coverage we need to have eventually for these articles; this is just datum that can be summarized elsewhere.

There are elements that are in the various sports that use these that can be grouped and mirrors into common themes:

• Inducted into the sport's respective Hall of Fames
• Awarded a notable award (eg Golden Glove) for their performance
• Selected to play in the sport's All-Star or equivalent event

All of those are virtually guaranteed to lead to source that describe the player's success in their sport, going beyond the box score and into why they are notable. This does not happen just by playing the game.

Mind you, I recognize that by eliminating ATH or "played one game" criteria, a lot of articles could be marked for deletion, and we probably need to figure out some type of medium-term grandfather clause to allow these articles to exist for a year or so for improvement until more stricter notability standards are included, so that's an aspect to also consider. --MASEM (t) 15:27, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes we do have the played one game, but the played one game has been moved from played one game at any pro level to play one game at the top pro level. This is something that is absolutely necessary to have in this propossed guideline and I would say is a far cry from what athlete currently is. -DJSasso (talk) 16:27, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

So let me get this straight; Somebody that played one game in the big leagues in the early 1900's has been notable, and will remain notable for a year, then if they don't improve their career statistics they get deleted . . . ? We better dig this guy out of the grave because he needs to play some more. This concept doesn't make sense. He played one game, or maybe a few games, now he has to win an award? We've established the one game standard, its an easy standard to define and prove through sources. It separates a professional athlete from a rank amateur which some people believe doesn't belong on Wikipedia. So why change it now? I can see the crazy deletionists marking their calendar then having a field day deleting thousands of (newly non-notable) articles as soon as possible. Who can get the brownie points first?Trackinfo (talk) 16:30, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

No, that's not it. These are cases where, we can be absolutely certain that we can write a good article about that player. If the player doesn't meet that requirement, that's not the end of the line, as then you turn to the WP:GNG - have they been talked about in depth in secondary sources? As there are a limited number of awards and Hall of Fame spots and All-star positions, this is by far how much athletes will likely be notable - not just because the played the game, but because they played the game in a way to attract attention to them (positive or negative). But just playing a single game is no means of notability; we can write a factual article on that player, but there's no depth or coverage to it, and that makes it indiscriminate. --MASEM (t) 16:41, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

What you need to remember is that in order to play one game in the top level league you had to have been a star in the 2nd level league and would have likely been written about from that aspect, probably quite a bit. This is why playing a single game in the top level league is pretty much a guarantee that you will meet GNG. Because anyone who played atleast 1 game in the majors will have at worst been an all-star in the minors and therefore written about in the publications that follow the minors. -DJSasso (talk) 16:45, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with DJSasso on this, at least for the more popular sports leagues (In the U.S. MLB, the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, MLS are the top leagues for baseball, american football, basketball, hockey, and football/soccer.) For those and similar leagues, there is enough coverage even at the one game level. Also, the guideline does not guarantee notability, just a presumption. If no sources are forthcoming, merging or deleting is available.  — Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 17:02, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Then, seriously, why not use that (the minor league recognizition) as the criteria? The problem is is that, for most people not interested in sports, playing in one game at the pro level is basically "Yea, so what?", there's nothing about notability in that, simply presence. If you flip it around and assert notability from college or minor league recognition, there's less a problem because its clearer where the recognition is coming from. --MASEM (t) 17:21, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I remain adamantly opposed to removing the "one game" distinction for pro sports. It is an easy to understand line.. Anything else becomes subjective and would require going over thousands of articles. Spanneraol (talk) 17:44, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The reason we're here now is because there are thousands of articles that passed ATH but can't be expanded further. The point of doing NSPORT is not to find ways to keep those articles, but to narrow the criteria when athletes can be considered immediately notable without having to show meeting the WP:GNG. Mind you, I'm aware of the number of potential articles affected, but a grandfather clause here over the course of a year or so to transition from ATH to NSPORT (without the "one game" criteria) would prevent deletion of articles outright before editors had a chance to improve them. --MASEM (t) 18:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I am adamantly opposed to any criteria which removes the one game line. We went from the old criteria which was one game at any level of professional sports to one game at the ultimate level. If you try and push it any further this proposal will stall and die. Once you play a single game in the major leagues you will have sources, to think otherwise is crazy. Its a very bright red line to follow for editors. We are not here because of the articles of say National Hockey League players who played one game who can't be expanded because well they can. We are here because currently players in the SPHL (which is 3 or 4 levels below the NHL) qualify for an article with one game played professionally and they likely can't be expanded or atleast not as easily. If you were under the impression people were upset about the one game players in the major leagues then I think you were mistaken. -DJSasso (talk) 18:19, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I can all but guarantee you that this proposal would be blown out of the water by editors if you removed the one game in the top level sentence. -DJSasso (talk) 18:26, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Masem said: "The point of doing NSPORT is not to find ways to keep those articles" If that statement is true, you have lost my total support. Yes, I would like to see articles improved. I do not want this to serve as a pathway to delete WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW about these people. Getting information is hard. Once it is gone, poof, it is lost forever. I seriously wish there was a way for common people to see what has already been deleted. By policy there isn't, so there is NO WAY we can recover the information that IS important. Wkikpedia; the worlds encyclopedia; the accumulation of our knowledge; is the ultimate destination for knowledge. If any reason, we are here discussing how to purge garbage--somebody's made-up backyard baseketball league--from cluttering the world's knowledge. Deleting somebody notable because their article is weak for whatever reason is misguided vanity.Trackinfo (talk) 19:03, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

(ec)Well, ATHLETE starts with "competed at the fully professional level of a sport". Stating "played one game" of the specific top-tier leagues for specific sports hasn't changed this (you can't compete unless you play a game), only that several sports have been cut out of this.

NSPORT needs to be normalized with respect to all other sub-notability guidelines to identify when a topic is notable for what that topic has merited, not just because its there. And yes, we've been over that athletes in top professional leagues generally are players that are the elite of the sport - but that still means nothing for notability, because there's no distinguishing them from each other. We cannot write a good encyclopedic article on a player where the only info we have is a brief biography (again likely present due to being in the profs) and box scores for the games they played.

Consider the reverse analogy that cannot work: if simply appearing in a broadcast-network TV show or a major movie was all that was needed to make actors notable, that would make every single extra on the screen for a few moments notable. The same idea would make every single academic that contributes to a peer-review articles in certain journals notable. So on and so forth. Those examples are clearly showing the lack of discrimination when you simply use a metric like "played one game at the pro level". We're attempting to summarize human knowledge, and clearly not every single pro athlete can be included. We want to recognize athletes that have contributed to their sport, and thus noting those that are in the Hall of Fame or the like is assuredly true. There's also players that do consistently well, have articles written up about them, which is also good. But the third-string benchwarmer that comes out once or twice a season is just not notable just for stepping into the game.

The indiscriminate coverage resulting ATHLETE, and the same that would result for the "played one game" NSPORT guidelines, are what needs to be addressed. I fully support more limiting criteria (eg "in Hall of Fame") where additional coverage is assuredly likely and shows discrimination, and that is where NSPORT needs to go before it can be made a guideline. --MASEM (t) 19:21, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

We are not trying to summarize human knowledge. We are trying to be the sum of human knowledge. As such we try to have everything that is notable, not just the things we feel are the most interesting which is what you allude to with your "So what?" comment above. Every single person who has played in the top level of professional sports are notable. Of this there is not alot of doubt. You are comparing apples and oranges when you compare athletes to proffesors. The level of coverage is very different in the real world and we are supposed to reflect the real world. Therefore in the 21st century that means there will be more athlete articles than professor articles. There is a huge amount of discrimination when you use the played one game at the top level. It cuts out thousands of articles that currently meet WP:ATHLETE. Right now you don't have to play any games at the top level to meet wp:athlete. You don't even have to make it to the 2nd highest professional level to meet wp:athlete currently. Making it to the highest of the professional leagues is a very discriminate cut off. Alot of people would argue that its actually too high to require them to get to that level. I don't really know where you get the idea that if you make it to the top professional level of your sport and only play a handfull of games that people won't be able to write a decent article about you, most athletes you can have a decent article written about them far before they even make it to professional, such is the nature of athletics in the 21st century. -DJSasso (talk) 19:44, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Several of the articles I am spot checking on lesser players are basically factual bios - born here, went to this school, played on team A, traded to team B, retired on a certain year. That's great as a bio, but it's not an encyclopedic article. For one it doesn't say anything of why this person was notable - just that they played a sport at a professional level. Secondly, flipping it around, I can write exactly the same type of article with similar quality sourcing for many other professions and considering only people at the highest level, but they don't immediately get articles either. This is not due to the fact that the number of sources for sports are much larger than for most other professions. This is simply understanding the point of WP's notability practice and the aim to avoid indiscriminate coverage. The fact we can verify and trace a person's career from third-party sources is great, but that's not discriminate inclusion.

The point I have been trying to make is that I suspect, based on what has been said, that if we took out the "one game" criteria, and instead had "either meets these criteria or meets the GNG", grandfathered in articles and gave time to correct, a small (not an insignificant number, but not a majority either) would ultimately need to be deleted or merged. I've got a strong feeling reading the ones I've spot checked that adding a few articles that actually describe how the player contributed to the team's success (or lack thereof) would be sufficient to elevate the article from being a bio to an encyclopedic article. The fact that there are many more sources for sports should make this task a lot easier, and why I think most pro athletes today can meet the GNG without too much extra work. If nothing can be said of how the player performed, we shouldn't have an article about that player (presuming they did nothing else notable in life).

The conflict here is that when you put the NSPORT "has played one game" next to every other sub-notability criteria, it stands out like a sore thumb; every other criteria is based on merit or accolade (or otherwise the GNG), but here it's just a matter of participation. This is a prime example of inherited notability, which is not a readily accepted proposition on WP.

