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Closure of List of lesser-known Sri Lankan cricketers

This article has now been deleted. Regarding WP:TNT, and as per Anachronist's suggestion, should I attempt to make lists by club? Regarding clubs which are still in existence, should I, as per Lugnuts' suggestion, wham together a list of articles for first-class players by club? Trouble here is that I will probably end up shoving the articles we have decided to delete as viable redlinks. People can feel free to unlink these if they wish. Bobo. 22:55, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

If I do create them, how do I sort them? Primary sort chronological, secondary sort alphabetical by surname? Or the other way around? Bobo. 23:01, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Well, as you pointed out in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of lesser-known Sri Lankan cricketers, we already have an example of this at List of Vidarbha cricketers. I see no reason why one couldn't include the 'lesser known' players in a club (provided they have actually played in a first class match and aren't merely members, as is sometimes the case with footballers), with appropriate citations, and it does no harm for them to be redlinks, in the event they become 'better known' and eventually have articles on them. Sorting by surname seems OK to me, but I don't have a strong opinion one way or another (in fact, my closing of that AFD was my first-ever exposure to a cricket-related article, since I generally avoid things related to organized team sports). ~Anachronist (talk) 01:10, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
That list only contains three names as randomly chosen by whoever decided to create the list - if this list were to be in any way functional, we would need to expand it with all the names of the cricketers who played for the side, as well as their participation dates. Personally, as per the Test cricket articles, I would include all the stats too, though I understand if I am alone with this opinion.
Sadly, the exclusion of the "lesser-known" members of the club has generally has been mostly decided by those who either know nothing about the sport, have no respect for the fact that, over the last 13 years, we have had a single hard-and-fast rule, which follows that of every team sport, whereby first-class players are notable whether they have played a single game, or 300, or who have no respect for basic, logical consistency. Bobo. 08:18, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
Any members of the project have a specific opinion one way or another as to which should be the primary and which should be the secondary sort criteria? As per the listings on CA, neither is easier or harder than the other - it simply decides whether I search by name and alphabetize the surnames, or search by scorecards and sort by debut date. Bobo. 08:24, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
Lists by clubs is the best way to go, and seems to be the standard across WP. For a (Sri Lankan) team where they only played one season of first-class cricket way back when, you could simply add the list of players to the article for that club, as quite a few of them are stubs too. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 08:42, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
Well, for any team of any nationality, like you suggest. Zimbabwean lists would be easy as well - I think I added all of those on my FC lists all those years ago. Bobo. 09:00, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
And I think you've got most of the info in your sandbox for these teams. It doesn't have to be anything too fancy, a simple A-Z list with a short intro is a good starting point. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 09:03, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
Many of my lists haven't been updated for several years but I can easily do so - it's just a case of updating the lists. Sort by name or sort by debut season? Bobo. 09:12, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
I'd go for name per all the English county club lists, etc. Jack | talk page 10:33, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
Well that's the easiest solution - I'll just rip the names from Cricket Archive. Cheers Jack. I don't have time to do it now but I will set my brain to it later. Bobo. 10:58, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

I started our "coverage" of Sri Lankan cricket way, way back in 2006 but only in terms of the main essentials to that time. I did the same with Bangladesh and, to some extent, Zimbabwe. I've just revisited Sri Lanka to see how it's developed and, well, it hasn't. I think I'll do some more work on it and I might have a shot at some lists of players into the bargain but, if so, it will be by club and using the same stock format as in the English ones, which seems to work quite well. I have hardly any sources about SL cricket, the only half-decent history being in Roy Morgan's Encyclopaedia of World Cricket and what I can find in Bowen. Jack | talk page 13:02, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

@BlackJack: - please forgive me, I was absent over lunch and didn't notice this comment. I have a bunch of Sri Lankan first-class teams on my sandbox, though my list of players has not been kept up-to-date. I can do so given time but I'm feeling disheartened by what is currently going on and frankly can find no current desire within me to do so. Bobo. 19:39, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Do we need to instigate a conversation?

Are we still needing to instigate a conversation somewhere where we constructively discuss whether the WP:CRIN guidelines are fit for purpose? In spite of all the efforts of those who care about the project to do so, those who are attempting to destroy the project by randomly deleting articles, randomly PRODding articles, and sending articles for deletion which people know met WP:CRIN guidelines, appear strangely unwilling to do so.