This is not an attempt to drastically curtail the number of athletes covered and delete, but instead to focus on being discriminate about what athletes are covered in the same discriminating manner we use for all people. --MASEM (t) 21:00, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

So Masem essentially wants to eliminate all athlete articles except for Hall of Famers and All-Stars? I just think the level of interest in athletes is far greater than for professors and bit players in movies.. I really don't think you'll get any sort of consensus for the change you suggest. Spanneraol (talk) 20:24, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

No, only that those people should easily qualify for articles regardless of what other sources are immediately available, because there is a strong likelihood to find other sources. For every other player, demonstration of meeting the WP:GNG should be met, just as we have to do with most other WP:BIO type works. Automatic inclusion just because they are playing at a pro level is why people want to dismantle ATHLETE in the first place, and what needs to be avoided here. --MASEM (t) 21:00, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Speaking as one of the big bad editors who have appeared to be nasty towards those editors who defend athlete pages, and who is reflexively inclined to want to agree with Masem here, I want to say that, in fact, I'm OK with retaining the 1-game language that we currently have, in the context of all the other very good improvements we have made. My hope is that we can work this out, rather than have this issue torpedo the entire NSPORT effort—which is a real possibility. So let me please suggest: instead of discussing removing the 1-game language across-the-board, let's consider it where it occurs on the page, sport-by-sport. If, if, there is a particular sport where there is a clear reason to expect that single-game players could not otherwise pass GNG, then let's take a hard look at it. But for sports where such players routinely pass GNG, let's not fight about it any more. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:17, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• Masem is incorrect when he states that it's not possible to create viable biographical articles on 1-game players from the early 20th century (at least as it applies to baseball). In past discussions including Masem, I have asked him to provide examples of baseball players for whom this is the case, and have repeatedly been met with silence. Masem is also incorrect when he states that bare-bones biographies with details of schooling and such are unencyclopedic - I myself own several topic-specific commercial reference works where the majority of the entries are restricted to that sort of information (with the venerable and top-of-its-class Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Leagues being a good example). Masem is also also incorrect in his suggestion that biographies be given a time limit to come into compliance with his arbitrary standard - Wikipedia is a work in progress, and such an approach is antithetical to the entire thrust of the project. Finally, let me state that under no circumstances will I be a part of any consensus on athlete notability that the includes the ill-advised and destructive removal of the one-game standard for baseball players. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 21:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oh, and while I'm picking nits, Masem is also also also incorrect when he suggests that inherent notability based on a particular level of accomplishment within certain occupations is a controversial proposition. There are members of the United States House of Representatives about whom not much more is known than the average short-career ballplayer of the same era (education, jobs held, date of retirement, etc.), and yet no one suggests that those articles be deleted, because the idea that politicians who rise to the Congressional level are inherently notable is wholly acccepted and uncontroversial. Even Congressmen/women who accomplished nothing in the office, or held it for only a matter of days (such as Shelley Sekula-Gibbs) are given articles without protest. As such, Masem's objection seems to be grounded in a belief that people should not care as much about athletes as they do, or pay as much attention as they do to athletics in general. That's a perfectly fine belief for him to hold on a personal level, but it's not reflective of community standards either here on Wikipedia or in the world as a whole. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 22:02, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• I'm never said it is not possible to create viable bio articles on early century (or earlier) players; only that it is more difficult to so due to lack of mass media.
• Just because a bare-bones bio appears in other reference works does not mean it is suitable for an encyclopedia. There are probably millions of people that one can write bare-bones bios from third-party sources, as or more detailed than some sports players, that have done little else over time, but we don't as that's indiscriminate.
• The time limit only applies as a transition phase from ATH to NSPORT (presuming it's accepted), to help make sure people don't run off and delete articles that once met ATH but now fail NSPORT. This is a common practice for material on WP when a new policy change is put into place that may make some content no longer valid. This is not requiring perfection by the end of that time, just better demonstration of notability.
• Most US Congresspeople are going to be notable by the GNG without requiring any special cases, generally because that person, as part of running for Congress, is going to be dissected numerous ways by the media, providing the information to build more than just a bio off of. Thus, there's no reason for a special clause for that person. Are similar clarifications made for pro athletes? Sure, but not necessarily in the media, as the final decision is made by the coaches and hiring staff for the teams, and the media can only speculate. But I would still suspect that most (but not all) pro players can be considered notable by the GNG in the same lines of thought - media speculating on their hiring and reviewing their career upon entering a team. We can keep most pro athlete articles without having to make this special odd case of "played one game" simply by turning to the GNG. --MASEM (t) 23:32, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Masem, I realize that you don't like the "one game at the top professional level" rule, but can you agree that it's an improvement over ATH? NSPORT is closer to what you are wanting than ATH, and the one-game rule is supported by consensus (from what I can see). Removing it will sink any chances of getting this promoted, and we will be stuck with ATH.  — Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 23:40, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• Four things, since they're apparently necessary. First, the degree of difficulty in writing a good article on a subject should not enter into discussions of that subject's notability at all, as long as the degree of difficulty in question is not "impossible". Second, you apparently missed the word "encyclopedia" in the title of the Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Leagues, which would tend to indicate that at least one highly-regarded (and quite successful) encyclopedia considers such limited biographical entries to be suitably encyclopedic. Hence, my point in citing it as an example. Third, if you want to prevent the deletion of articles on notable subjects in a transition from ATH to NSPORT, the easiest way to do that would be to preserve the one-game standard within NSPORT, and thus avoid providing any grounds under which people would attempt to delete the aforementioned articles. Fourth, the one-game standard is meant to be a useful shortcut, to prevent extreme deletionists from trying to axe pages on notable subjects just because they happen to currently be short, unreferenced, or otherwise suboptimal (as occurs every frickin' day). The fact that such pages could also be preserved after a grinding, brutal, repetitive slog through AFD is not an inducement, when under the status quo no argument at all is needed (and we can all spend our time actually improving pages instead of engaging in grinding, brutal, repetitive arguments about them). -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 01:36, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• I didn't bring difficult into this, I was refuting your claim that I said it was impossible to write certain articles. I did not ignore your encyclopedia example, because while it is a valid encyclopedia, our goal here is not to include every encyclopedia ever (I don't believe this to be the case of your book, but there are some "encyclopedias" that are a far cry from being a useful reference work.)
• But here's the important point: the reason there are athlete articles targeted for AFD as much as you say is because what ATH was and what NSPORT is heading towards with the standard is allowing for indiscriminate coverage of a sport that no other field on WP gets. There are many people that complain that as soon as a new season starts for a pro league, an article is generated for every player, resulting in thousands of new articles each year. If it were truly the case that every single pro player can be given a good detailed encyclopedic article, just for stepping on the field, then yes, that's a reason to have the "play one game" meter. But this is not true. Many players that play one game ultimately play more and gain more recognition. (A more useful metric would thus be "played more than half of the games for their team in a season" to at least start them better, but I don't know if that's perfect). But stepping out for one game is just that - it's nothing notable nor nothing that guarantees notability. Thus, the "protection" that you say is needed to prevent deletion is not really justified on the simple basis of playing one game, because there's no evidence that will lead to a notable article with detailed coverage. The fact there is an insistence by this by those in sports-related projects shows how much of a walled garden ATHLETE has and what NSPORT will lead to. It is a very low barrier that does not aim to summarize sport, but document it. We're not here to document, we're here to summarize.
• And this more to Joshua above, I cannot accept NSPORT to continue with this because it is really not an improve on ATHLETE; it eliminates most other sports but keeps the ones that we already have tons have articles for on athletes. But, what is needed is to take the the proposed guideline to an wiki-wide RFC (presuming everyone else thinks its mostly done) and seek acceptance for it; notability guidelines need to be vetted globally to be accepted. If there is a consensus against the "played one game" clauses, it will be apparent there; if it's accepted, then I have nothing left to argue against. I just think that you are going to find a number of people against those clauses for the same reason ATHLETE went under scrutiny. --MASEM (t) 02:18, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• Masem, the insistence you place on tightening these guidelines is ultimately based in deleting articles--articles that YOU consider sub-standard. A deleted article stands zero chance of improving, because it is hidden from view from the general public. A weak stub article stands a much better chance of inspiring somebody to fill in the blanks, possibly even creating a new dedicated editor like myself. In the domain I travel, there are literally hundreds of stubs of significant athletes, each with significant careers that I know could be fleshed out. I don't have the time to research each of these, I pick and choose what I know best. Because these have been targeted by deletionists under the BLP "controversy" I've had to spend most of my time simply sourcing the notable condition that makes these athletes sufficient to remain on Wikipedia. I sure as hell wouldn't want to see that standard raised. The fact is, almost all of these stubs are stubs because they only focus ON that notable achievement and in turn, in brevity, in consideration of the (other) editor's available working time, they MISS the career. They are just waiting for somebody like me to discover the article and say "Hey, there's more to this guy's story . . . " For the player who makes it to the bigs just for one game, invariably there has to be a much greater story of his path to the bigs, through youth, high school, college or minor leagues. Nobody gets recruited off a sandlot and jumps to the bigs, and if they did there would be one hell of a story to be written. Countless major stories, fiction and non-fiction, are written about athletes aspiring to make that one game, that one play even on the minor league, college or high school level. Rudy (film) The Garbage Picking Field Goal Kicking Philadelphia Phenomenon The Replacements (film) WP deals in reality. We have those REAL stories to tell. It just takes somebody to tell them. They won't get told if this new standard serves as a tool to delete those articles with potential before they have a chance. And changing the standards to a higher level WILL attract the attention of the ghouls wanting to kill off anything between the two standards.Trackinfo (talk) 04:26, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• This starts from the flawed assumption that every player that plays in the majors has a story to tell. I'm sure many do. But I cannot believe every single one throughout time and across all countries affected.
• And I stress again the need of a grandfather clause. If NSPORT was deemed fine tomorrow and turned out and immediately swapped out with ATH, there would certainly be a number of articles that could be deleted as NSPORT is somewhat stricter. Could they be improved to meet NSPORT or the GNG barring that? Probably. Which is why the proper solution is than when NSPORT has consensus and is replaced for ATH, we have a period of time - I suggest a year but it certainly can be more, where articles that previously met ATH do not need immediate improvement and thus would be improper to take to AFD. The simple fact we are replacing ATH with something that is stricter means there will be articles that now fail, but a grandfather clause is exactly the way to easy the transition. --MASEM (t) 06:23, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• If you are convinced that the one-game standard is not useful, then let me please ask, once again, for an example of a one-game baseball player about whom a reasonable article can not be created. Pick one of the many who was just added to a ML 25-man roster for the first time this year, whom you claim to find so objectionable in your most recent response in this thread, and let me show you once and for all that you are wrong. If you can/will not do so, then please stop repeating the false assertion that one-game players are not perfectly reasonable and viable targets for articles. Also, I do not think that additional forum-shopping is likely to produce the result that you desire, as past discussions at a variety of locations (stretching back for at least three years) have consistently confirmed the community's belief that even one-game players are notable. However, please feel free to do as you must. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 14:54, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
• As a demonstration of the length and depth of the community's support for the one-game standard, let me provide Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lecomte. Lecomte is an Olympic archer from the 1900 games about whom we know virtually nothing - not even his first name. And yet four years ago, the community !voted overwhelmingly to keep his article. And they have continued to support the standard ever since. If you start a topic RFC, or another Village Pump discussion, or something along those lines, then it will no doubt produce the same result that it always does. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 15:01, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• First, it is not forum shopping to call for another RFC. Notability guidelines are global standards; presuming that except for the one game metric that everyone else is happy with how NSPORT is set up, then there needs to be an RFC to present it to the community at large to gain global consensus; it cannot just be turned into a working guideline without that step. At that point, if there is displeasure with the one game standard, then its going to have to be changed; my read from the ATH discussion that got us to this is that there will be people that will not accept it beyond myself, but whether its consensus or not, its unsure.
• As an example (and I'm just pulling here, second page after spotchecking 2008 Mariners players) of a player that has definitely played at least one game but has little else of note is Lou Camilli; 4 seasons, 107 games played, crappy batting average,[2] and a archived Google news search only turns up routine game coverage and movement of the player between minor and major. [3]. Could there be more? Maybe, though the fact that the achieve search is not showing anything significant beyond routine game info is not a good sign there is more. Is this a notable athlete? By the rest of WP, this person would fail notability easily (and BLP too, but that's a different issue); it is only because of this arbitrary requirement of "one game pro" that the player is suddenly notable. Again, this only took about 8-10 clicks to find. As there's 10,000s of athlete article, I'm sure more examples could be easily found.
• Someone brought up the Congressperson thing before. It is important to keep this in mind, because I do believe that a large majority of athletes are likely notable via the GNG (that is, not requiring a special clause like "played one game") for the same reasons most Congresspeople are notable: there is a lot of media around these areas.
• But I'm going to leave this at this point: There needs to be an RFC as soon as every other aspect of NSPORT is ok by the people participating (that's not me saying it, that's just how notability guidelines are built and implemented), in order to promote this to a notability guideline. If the "played one game" metric stands, then it stands, but coming from the ATH discussion, I caution that there's a reasonable change this will be rejected and a better standard will need to be sought back here. --MASEM (t) 15:37, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• I'll let HBWS research that player since he is better at that than me... but I want to point out that even if you get this rejected at RFC on the grounds you suggest.. the only thing that will accomplish is to reject this proposal and keep ATH as it currently is as you will find strenuous objection from sports editors on changing the one game rule. Spanneraol (talk) 15:56, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• Practically, the RFC should be three-prongs: Keep ATH, Replace it with NSPORT, or require more work. And again, not to beat the issue to death, but a grandfathering clause is absolutely need to transition things should NSPORT be accepted. --MASEM (t) 15:59, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

*I am just shocked that you would throw away all ground that has gained by both sides because it isn't exactly what you want. If you were to succeeed in convincing people to remove this line. This proposal to replace ATH will be dead in the water as I can guarantee you every sports editor and very many non-sports editors would oppose this becoming a guideline to replace ATH, you can see the proof of that in the RFC that just closed on WP:ATH. Almost everyone agreed that the top level of pro was a good level, what people objected to was that anyone professional would be included. Very few people said the guideline should be more strict than top level pro. Alot of ground has been covered here, there is always a give and take in such things. You seem to be willing to take but not give any from your position. -DJSasso (talk) 16:12, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

See, I disagree that the previous RFC at ATH suggested that something like "played one game" was going to be ok (see how many people responded positively to the "require ATH and GNG" line). You have to sort those results between people that have a vested interest in sports articles and those that are less invested. The only clear consensus from ATH was to break it down by sport to make it easier to define what are appropriate demonstrations for individual sports. To me, the "played one game" is just as problematic as the previous versions of ATH in that we're still not considering "notability", instead just that we can write a verifiable article on a player, which , while meets WP:V, is not as strong a measure at WP:N. I'm not saying I'm absolutely right, but I do believe that when this is presented for acceptance by WP at large, you are going to find resistance against it from those not vested in sports articles because it doesn't conform with how other fields deal with notability. I may be proven wrong, in which case, that's egg on my face, end of story. But I've seen this coming for at least 3 years (the dislike of the openness of ATH) and I don't think NSPORT presently goes far enough to resolve. But NSPORT is certainly the right direction to move in for nearly every other criteria it lists. --MASEM (t) 16:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I tried earlier to make peace on this, and we can see how well that went over. So, let me try this instead. I share the view expressed by numerous others that it would be a pity to lose all the good work that has gone into NSPORT so far, over this issue. And I repeat, to both sides of the argument, that it's a real risk unless both sides find an acceptable solution. Now, my understanding is that no one here intends the 1-game language to be a free pass for a subject who would actually fail GNG. Rather, the idea is that 1-game, at the top level now very helpfully added to the language, is a convenient indicator of pages that, we know through experience, are very likely to pass GNG. Right? That being the case, is there a way we can keep the 1-game language, but also add language to explain clearly that, in any rare instance where there is 1 game but GNG can never be met, GNG is decisive? One way would be to have a statement about that in the general material near the top. Another way would be to insert a brief phrase at each appearance, something like "has played in one game (subject to the general guidelines) at the top level...". Can something like this satisfy both sides? --Tryptofish (talk) 17:22, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

The quick fix in regards to this is to make sure each section for the individual sports uses the word "presumed notable" or the like. That allows that notability can still be challenged even if the criteria is met, without introducing frivolous attempts at deletion. But as I've said as this point, I am personally against the "played one game" and feel that there's a larger consensus against it when this is brought to WP at large, but can tell there's certainly no documented consensus now to make the change. The work on NSPORT should finish to get to the point where the RFC to affirm this as a guideline should be done, and the RFC proposed. But I am cautioning that NSPORT may not be accepted with that phrasing in there, which doesn't depreciate any of the work done, just that those sections need to be improved. --MASEM (t) 17:59, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, good, then, can we agree on adding some "presumed notable" language to the affected sections, while retaining the 1-game language? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:03, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I would support the "presumed notable" language, which is used by WP:GNG right now. I really don't think that it will have the effect of allowing deletion when GNG cannot be satisfied, though. It's virtually impossible to prove a negative—that sources don't exist.  — Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 18:05, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

As a means of getting this to an RFC for guideline acceptance, yes. As to proving a negative, as WP uses "those that want to retain information must show it" approach, if one cannot show that sources are likely to exist at AFD, that'll lead to deletion at AFD. The point of the presumed is that it is not a 100% guarantee of never ever being deleted, just a very strong deterrent against it. --MASEM (t) 18:13, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

• Would one of my baseball-writing colleagues mind hitting the Sporting News archive at paperofrecord.com ? Lots of article hits, but my work internet blocks ActiveX, so I can't see them - and I don't have home internet ATM. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 19:34, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

I've implemented the presumed notable language in the article. This is the wording used at GNG, so it should be used here, and Tryptofish and Masem seem to be in agreement about this change.  — Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 18:37, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Works for me. -DJSasso (talk) 18:52, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I support it too. I was willing to accept what we had before, and this is even better. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:29, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Individual games

I have not found many notable individual games. There are a couple cited in the article, but those are the rare exception, rather than the rule. I've re-written that section to exclude everything except top-level championship games (or series if the sport has a championship series). I've also mentioned that just meeting the GNG is not going to satisfy the notability requirement for individual games, due to routine coverage. Comments welcome.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 18:50, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't the GNG already take into account "routine coverage"? Powers ^T 12:54, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

What is and is not routine can be debated, so I thought I would make it clear that regular-season games are not notable.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 17:15, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Numerous FAs and GAs on topics like non-BCS college football bowl games, Formula One motor races, English soccer playoff finals, and baseball tie-breaker games wouldn't fall under the first three criterion. Is the last criterion meant to ensure that they are notable enough to justify inclusion? I'm somewhat concerned that the wording could be interpreted in an overly broad manner, in terms of exclusion. At the same time, the real issue (that run-of-the-mill regular season games should not be considered notable) could be made more explicit, since that strikes me as a primary reason to have such a section in the first place. Thoughts? Giants2008 (27 and counting) 00:54, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I dont really like the new wording either. Spanneraol (talk) 02:06, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Please change it then. The main thing is to not suddenly confer notability on (e.g.) the 2,600 games played every year in baseball.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 07:30, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I took a stab at modifying it, keeping that in mind. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 18:40, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, but I was expecting some change to the statement about BCS games. I've made a pass at that point, what do you think?  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 22:23, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Can't believe I missed that. The change looks good to me. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 13:43, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Adapting prior material and broadening this draft guideline

Long before this page even existed, I created Wikipedia:WikiProject Cue sports/Notability (WP:CUENOT for short), and wrote it such that it would be easy to adapt into a notability guideline for WP:SPORTS more broadly (a plan I hadn't yet gotten around to when this draft guideline popped up). WP:CUENOT, along with WP:CUESPELL, has been very stable for years, and while not tagged as a guideline has been operating as one, throughout the cue sports articlespace, since shortly after its inception, and with very little friction. There are a large number of ideas in WP:CUENOT that should arguably be ported into WP:NSPORT. WP:CUENOT is very broad, covering not just biographies, but events, organizations, venues, games, etc., and WP:NSPORT should do likewise (whether or not it uses much of WP:CUENOT's text). WP:CUENOT is written as a very explanatory essay, so it would need major trimming for reuse as a guideline. Its not so much the wording as the conceptual structure and breadth of coverage. If WP:NSPORT doesn't expand like this, it should be renamed "Wikipedia:Notability (sportspeople)", and a more general guideline drafted at "Wikpedia:Notability (sports)". — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 18:47, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm generally in favor of the wikiprojects having a lot of say over their individual areas of expertise. However, I'm concerned about the length of NSPORT already, so I'm hesitant to add many more sections. However, let's discuss these different areas that could be covered by this guideline, and I'll give my thoughts

1. Biographies - covered, this is the main purpose of the article, as there are hundreds of thousands of athletes, it would completely swamp the deletion process if we had to evaluate these individually.
2. Events - I think WP:EVENT covers this.
3. Organizations - WP:ORG to some extent. If we want to add something here, I would propose that organizations belonging to a national professional athletic sports league are notable.
4. Venues - If 2 notable organizations or events are held in a venue, or if it meets GNG
5. Games - There is a section on this, which is undergoing some editing right now (see #Individual games, and feel free to chime in)