We are all too eager to start conversation about whether our criteria are fit for purpose, in a public place and in full view of those who contribute to the project, but will this ever happen? Those of us who have tended and cared for this project for ten, twelve years or more, willing to follow the same guidelines we have been following for all this time, are, at least in mine and Jack's case, feeling that our work is being gradually destroyed because those who wish to do so think it is funny. Or something. And by the looks of it will continue to do so. Bobo. 16:48, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Many of the articles which were PRODed by someone and therefore got deleted are back per WP:REFUND. I contested their deletion in the light of recent discussion. Greenbörg (talk) 17:38, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
True enough. I'm still upset by those conversations which have led to some articles being deleted by nonexistent criteria though. Feels like our good work being thrown back in our face. Bobo. 17:46, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
How does this conversation differ from the one started 2 days ago by Jack? I thought it would take you more than 6 hours to create yet another thread. Spike 'em (talk) 20:53, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
Usually I would argue that by acting like an ignorant thug you are insulting your own intelligence. Sadly in your case I don't think that's true. Bobo. 21:39, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
The topic I started was in light of the incomplete "lists of cricketers" which will, undoubtedly, be sent for deletion very soon, initially based on the biographies which have been unjustifiably deleted, and including Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of lesser-known Sri Lankan cricketers. As has been noted elsewhere, the main crux of these arguments is that a "list of cricketers who are seen as unnotable is unnotable". I was planning to create lists of cricketers for all former Ranji Trophy teams, sorted alphabetically by surname, and complete those which had already been started, but had not been finished. The core of my question was the fact that I have had these redlinks available on my sandbox for many years, but had never considered keeping them fully up-to-date.
Given the current trend in deleting articles based on non-existent criteria, am I just creating extra work for myself by creating lists of cricketers which will probably be deleted anyway? Bobo. 21:53, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
I don't see why lists of all cricketers who have played for a particular first-class or List A team would be deleted. The lists that already exist for English and Australian teams (in various formats: I don't see any need to be prescriptive here) have been around for a long time and most of them are kept up to date by a few of us. They are a useful indexing element for the encyclopedia. Johnlp (talk) 22:30, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
Let me take Manicaland as an example I randomly plucked out of the air. There are, by my reckoning, 54 cricketers who played in the 37 matches for Manicaland (not including those who have played in the recent Logan Cup for Manicaland Mountaineers). According to my list of Manicaland first-class cricketers, there are 15 redlinks still to be added. My fear is that if I add every link to the list, some will get deleted on a whim. Bobo. 22:38, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
I don't see why a list of the 54 Manicalanders (39 blue, 15 red) is a problem. It's actually then a challenge to this project to turn the reds into blues over time. The problem with the "List of lesser-known Sri Lankans" for me was the word (or phrase) "lesser-known", which was never defined (less known by whom?). I'm against the "alternative" suggestion of "List of Fooian cricketers with one first-class appearance" because – as we argued 10-12 years ago when formulating WP:CRIN – if you create that article then the logic dictates that you should also create the article "List of Fooian cricketers with two (or seven, or 311) appearances". That's why the only sensible line-in-the-sand is one appearance in FC or List A cricket as the basis for a presumption of notability, as it is for equivalent standards of play in other sports. Johnlp (talk) 22:55, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
I'm perfectly willing to create lists on Sri Lankan cricketers by team, given time and an appropriate amount of energy, although I rather think I would be too lazy to keep it up-to-date. Your very point that if you created articles with lists of cricketers with a single appearance, you would then have to create an article on those cricketers from the same team with 311 appearances is the same one I made at the time, which is the only way to ensure true NPOV. Well, not exactly the same point, I don't think I used the number 311... Bobo. 22:58, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

User:Raiyan HA

Just a heads-up that this user is making lots of changes to cricketer's infoboxes, without any real sourcing. They've been warned to stop, or at least source these changes, but it looks like they're heading for a block. Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 11:49, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Pune Kalakar Cricket League at AfD

Article has been deleted – Ianblair23 (talk) 04:15, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Please see this discussion. Cheers – Ianblair23 (talk) 02:57, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Page move discussion