I really don't want to make the guideline so long that people start yelling CREEP as soon as the RfC starts.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 00:46, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I hear ya. That's why I was thinking (toward the end up there) that it might better to have the sportsperson bio stuff in a separate page, maybe WP:NATHLETE or something, and have WP:NSPORT be more general. We'll see! Venues: I think that might be too lax. There's Golden Cue now at AfD, and it may not survive despite being a annual host of major events. Another "we'll see" thing, I suppose. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 05:15, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Wow, just looked at Golden Cue, nice work. I'm starting a new section just below for discussing the notability standard for sports venues.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 06:12, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Sports venues

As SMcCandlish points out, sports venues should probably be covered by this guideline. What should the exact standards be? My second pass at this:

A venue is notable if

1. two notable organizations, or one top-level professional organization regularly uses the venue
2. two notable regularly scheduled events are held at the venue
3. it otherwise meets the basic criteria

Please give feedback.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 06:18, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Personally I would rather not have a section on Venues, because buildings can be notable for such a wide variety of reasons other than just sports that were played there. Personally I wouldn't bundle them in with this proposal and leave them for WP:GNG or if it ever gets revived, the failed WP:BUILDING. -DJSasso (talk) 11:45, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I would agree. I think it falls outside the scope of a guideline about sportspeople, and would be better handled by an architecture wikiproject or something similar. I also think that the proposed standard is too harsh. It would exclude, for example, a stadium like Zephyr Field, which easily sails through WP:GNG. -Hit bull, win steak^(Moo!) 14:46, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that it does not seem appropriate for venues to also be covered by this guidance. Would it be worth though having some kind of note in the intro explaining those sports-related items that are not covered by NSPORT?

Rugby

I don't like rule 3. "good" is too subjective. Shouldn't those players be ruled on GNG, after all they aren't on a first tier team. I'm not that familiar with rugby, so explain if you disagree. --MATThematical (talk) 20:06, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that's a good point. I also think the last paragraph of that section is redundant. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:32, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I really think that rugby needs a complete overhaul, but unfortunately I do not follow rugby enough to do this. --MATThematical (talk) 18:37, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Individual seasons

"Articles can be created on individual seasons of the top leagues". Is this meant to refer to the leagues themselves or their teams? I originally thought that it was the former, but the rest of the section seems to be describing individual teams. If it is meant to be about team pages, I think that could be made a little clearer at the start. I probably am not the only one who could be confused by that. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 18:36, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I meant for each team's season. Feel free to make it clearer.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 18:43, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Added a few words that should be sufficient to clarify the intent. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 21:26, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

"Generally acceptable standards" bar is far too low

Wikipedia:Notability (sports)#Generally acceptable standards sets far, far too lax a standard. It must specify some minimum level of world championship competition (I would suggest top-16; some might prefer top-32, but that may be too forgiving). The problem is that some world championship are totally enormous with very low barriers to entry. The way this is written now, I personally qualify as a "notable sportsperson" because, along with several thousand other pool (pocket billiards) players, I participated in last year's VNEA International Pool Championship, the largest of several competing world amateur pool championships. I was nowhere near even the top-128, much less top-16, in singles, doubles, or team competition, in any division, and am clearly not notable for having competed [I probably am notable as an activist and author, but am actually damned thankful no one's written an article on me! Everyone I know personally with an article here finds it to be a pain the backside.] I would agree that appearance in the Olympic Games at all confers auto-notability. PS: The phrase "world champion[ship]" is not capitalized when used generically, since it is not referring to any particular title. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 18:26, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Your example wouldn't really be a world championship. A world championship is usually defined as a singular event that is noted to be the top competition in the world for that sport (boxing of course being an exception where they name a number of belts as world champ belts). Your example would be more akin to tennis where there is no true world championship but are a number of grand slams which are considered the most high profile tournaments. And I would note that its capitalized because its referring to a very specific set of World Championships. -DJSasso (talk) 19:35, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

That's a gross overgeneralization. Quite a number of sports have had multiple competing world championships. Cf. snooker for a great example. It's not referring to "a specific set of world championships"; it's linking to an article on the concept of world championships in general - an article that itself doesn't even capitalize the phrase – and which provides a large but not exhaustive number of examples. Capitalizing "world championship" here is like capitalizing "pool league" or "neighborhood association" just because the phrases are capitalized when used in actual proper names like "BCA Pool League" and "Sunset Neighborhood Association". Anyway, I'm tellin ya, this section is far too permissive, and it's going to result in a lot of questionable claims of notability based on it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 21:42, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed this section, and point #3 is basically back to the One Game argument. "High barrier to entry" is a very arbitrary metric and given that (though I don't personally like) we call out the one game for specific sports/leagues, this is basically excessively broad and duplicative for no reason, and recommend its remove in favor of the one game aspects. --MASEM (t) 19:38, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I've removed it since most of this section was far too detailed for the general section. And as you said it contradicts already agreed upon language. I put back what was there prior to his changes. -DJSasso (talk) 19:43, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, something has to be done here. Even if my exact example wasn't satisfying, the fact remains that there are extremely permissive open world championships in various disciplines, with essentially no barrier to entry other than the entry fee, in which thousands participate. This section says that every entrant is notable, when this clearly cannot really be the case. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 21:42, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a solution might be to insert one or more adjectives before "world championships", to convey what DJSasso referred to when describing them as singular events. I'm not sure what the words would be. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:47, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Open to ideas. My own issue is that this section isn't restrictive enough, so if it can be made more restrictive (within reason) that's probably a Good Thing. Randomly capitalizing "world championships" and linking to a general article that doesn't address this as some kind of proper name really doesn't help, though. Maybe it means something to someone, but it won't mean anything to most readers. DJSasso and I can definitely argue (given our past history), but it's certainly not my intent to argue with him for argument's sake; I'm trying to be constructive and problem-solving here. And we do have the problem that some legitimate world championships are massive brou-ha-has without any selective admittance process, just lots and lots of elimination rounds, sometimes over a week or more. Pool isn't the only example. There were literally more than 10,000 bowlers, for 2 or so months, here in Albuquerque a few years ago for the Ten-pin Bowling World Championship. I'd say about 1/10 of 1% of those bowlers may be notable, if even that many. So, this isn't an idle concern. I noted the removal of "[w|W]orld [c|C]hampionships" from the criteria, so it now only mentions the Olympics. That might be too restrictive, as not all sports are Olympic sports (not a single cue sport is, for example, because of decades of internecine bickering between various national governing bodies). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 23:47, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I'm not sure that the newest edit, "at the highest level" is clear enough, might be gameable. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:06, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

This goes back to an earlier discussion about the Olympic games, where it was suggested out that maybe only the competitors in the finals should be notable. There are 13,000 athletes in the Olympic games, are they all notable? Projecting this down the scale of coverage, I'd say that only the top X finishers in certain championships in cue sports are presumed notable. X will have to be determined by SMcCandlish and the Cue Sports project as the subject-matter experts. I've run the table in pool, but I don't really follow the sport.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 06:28, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Going back to that earlier discussion, it was I thought, well established that even the lowliest of Olympic competitors are notable within their own country and frequently beyond simply for having achieved the lone selection to participate. They are all notable.Trackinfo (talk) 07:42, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

A bit too inclusive

• Just my opinion, but I think some of these criteria are simply too broad, too inclusive. In skating, athletics and gymnastics, I'm seeing too many "junior" or "senior" this and that, "world youth records" etc. Junior championships shouldn't establish notability. Nor should youth records. Not terribly fond of the "major hall of fame" clause....name them, otherwise what is or is not major is going to be constantly argued. And really, how many truly notable people get in there without meeting the other criteria? The critera for road race notability has some fuzzy areas that will lead to disputes. Niteshift36 (talk) 07:27, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

You are confused, gymnastics never mentions junior anything, in fact its the opposite it says "senior" on everything in order to explicitly restrict juniors from automatically gaining notability for winning a junior version of the same meet. As for skating see my comment below. As for track junior world records are extremely prestigious.--MATThematical (talk) 20:18, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• No Matt, I am not confused. I was speaking in broad, general terms, not specifics. And what I said below about juniors skating applies to juniors track. Most that win those titles go on to meet the notability criteria past that juniors event. If they don't, oh well. Everyone can't be notable. Up to this point, juniors records and titles have often failed to convince at AfD as passing WP:ATHLETE and I'm ok with that. I think that we're expanding this too broadly, making it too inclusive.Niteshift36 (talk) 20:39, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• Can you point to the AfDs where junior World records did not pass for notability. I have a feeling these are either minor records or records in very niche sports. Remember that we make no claim to national or area junior records being notable, only world records. Every track athlete who has a junior world record in a standard event already has a page on wikipedia, most of them are fairly detailed and well sourced. Here are the womens junior records next to the olympic bronze medal mark at the 2008 olympics (and guess which is usually better) 10.88, 10.98 : 22.18, 22.00 | 49.42, 49.93 | 1:54.01, 1:56.73 | 3:51.34, 4:01.78 | 14:30.88, 15:44.12 | 30:26.50, 30:22.22 | 12.84, 12.64 | 54.40, 53.84| 2.01m, 2.03 | 4.48m, 4.75m| 7.14m, 6.91m | 14.62m, 15.23 | 20.54m, 19.86m | 74.40m 62.59m | 73.24m 74.32m | 63.01m, 66.13m| 6542pts, 6591pts|. So to tally it up Olympic bronze medalists loose to world junior record holders 8/16 times. In other words, on average a world junior record holder is approximately as good as an Olympic bronze medalist. --MATThematical (talk) 00:20, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad you brought that up. I've been noticing over the last several days that activity here has quieted down, and I was starting to wonder whether I should ask "are we there yet?", in the sense of whether the page was becoming finished enough that we ought to present it for consideration for promotion to guideline. Obviously, we would need to address your concerns before doing that. My personal reaction to your points is that I generally would like to be less inclusive, but I've been happy with where we've already gotten with this, and I don't have strong opinions on the specific points you've raised (although I know that other editors definitely will). I very much agree that we need to go through the whole thing, to make the level of inclusiveness consistent, and to anticipate areas that will lead to disputes and therefore clean up any fuzziness in the wording that would cause that. I'd like to suggest that we start doing that now. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:39, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I removed the "major hall of fame" clause. Feel free to boldly fix the issues you see, this is not perfect yet, and there's a lot of sections that had input from only a couple editors.  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 19:37, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I somewhat agree. However, track is an individual sport so there is only one world junior record holder per event who might get replaced at quickest every 10 years or so. This is not like football where there are records for a ton of weird categories. World youth records are all very notable as they always get a ton of press. They aren't broken too frequently. I agree about skating being too lenient, I pooled this in from the skating notability page and actually restricted it quite considerably. I didn't want to go too overboard without contributions from people in the skating community. However, as far as juniors go in skating, please note that juniors are just as competitive as the seniors. When I first saw this clause I had a similar reaction to yours, then I looked up the pages of these junior skaters, they were already competing in the Olympics and world championships. Probably the 5th best junior in the world is in the top 15 overall in the world. Unlike most sports, in skating the junior world championships is an extremely prestigious and high level meet. I'll do some research in gymnastics to see if its the same case as skating. By the way I am not opposed to making the junior events more restrictive, but they shouldn't be abolished either.--MATThematical (talk) 20:07, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• Junior events are prestigious, but they are also normally a stepping stone. You already answered my question in your reasoning. The 5th best junior was in the top 15 skaters overall. The top 15 would get her notability, right? The junior skaters in the Olympics? Well, they made it to the Olympics, which gets them past notability. Why the rush to make them notable early? How often does someone win a junior national or world championship and NOT make it to the Olympics or senior national or world championship? Is there that much harm in waiting a year or two to make sure it happens? Same with track.....Niteshift36 (talk) 20:14, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

When I say juniors in skating are competing in the Olympics I don't mean they go on to compete in the Olympics I mean they actually compete in the Olympics the same year they compete in the junior World Championships. This is uncommon because of the age restriction on the olympics, but if you look at the most prestigious championships with no age limits like the 4 continents championships you can see that the junior medalists beat most of the seniors. So when someone wins the junior world championships it means they beat several of the best skaters in the world (regardless of age). The truth of the matter is that the junior level is not any more below the senior level than the European senior championships is below the world senior championships. If someone does very well in a Junior world championships, they were one of the best skaters that year. They will have tons of notable sources. That being said, I was the one who changed the requirement from just competing in these championships to competing in the finals (i.e. free skate) in these competitions. Again I would be willing to make this more strict (e.g. top 6). The fact that you are more concerned about the junior clause rather than the senior national champion clause shows a massive misunderstanding about the notability of skaters and their ability to satisfy WP:GNG. I think there needs to be a statement like won their countries senior national champion, with the exception of ... (something here that restricts this to countries that are competitive and such that winning a national championship means something). Right now the current junior champion is the 10th best skater in the world and she has never competed in an Olympics or a senior world championships. Do you think she is not notable. Even worse Kim Yu Na was the Junior world champion in 2006, she wasn't old enough to compete in the Olympics, but she was arguably the best skater in the world at that time. Are you suggesting that the best skater in the world is not notable? In figure skating many of the juniors are already famous and highly ranked, much more so than any other sport, its an exception. Note that gymnastics does not have these junior statements anywhere, and neither do most sports, only sports where junior competition leads to satisfying WP:GNG.

However, I do agree with you in that track is different than skating, and thats why we require them to be the world junior champion or world junior record holder. For track, while juniors often compete in the olympmics while they are juniors, they are usually not as competitive as junior level figure skaters. That being said the world junior record holder in the 1500m for women ran a 3:51, which would lead the world any year other than the year she ran. She never competed in the Olympics. Her story is very interesting, she is very notable, and could easily be expanded into a long well sourced article with in print sources. I agree with Djsasso's view on notability, and there is no question that world junior record holders are going to meet GNG if you look hard enough at in print sources. The whole point of WP:NSPORT and WP:ATH is to avoid lazy editors from deleting articles where the subject actually does meet WP:GNG but a simple google search does not yield any neutral and credible sources --MATThematical (talk) 23:51, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• How much more clear can I say this: I wasn't talking about gymnastics specifically when I said something about juniors. I was talking in borad terms. I've said this twice now. So can you please stop telling me that the gymnastics one doesn't include juniors? Ok? Please. While you are picking out the rare exception, who can probably qualify under some other criteria anyway, you are getting too specific. You can't tailor standards for the rare exception. It sounds like you are figuring out ways to make the criteria easier to include more and more people and I think that's the wrong way to go about it. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:43, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand what you referring to by rare exception. I'm sure I could list a ton of skaters who were highly world ranked as juniors. Thats the point they aren't rare exceptions, its the norm. The 1500 is a rare exception in that the junior mark is usually not in the top 3 all time to have ever competed the event (junior or senior). But the junior record mark is always an elite level mark, no question. I'm not trying to allow more people in in these sports. The junior world record holder obviously gets more media coverage than a random pro north American football player who only played 10 minutes in one game. Why are you picking on the amateur sports, when they are obviously more exclusively written than the pro ones. --MATThematical (talk) 16:10, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• Just a reminder that this page isn't about making people notable, all it does is state when people are likely to have the sources required to meet GNG. GNG is what gives them the notability. -DJSasso (talk) 21:36, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely wrong! The first sentence of the project states this is to be: "used to discuss whether or not a sportsperson, sports league, or an amateur/professional sports league organization will meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia." That is ALL we are talking about here. Whether sources exist is a factual occurrence for every article and for some people, every single statement within those articles. Who cares if something is likely to exist or not, when it comes to any specific article, the facts need to be verified or somebody else will attack that article. That is the game we play here. Even worse, a lot of legitimate sources are considered unreliable (obviously I disagree with those blanket summations), which some people like to further use to attack articles here. I previously tried to argue about the legitimacy of some sources that might fit other people's definition of unreliable. That proved unsuccessful, rather than listening we had people cover their ears and started humming--the key discussion got sidetracked. So lets not get sidetracked again. This is entirely about establishing better notability standards--standards that ALREADY ARE being applied to AfD arguments as those attacks on articles lead to their potential deletion. Our clarity here is quite important to decide what will or won't survive on WP.Trackinfo (talk) 22:19, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• FWIW, I strongly prefer standards like these being proposed over GNG. They are specific and tailored to the idiosyncrisies of the topic. GNG should go the way of the dodo. It's little more than a loophole that is constantly abused. I nominated a musician last year. The guy has never charted, never done anything of note. But ONE writer in a newspaper was interested enough to write ONE article about how the guy has been trying to get a break and has yet to see success (and 3 years after the article, he still hasn't). Yes, a single article about a guys lack of success was used as justification for GNG. I think GNG should only be used for topics that don't fit into any other established criteria and it should be beefed up. But if there are standards like this, or for music, films, actors, politicians etc, then GNG shouldn't be applied. Niteshift36 (talk) 23:55, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
• Actually its not wrong at all. This is what the purpose of all the notability sub pages are. Read the sentence you quote again "used to discuss whether or not a sportsperson, sports league, or an amateur/professional sports league organization will meet the general notability guideline" <--- This is directly referring to whether or not sources are likely to exist. So that they ultimately meet the GNG. You can still meet this guideline and ultimately fail GNG. This guideline does not replace GNG, and never will. I was actually supporting your position, but you seem so intent on picking a fight with anyone that talks to you, instead of calming down and discussing that its pretty much useless to try. -DJSasso (talk) 16:35, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

@Niteshift36, I just noticed that in your first comment you mentioned fuzzy areas in the road race section. Can you refer to which ones you mean specifically. Please note that not all of those road race categories count towards athlete notability, some are there merely for creating pages on the road race itself. This was originally mentioned as sub-bullets but I have now switched to making these separate sections more clear. Obviously (1) and (4) are not fuzzy as they are factual. Is your main objection to (3) because "several" is not defined? Should we go with a specific number instead. (2) might also be somewhat subjective as well. I'm not sure what beyond local means. Feel free to comment in the road racing section--MATThematical (talk) 16:31, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• No, I was actually trying to be civil and constructive. But when you start making accusations of "picking on the amateur sports", like I have some sort of vendetta against it, then I see no sense in trying to explain it. You clearly have made up your mind and are getting very defensive about any suggestion to tighten the standards. I have enough other things to bang my head against the wall over. I don`t need to add this to the list. Niteshift36 (talk) 21:49, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• I certainly have not made up mind, so it definitely isn't clear that I have made up my mind. If you look at the history on this discussion page, I have had many conversations which have led to compromises, which in turn have led to both editors being satisfied with the results. To a track and field fan a world junior record holder being claimed to be non-notable sounds insane because we know that these performers are on average as good as Olympic bronze medalists. However, I do see that to someone who does not follow track that this would be a very questionable and suspicious thing to add to notability. I have thought the same thing about other sports. For example, before this discussion I knew very little about skating. I wanted to edit the skating section to say that only winners of the world junior championships get automatic notability. However, an editor who follows skating pointed out that in skating almost all the top handfull of junior competitors are as good as the best elites in the world based off the world rankings. I conceded the point, of which I was totally ignorant of. I was wrong in being so sharp with my comments to you and I am sorry if I have offended you. But I think all the editors here know that I am all about compromise and conceding points. I also think we are in agreement, and want to make skating a bit tighter, and think the road racing section needs to get more concrete. Can't we work together on this? My mind clearly can be changed. --MATThematical (talk) 01:07, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll clarify the "local" media idea. Maybe because this is my profession I understand this better than most. Again this is an American idea which might not be fully duplicated around the world. Most areas in the U.S. are divided into Media markets otherwise known as an ADIs. That might be surrounding a major city (for which most are named), or a cluster of cities each with their own media. How that relates to Road Racing is that some local TV station might choose to shoot a local road race (possibly only because that TV station is sponsoring the race), making it notable on a local level but probably not worthy of WP attention. However, a race would be more significant if it can achieve distribution outside its ADI. Usually that would mean the producing TV company would have to find interest and necessary sponsorship for that distribution which would also both cause and be affected by the notability of the race, making it a far more exclusive event. Ad hoc networks for such things as the Los Angeles Marathon and Bay to Breakers might have to be created (meaning stations that are not normally affiliated--its a common strategy for annual or one off events), so it might not be on a common network like a regional Fox Sports Net or an ESPN, but still goes beyond the sphere of influence of a single media base.Trackinfo (talk) 21:16, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

That makes sense, but what about Internet coverage. I can find internet coverage of the the California southern section highschool championships. The coverage isn't rally local, but it certainly does not make the winner of each race notable in this broadcast (I understand this is not a road race, but I am sure their are similar road race cases). Do we not count internet coverage. Perhaps coverage on some big site, such as universal sports, would be notable, but I think most websites would not cut the mustard. --MATThematical (talk) 21:37, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

You are talking about [4] for whom I have contributed in the past--so I'll name the plug. Frankly the CIF Championships is a pretty notable event in my mind, even this weekend's Southern Section Masters meet IS mentioned in WP articles--I've included it as an achievement myself. Winning those meets certainly does merit significant coverage, Dyestat alone is very effective in covering their niche. There are other newspapers who cover that event, though the profession of journalist, particularly professional sports journalist is dying with the newspaper industry (a factor we will ultimately have to deal with--blogs and blog like sites are rapidly becoming the only means of coverage for second tier sports, I've said that before, but I digress). While I would love for those meets alone, add in maybe the Arcadia Invitational and the high school level of the Mt. SAC Relays to be sufficient for WP notability, that is the world I am a part of, I have a personal interest. It will again ruffle the wrong noses and ultimately get challenged. However, since WP:GNG would include and would be supported by that kind of coverage, I think these kind of significant events should count in the stairstep of multiple events that cumulatively could bring an individual to notability. As their crowning lone achievement, I think politically that would be pushing the envelope.Trackinfo (talk) 23:13, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Now I would agree that the meet is notable enough to get a page, but not for the athletes who compete or win in it to get pages. There is the one event rule of thumb that applies here. So is what you are saying that online videos go by the same standard as written coverage when we talk about network coverage, and hence video coverage on NBC.com, universal sports, espn.com etc. count but video feeds on sites like Dyetat, flotrack and runnerspace do not. I think this is a perfectly reasonable guideline, and fits in well with WP:GNG. I like you, am a track fan so I want to see track people covered, but as a general WP editor I also want to see notability be consistent amongst all topics. So in other words I feel your pain that standard news media is covering running less and less, but unfortunately in our society running is becoming a less "notable" sport than it use to be, and hence less athletes are therefore "notable" in the wikipedia sense of the word, even though they are very notable amongst the track and field community --MATThematical (talk) 00:16, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Where did that go?

On another discussion, listing NCAA records and High School record-holders came up. I thought that had been settled, but when I look at the current state of the main page, no mention is given. Someone has deleted that on their own volition. Well, we could use WP:GNG to cover that, but why trust in that ambiguity in the crazy world of AfD? Both those categories are notable. Now I'll have to search through the history to put that language back in.Trackinfo (talk) 07:49, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (sports)#Amateur sports persons -DJSasso (talk) 11:19, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• I don't think high school records should be in the criteria. Period. As for the NCAA records, there are two minor problems I see. 1) The potential, endless debate about what is a "major record". Obviously yards gained in a football season would be major, but is the record for the most fumbles in a game? Longest winning streak? Longest losing streak? 2) What about differing divisions? You have 3 different divisions in the NCAA (and sub-divisions of that in football). Is a record in Division 3 as major as a record in Division 1 for our purposes here? If they are, then we have, for example, the potential for 5 different people claiming notability based on the same record. And what about the NAIA? They do represent about 300 schools, so I can't call them minor. Niteshift36 (talk) 15:57, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• I had no part in creating that criteria, but I think the idea behind "major" NCAA record is that only Division 1 counts as it is the top division of the NCAA. -DJSasso (talk) 16:15, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

National High School Records certainly merit notable individuals. Obviously we are talking about major records. In my field, Track and Field, its a very short list of individuals here and here. Some are already notable, having gone on to Olympic success or the like. The ones that failed to move on to an international career are just as notable for being flame outs, much less the targets for the athletes from thousands of schools across the U.S. Are there equivalents internationally? Maybe not, I'll leave that to other experts. In the U.S., its important and notable.

Still in Track and Field, NCAA is even more of an International player. Many schools recruit internationally. It is true international competition and certainly at an elite level. When lists are made, there are enough non-American record-holders that they have to create a second entry for the American record holder like here. In the same fashion, we have our success stories that used collegiate athletics as a stepping stone to greater success. The flame outs are also just as notable and really are the ones we are talking about because the others already achieve notability standards. If Track and Field can define its list of events that are significant records, can't other sports define what is a significant record and what is B.S.? And isn't that what NSPORT is about?Trackinfo (talk) 17:29, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, many high school record holders go onto bigger and better things....and would become notable that way. By including them solely based on a high school record, we're really doing an end run around WP:ONEVENT aren't we? Especially when we consider how many don't ever end up meeting the criteria beyond a high school track record. And let's be realistic for a second: All college athletic programs aren't the same, but that gulf is even more dramatic among high schools. (It's almost unfair to call someone "notable" because one day, one time, they ran .001 second faster on a fast track than the kid who ran the same day on some cinder track with ruts in it and is .001 slower consistently.). High school records aren't listed in most of these other sports, so why track? And are we going to treat high school records from every country equally? Niteshift36 (talk) 20:08, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Essentially the High School athlete or record-holder we need to discuss are the ones who did not advance to higher level, because the others achieve notability through other means. The American high school records have gone through more than 100 years of evolution. They are currently at an extremely high level and relatively few are improved upon. Its an elite few, even if they manage a microscopic improvement on such elite marks. The folks who hold these marks are legends in their field and have been certainly as far back as my recent memory. Even in history, if they did not qualify into the Olympics as a high schooler like Bob Matthias, Clarence Houser, Dwayne Evans, they have left their high marks to be surpassed by superior athletes. How long will Michael Carter (athlete) hold the Shot Put record? The guy turns 50 this year. Nobody has even been close. The person who beats it sure should be notable. There's an article that needs to be written about Paul Wilson (pole vaulter) who held the World Record in the Pole Vault as a high schooler. He went nowhere after he got older, and his record has been surpassed several times, including by the son of Bob Richards--there's another story. Who is going to take the time to write these articles if they stand an un-reasonable chance of getting deleted at AfD by someone who just wants brownie points? Just because these folks, for whatever reason, failed to appear on the world stage does not make them or their achievements un-notable, nor accidental as WP:ONEVENT is designed to protect. In fact, I think it makes them more interesting than the text of half of our current articles that concentrate exclusively on a single notable achievement with all the personality and depth of information as this random article.Trackinfo (talk) 21:21, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I think your most important point is how to treat high school records in different countries. It could be a major problem. While a high school distance record holder from Kenya is going to be notable, one from Madagascar is likely not. I can see an argument for high school athletes being restricted to major awards and GNG only. Its a judgment call. As for NCAA these records for track at least they are always top level, most of them compete in the Olympics for top countries. Perhaps the weakest NCAA record is the womens 10k which is 31:18, and guess what it would still lead the world so far this year at the senior level (it probably won't stay that way at the end, but there have been several top level track meets already). The basic point is that NCAA record holders are already competing at the highest level, Receive a ton of national coverage, and rarely flame out like high school athletes. Of course there is the issue of what is major in some sports (I would argue that fumbles certainly is not, but sacks or yards would be). And yes I'm going to add in division 1 right now (I thought that was obvious) but I'll try and be more specific.--MATThematical (talk) 20:33, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• I'm using my experience at AfD when I look at these. For example, I LOVE seeing it spelled out that minor league baseball players aren't considered "professionals" right off the bat (no pun intended). But I can easily see someone arguing that Player X holds the NCAA Division III record for the longest field goal, this passes the criteria and an article belongs. I would dispute the notion that NCAA competition is already the highest level. For an American college athlete, it is, but this isn't an almanac of college athletics. Competing in the World Championships or the Olympics is definitely the highest level. I'm not disparaging their accomplishments, but that's more a matter of being a big fish in a smaller pond. The NCAA track events are only open to college athletes in American schools, whereas the World Championships or Olympics are simply the best from each country, regardless of whether they happen to be in college at the moment or not. How often to we see World or Olympic champions that aren't in college at the time (or maybe never attended college)? Very regularly. Niteshift36 (talk) 20:50, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• You need to remember this page is not about who is notable and who isn't. Its about who is likely to have the sources to back up their notability. Someone who has a highschool track record in the states probably has been written up in many publications and thus meets GNG. -DJSasso (talk) 21:33, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

• Well personally I think thats a problem with AfDs being too loose in interpreting the guidelines, not a problem with the guidelines. The article above sounds like source is not very independent of the material. In GNG itself it does warn that certain sources should be taken with a grain of salt and that their independence and reliability should be scrutinized. Its not quite as explicit as I make it out to be here, but AfDs generally end in the favor of keeping as long as a written paper covers it, no matter how biased the paper may appear to be. Anyways, in track and field I did not say that NCAA athletes compete at the highest level, that is certainly not the case. But NCAA record holders do, they are in most cases current international elite athletes. If you look at the NCAA record list and then look at the olympic finals of every race at Bejing, I would be shocked if there is many if any events where the NCAA record mark would not make the Olympic final. We're talking record holders here, not champions. We are talking the best in their event to have ever competed it in a U.S. college (this includes athletes from foreign countries like Kenya in the distances). Perhaps other sports are different and this needs to go in the athletics section. --MATThematical (talk) 04:25, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• Ok, now I'm confused. How can a NCAA record holder be competing at the highest level if you aren't considering NCAA competition as the highest level? Or are you trying to say they are performing at the highest level? And just because some foreign nationals end up in US colleges, that doesn't make it a level field. More Olympians never compete in American college athletics than do. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• I'll stick to Track and Field. Let's put it this way, the Olympics or World Championships, which take only the best (up to a maximum of 3, plus the defending champ in the case of WC) from each country, are the only fully top level meeting. Even there, some top athletes occasionally choose not to compete. Aside from those few days a year, you have to go down to other meets to find top level competition. Those meets generally would consist of things like the European Circuit, the Diamond League or other Grand Prix meets around the world. In those major meets, SOME top level international performers show up. What we are saying is, because of the high level of competition from international athletes, the NCAA Championships as a meet and certainly the NCAA Records derived from years of competition at that level achieve serious standards worthy of notability. Unlike even something as popular as basketball, this is not a minor league. Every year, NCAA level champions continue to the international circuit. Some succeed though many are burned out from competing at that high level, peaking in June rather than later in the season.Trackinfo (talk) 07:37, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
• Let me see if I can guess where the confusion lies. In track and field NCAA record holders are Olympic caliber athletes that compete in elite level competitions, in addition to their NCAA meets. We are not saying that competitors in NCAA meets are notable, and even the champions are probably not necessarily notable (this might be a point of disagreement between me and Trackinfo) but the record holders are not just NCAA champions. Also unlike football and other team sports, NCAA records are rarely set during NCAA competition. Take one of my examples above, one of the weaker NCAA records, the NCAA women's 10k record. It was set by Lisa Koll in a race against professional athletes. All one has to do to be eligible to set a NCAA record is be an NCAA athlete, they do not have to set them in NCAA competition. In track there is probably on average less than 1 NCAA record set a year. We are talking about the super stars of the super stars here, not just NCAA champions. You are right that almost all of these athletes will be notable by other means, but if they aren't this should make them notable. --MATThematical (talk) 21:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• While I think NCAA Champions, particularly at the Div 1 level are pretty notable, that could go toward a WP:ONEEVENT level and will ruffle some people's noses. A record on that level and as previously stated on the National High School level is an extremely notable achievement for which I will also suspect there is a significantly longer story leading up to that event. WP had Jordan Hasay long before she achieved the National High School Record.Trackinfo (talk) 21:36, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

• I think the most notable high school/NCAA athletes will have enough coverage to satisfy general notability anyway. As for Paul Wilson (pole vaulter), I see no reason why a world record holder shouldn't have an article... Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{Join WikiProject Athletics!} 22:01, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

• I mentioned Wilson to establish the level of performance you will see at the top of High School Track and Field--the folks who achieve a National Record. Yes, Wilson will be notable as an actual, one-time holder of the world record. The person who beat his high school record, or the person who now holds it Tommy Skipper at 18'3" (5.58m) back in 2003 should be notable. In the case of Skipper, I don't see any current results from him, so he has not gone on to world or national leadership. He's the kind of case I'm talking about. Or Obea Moore or Darrell Robinson or George Porter. Athletes who set amazing (I think notable) results at the High School level (age plus or minus), equivalent with the World Youth level BUT for whatever reason did not go on to higher success.Trackinfo (talk) 06:12, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Road Racing

While there was a slight mention for top five World Marathon Majors and the mention of Cross Country in the title, beyond that there is no mention of notability for the entire sport of Road Racing or other similar (as we call it in Masters) non-Stadia competition (cross country, racewalking, mountain/trail running). By the narrow language in the Athletics section, nothing takes into account competitors who do not cross over into elite track racing, nor the fact that not all marathoners participate in the top 5 marathons. For example, a quite notable athlete could potentially be winning second tier marathons or be a legend on the road racing scene without ever setting foot in the other domains already defined. I'm going to try to come up with some language to accommodate these additional events.Trackinfo (talk) 15:18, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

good points. iaaf cross country championships is included, as via the link, but i think that should be made more clear. As far as I know the race walk is included in the track and field events. For the world championships (and I assume Euros, Asian games, etc) the marathon is run and that would also count. I like the idea of adding other second tier marathons to the list, like the Los Angeles Marathon etc. Would we require a win in these, or maybe a top 2 or 3? I am not super comfortable doing to much to the marathon/road racing section because I do not follow it as much as track (partially due to the fact that unless your in a running centric town there isn't much coverage of road racing available). Would you be willing to create these bullets, I would be happy to look them over. --MATThematical (talk) 19:02, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I approach this from an American point of view and my expertise might be a bit dated, though we should also keep historically significant races in mind as well. Since this guideline is a limiting tool--something I have already complained about--I would hate that an omission on my part would cause some future notable individual to get dragged through a potentially successful AfD. In other words this list needs more input. Starting on Marathons, some might gain significance due to their size--like a Honolulu Marathon, Paris Marathon or Tokyo Marathon, others might be significant due to the quality of their field like a Rotterdam Marathon or Fukuoka Marathon. The same concept might apply to road races. If there is a significant trend for international participation (which can be seen easily from a list of winners) or prize money that attracts a contemporary quality field, I think that race would justifiably be notable. That doesn't necessarily mean any race that gave away a $100 pair of shoes or happened to have a Kenyan or Canadian drive through town once is significant beyond its locality, but there should be a balance. I'm sure every promotor thinks their race is significant. For every hard rule we have placed in these guidelines, it makes me think of exceptions. For example, a small California race called the "Lasse Viren 20K." Still a local favorite, during the 80's the race attracted a who's who of elite racers, the course record (on a hilly, dirt trail--unacceptable for record purposes) was faster than the World's Record. During that era, anybody placing in that race would be notable on a global basis (and I would think most were from other accomplishments)--if they weren't, to be able to hang with that crowd should make them notable, which is kind of the point of this exercise. Well it turns out, that aforementioned course recordholder Adrian Royle[5][6] United Kingdom doesn't have an article about him, and should. There's another article for me to write.

Secondary marathons: Los Angeles Marathon, San Francisco Marathon, Houston Marathon, Grandma's Marathon, Fukuoka Marathon, Honolulu Marathon, Rotterdam Marathon, Paris Marathon, Marine Corps Marathon, Tokyo Marathon, California International Marathon, Comrades Marathon.

Road Races: Bay to Breakers, Lilac Bloomsday Run, Peachtree Road Race, Bix 7 Road Race and Memorial Jazz Festival, Great Manchester Run, Great North Run, (there's also a Great South Run), World's Best 10K, Lisbon Half Marathon, Freihofer's Run for Women, Carlsbad 5000, Falmouth Road Race, Greifenseelauf, Bolder Boulder, and City to Surf. There are certainly more that merit notability.Trackinfo (talk) 01:27, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

In reviewing these, there are lists of winners in the couple of articles that I checked, but some of the winners don't have articles, and the ones that do seem to have either won several events, or in the Olympics. I would suggest that winning two of those events would guarantee notability, or notability can be established in another way (Olympics, GNG, etc.) Presuming notability for winning one secondary event would seem to go against WP:ONEEVENT. Thoughts?  --Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 06:36, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I've been leaning in the same direction, trying to find phraseology to include the multiple winners of such events (either repeating at the same event or winning other races) and also establishing notability for such events by the fact that multiple notable competitors frequent an event. I've mentioned the international component to this kind of significance as well. While many of these events show such a component in their results, we might need to look deeper than first place to see that there are serious international contenders in an event's history. That's kind of the same principle as including international track meetings (and their competitors), as taken to the roads. I would also like to find a point to include significant players who might not achieve victory. In a marathon, for example, a great race might occur that results in the total collapse (competitively or literally) of a leading competitor. While I can't think of such a case in a secondary event where the athlete never did achieve notability through another means, the fact that such things happen means it is possible. Thinking locally, we have Sylvia Mosqueda, who will achieve notability by virtue of being on the American Olympic team. But had she not, she has affected countless races including the Los Angeles Marathon by setting a blistering pace, then either dropping out or getting lost--It will be an interesting story. Again, if there is one, there could be more such cases.Trackinfo (talk) 19:22, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Cross country and Mountain Running will be even more difficult. I don't currently have a good list of major international events. One significant event, the NCAA Championships, is a heavily international, elite competition. Lots of colleges recruit the best international talent, many go on to successful international careers, some reach their peak then disappear (but I think they should be notable for their performance at that level). But that directly runs afoul of the other sports that wish to exclude NCAA level competition. Mountain Running and Ultra Distance racing has an entirely different cast of characters--celebrities within their world but not familiar to me. We do need to find an acceptable definition for those folks and their significant events.Trackinfo (talk) 19:30, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Cross country is a little different than track when it comes to the NCAAs the fact that track spreads its athletes over several events makes it less deep. I think winning an NCAA championship as an individual might be grounds for notability for cross country because there is only one a year. Rode racing in general is going to be tough to have objective guidelines, especially in the second tier events when one year the field may be strong and the next year the field might be weak.--MATThematical (talk) 20:01, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

As far as event notability, I would think an event's longevity might also count. If even a localized race were to survive for, say, 25 years, that would instill a certain notoriety equivalent with an annual festival. Yes the quality of fields ebb and flow, most particularly in non-qualification marathons in Olympic years. While some notable athletes might avoid competition and run where they can win, others might seek better competition and all run in the same race. As I research back in time, the athletes with the guts to run against the best are more historical, once money got involved (late 70's) more of them seem to pick their battles. Looking deeper at the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships themselves achieve a certain level of notability--most eventually do anyhow, but we should also consider the ones who achieve this significant accomplishment then fizzle.Trackinfo (talk) 04:09, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

If you look at the list of footlocker champions the only ones that have pages are the ones that went on to do bigger and better things. Some of these high school athletes who don't have pages could make it under GNG, others probably not. They all have national coverage, but a lot of them only from non neutral articles (i.e. Dyestat) MATThematical (talk) 19:43, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I recently discovered that for road races the IAAF rates several of their races as gold silver and bronze. I took a look at the races rated gold and all of them are quite prestigious, hence I put gold labeled races in the top 3 category with area championships and the diamond league. We also may want to add a section for has won multiple silver or bronze level races. To take a look at some of the labeled races see IAAF Road Race Label Events. -MATThematical (talk) 16:11, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

That's a good start and validates many on my earlier list. We could also take some of their definition of the specifications of those races for our guidelines beyond their list. I wouldn't draw such a hard line between Gold and Bronze. There is relatively little difference in the specifications between Gold and Bronze (other than primarily the fees paid to IAAF as a sanction). The fact that a race is able to buy its notability, in a sense, discredits this from being an exclusive list, thus we must go beyond just what IAAF declares as significant, though having the financial wherewithall to buy its way to that level does by itself denote a certain notability. Most of the differences in level are dealing with facilitation for the Media, though there is a lesser level of the specifications that qualify the entrants as elite runners (note it says entrants, nothing to do with finishers or champions). You might consider these lesser qualifiers to be on the level of Nationwide Series of NASCAR (and boy do I hate that I am even giving a parallel reference to that), which does not disqualify the senior level Sprint Cup Series drivers from entering. The phrase I like is: "having an international elite field of at least 5 different nationalities." They also take into account "classical races" over non-standard distances. The fact that consideration for media coverage is in the specifications also gives us some direction, so races covered on TV should themselves merit notability and thus notability on their athletes. This is, of course, clouded in more recent times by anything from Universal Sports, Flotrack, Dyestat or even Youtube coverage. Actual broadcast coverage still does separate the men from the boys, at least in most cases. Since historical notability needs to be determined, that certainly could be a factor conferring notability to defunct or now less significant races like the previously mentioned Lasse Viren Finnish Invitational, or the Arturo Barrios Invitational. And the more contemporary phenomenon of giving prize money, over a figure like $1,000 US to the winner might be another defining feature, though it would not be applicable for road races before about 1980. And ultimately I do agree, a notable road racer should probably show up in more than one race, though I would hold back on saying as winner. There are cases where a relative unknown wins a significant race over an elite field, but then that athlete is no longer unknown and thus may tactically become only a significant player in subsequent races. I've heard of cases where an elite racer has collected their paycheck then returned to Kenya never to be heard from again. I think someone doing that might still be notable.Trackinfo (talk) 18:45, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you said. Remember that pages can get notability through GNG. I added the top 3 finishers of gold races as something that is not overly long and complicated. Looking at the gold and bronze races I really do see a difference in the quality of the fields (although I really don't see much of a difference between bronze and silver). We can always add more later, but we want to make sure that it isn't too overly complicated if we do, we are already on the long side as it is. --MATThematical (talk) 21:33, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I have zero faith in the sensibilities of the limited number of individuals involved in the AfD process. Therefore, since WP:GNG is ultimately an opinion call (how much is sufficient?) I certainly don't trust that to solve, older, less documented events. It gives us more ammunition to have specifics to point at: This person did this, which is notable under WP:NSPORT, which by the way, is already being used as a point of argument at AfD, whether we like it or not. While dependence on the IAAF for sanction is convenient, it is far from complete. The independent Road Racing circuit is far too anarchistic to entirely fall under one organization's jurisdiction. Because this is complicated, I've so far avoided just inserting complicated text into the main page, trying to get some help on language and procedures. Mechanically, how do we go about this? A notable race contains one of these features: Then define those features. A notable runner achieves this threshold Do we need to create a separate section for this?:Trackinfo (talk) 22:29, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, I added some text.Trackinfo (talk) 22:54, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I like the spirit of the edits, I tried to do some clean up. Let me know what you think. My only two problems with it were the 1,000 dollar prize qualification. Is there a particular reason to choose this amount of money as a bright line for notability. I think a race that does not meet any of the other requirements but gives out 1,000 is not necessarily notable. Perhaps it is notable to have a page for the race, but I do not think that the race should count towards the notability of the participants, perhaps 5-20,000 would be a better amount. Or perhaps a better plan is to have a section for "notable races 1", and "notable races 2". Where in the main athlete text we say has won multiple events in the notable races 1 category. Then in the notable races 2 category we say these races are notable, but their particpants are not necessarily notable by their mere achievements in these races. Then we could have the money requirement, the classics requirement, and the popular requirement all in the races 2 category. I think this is a good idea, but perhaps we should call it differently than notable races 1 and notable races 2.

Also I would like to set up a number for a long career of competitive performances without a win, what would count here 10 in the top 5, 20 in the top 10, etc. It would be good to have something more strict to point to in AfD.--MATThematical (talk) 22:28, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Working backward, I like the count idea for also-rans. And yes, we do need to itemize because people at AfD take things so literally. I don't think the numbered different categories looks pleasant for WP, much the same way a list of specific races doesn't looks good and will require maintenance. As far as the numerical value, $5,000 is a little more exclusive though I note that generally road races pay less than marathons--a marathon being a larger commitment to an athlete in terms of recovery time--so you can't base the pay scale on marathon money. Maybe we should split that to the two categories. But the point of the prize money is not to drop such a race into the lesser category. The promoter's objective and assumed result of having prize money is to attract the higher quality athlete, thus increasing the stature of the race. The important thing to remember is the monetary values have escalated significantly, making the figure relevant under current conditions. Prior to about 1977, money was not allowed to be awarded, yet historical athletes do deserve notability for their accomplishments. Somehow, we need to address that evolution.Trackinfo (talk) 03:30, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree there is a difference between road races and marathons, but I would say marathons should be something on the order of 20,000. All the semi-prestigious marathons I know of pay around 35,000 to the winner, and I am not talking about major marathons here. Remember that a road race or marathon can always make it in by the other requirements so I think its a good idea to make the money requirement semi-exclusive. I'm not sure whats standard for prestigious road races, is a 1,000 dollar prize equivalent to a 20,000 dollar prize for a marathon? I would not want to allow a marathon in that gave away 1-5,000 to the winner if it did not meet any of the other conditions.--MATThematical (talk) 15:58, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

At $1,000, that might be a pretty wide net in today's market. Rewind maybe 10-20 years and it would be a fairly exclusive club. I am concerned with accommodating historical events and athletes too. $5,000 in today's market might be much more common in the world of true professional athletes in what was once an exclusively amateur sport. Some lesser races, trying to increase their stature, might pay appearance fees to get top talent, where the mere prize money is not the ultimate goal. That is a much more murky, secure, undisclosed relationship. Without assessing a complicated points system, I'm not sure of a WP AfD friendly way of articulating all this understanding back through time. I have long complained, vehemently, that people making such decisions (of life or death for an article) at AfD should know about the subject they are talking about. We don't get that. Instead we get a small sub-culture of low-class individuals who aggressively make sport of deleting articles, at any cost.Trackinfo (talk) 20:24, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Won't most notable historic road races fit into the other 4 categories of notability? It seems to me like the other categories really determine how competitive the field is. Perhaps the only concern would be very competitive road races that only have members from a single country (although I suppose these would for the most part fit into 5). Since we are being inclusionary here though, we don't want a 1,000 dollar prize to guarantee notability forever. Can you point to some races that don't match the other requirements that you want to be considered notable, and maybe we can figure out a way to get them besides this prize money rule, because I can't think of a way to make the prize money rule work for historical races but also not allow in current nonnotable races without there being some complicated formula to match inflation and running interest. --MATThematical (talk) 21:14, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I just recently edited some material on the Bay to Breakers, which is why it is on top of my mind. That clearly notable race, on numerous other grounds, did not show a non-American winner until 1976--effectively the end of the amateur period. If that major of a race didn't show Internationalism, how many other, possibly now defunct, races of that era might also fail that and notability on any of the other grounds? TV coverage wouldn't have existed. Prize money would certainly be a non-issue. Mass numbers didn't show up in many events until the 1972 Frank Shorter inspired running boom. While it would be a classic by now, if it didn't survive, it could fall off the list save a great performance to bring it notoriety. I can't cite one off the top of my head, because I am not conversant in great road races pre-about 1970. Gotta research. I would hope we can find such information about it while some of those people are still alive. By the way, when I created the Adrian Royle article, it was quickly discovered by the man himself, in England, who has since added to and corrected the article. We've had a pleasant correspondence. Knowledge IS out there. WP content has global significance, which is why I get vehement in arguments with deletionists. As I try to look at the big picture, I am constantly confronted with cases that fall into such a notability hole. We are here to fix that, so significant information is not deleted by mindless AfD people. In Athletics (sport) our newly renamed article, we have cases like Cornelius Warmerdam who, had he not set the world record or been inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, would not be notable, in some people's minds, for having no international or Olympic credentials. Such was the time gap between Olympics. Who was second best in his era? AfD takes these definitions so literally, we need to accommodate historical figures. And its still going to be hard to document this stuff.Trackinfo (talk) 23:52, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, here you go. A source. The Petaluma Marathon, there's also a Yonkers Marathon and more. The sport has history. WP shouldn't exclude it.Trackinfo (talk) 06:59, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Very interesting book, I think all those marathons would be notable. The problem is that there are currently marathons that offer $1,000 prize money that few have even heard of before. I guess my thought is there a common thread that historical notable races share with currently notable races. Of course we could say something like awards prize money on the order of $1000 x (1.03)^t, where t is the number of years since 1970. This would mean a race would have to ofer prize money of 1000 dollars in 1970, but if the race started today it would have to offer approximately $3,250 dollars. Do you think that is too complicated? I chose 1.03 because I think thats pretty close to average inflation rates. --MATThematical (talk) 00:52, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

I like the thought though I think its more complicated than will ever be explainable as a defense to an avid AfD deleter. I also realize 1970 is only marginal as a reference date because I know the history. Other than the Track ITA of the early 1970's, professionalism was almost non-existent in the sport between Baron de Coubertin and Avery Brundage (and slightly beyond). Then around 1977 the money started then expanded exponentially after that. Nobody will sit through the long explanation, much less the hassle to reference that position. I wish there were an AfD rule that an expert on the subject be consulted before deleting anything--good luck on that too. We have to keep this simple for the rationally impaired. If we end up with a few extra races or individuals meeting the qualifications of being notable, so be it.Trackinfo (talk) 06:30, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes it is not too worry some to get a few non-notable races, but then when we start including the multiple winners of such races we could potentially get a ton of pages. Is there a particular year when 1,000 dollars became non-notable. In other words could we add, if a race does not satisfy the above but awarded a prize of $1,000 or greater before 19XX, the race is deemed notable. Any current race will be notable by the other standards. If we are worried about historical races, perhaps having some sort of date like before 19XX will do the trick so that in 2050 when $1,000 is potentially worth piddly squat we wont get a bunch of random races. We don't want to have to keep on changing the number. --132.236.122.9 (talk) 21:26, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I've been trying to find some sources to give us a better guideline. Here's one that gives a current (future) schedule of prize money. An easily notable race coming up soon shows here. The nice thing it also points us to is that many races have the prize distribution information posted on their websites. But finding historical information is harder to search backward in time. This site gives a good breakdown of the trends in prize money packages, though not winning prize--it seems to have grown exponentially over the 80's to peak in the 90's then taper off. We can use the current site to estimate distribution of those packages, though the reason I suggested grand prize money was because when the amount favors winning it attracts a higher caliber athlete than if it is a wide distribution that gets professional also-rans picking up $100 for finishing in 47th place. This also does show one-off races, one of which I know from WP:OR personal knowledge was an attempt by the race director to try to buy prominence for his event (I also know he stiffed almost everybody involved in the event and left town). There are others that show on the list one time then disappear I assume for the same reason. The same site has annual winning totals here as well. I'm not sure yet how to assimilate all that information into a coherent, simple statement, but this gives us a leaping off point.Trackinfo (talk) 06:32, 4 June 2010 (UTC)