Article has been moved – Ianblair23 (talk) 04:15, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Please see this discussion in relation to Australian cricketer Alex Blackwell. Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 07:13, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Shouldn't we follow the lead of other editors and demand that Alex Blackwell (basketball) be deleted due to WP:BLP and WP:V issues ;) Spike 'em (talk) 08:34, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
An unref'd BLP, you say? Quick! To the AfD-Mobile! Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 11:14, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
A very quick search for sources suggests that enough could be found to both verify and establish notability. For example this along with this would ensure, I imagine, that the article were kept. The 27 games played in would help as well - and we know his full name, date of birth and collage at least. And that's without trying - a different class entirely. Find me a cricketer that we have this much information on and I'll suggest keeping on every occasion - Robert Mason, for example, had way less. Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:29, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
Just a "bump" for this to get some input. Even if it's just one support or oppose comment. Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 19:50, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Template posted to TfD

I have closed the TfD – Ianblair23 (talk) 04:15, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hello, I've opened this discussion at TfD. Thanks. Jack | talk page 12:52, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

And withdrawn it. Didn't realise that it's an old one that used to be useful until someone decided to, er, "expand" it rather than simply update it. I've restored it as was and it is now useful again, though with many redlinks for the moment. Sorry for any inconvenience. Thanks. Jack | talk page 05:48, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

As quoted elsewhere

May I suggest that we go through articles on each of the cricket category-by-team pages - especially those on the Sri Lankan biography articles, which seem strangely under fire lately - and make sure that none of the articles conforms simply to WP:ONESOURCE? Since this argument is being used by a surprising number of people in AfD discussions and is fixable by any single one of us who cares about the project, we need to be more vigilant that this doesn't happen in the future. Worth noting that the only portion of WP:GNG which makes any semblance of logical sense and which is not contradicted elsewhere is that the word "source" is pluralized. For a change, this is actually consistent with what is written on WP:BIO. I know, I'm surprised too!

When it comes down to it there are only three supposedly "valid" reasons for articles currently being sent for deletion, WP:IDONTLIKEIT, WP:NEVERHEARDOFIT, and WP:ONESOURCE. Since WP:ONESOURCE is the only one of these which is supposedly "fixable", we need to systematically go through articles and make sure it doesn't keep on happening. This will continue to be an ongoing problem until we, as a group, start fixing it with greater alacrity. I have added a second source to each of the three articles currently undergoing WP:AfD. Feel free to reformat these if you wish. Bobo. 04:28, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Then there's articles such as this which quote no sources at all and yet people would never send to AfD, as he has appeared in 18 Test matches. Would they? *sarcastically mocking tone* Bobo. 04:37, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Just scanned through Category:Sri Lanka Test cricketers

I'm surprised how many articles in this category are completely bereft of sources. Using this category as a guidepost, 15 contain zero sources at all, 27 articles contain references to individual scorecards/non-scorecard sources but no player profile, while this one has messy sources which need sorting. As noted, sources plural is the key, as otherwise WP:ONESOURCE could be implemented as per so many other cricket biography articles.

First-class cricketer biographies with sources are fair game for taking to deletion, but Test cricket biographies containing no source would never suffer the same treatment, would they? And to claim that one sort is fair game and the other is not, that would be hypocrisy, right? *sarcastic face* Bobo. 05:11, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

South African Test cricketers

Creating these as separate headings so they can be ticked off when they are done.

Similarly, for South African Test cricketers - forty-one contain no reference to CA or CI anywhere in the article, fourteen contain no links to a player profile in spite of making reference to CA or CI elsewhere.

Please forgive my slowness. I'm getting sleepy. And bored of pointing out hypocrisy... Bobo. 06:05, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Cheers Ian. Told you I was sleepy. :D Bobo. 08:00, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Google Infoboxes?

Hi, When you search for a player on google, a small box comes up with some of their info, with information taken from their Wikipedia page. However some of this information is outdated and doesn't reflect what's on their page now. Is there a way to edit this? An example can be seen with [1] and Cameron Valente Thanks, Aussiespinnersfanpage (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:20, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Aussiespinnersfanpage We can't do anything about Google other than if you really wanted to, you could probably contact Google to update it. I think it should update anyway on Google in time, it just sometimes takes a few weeks. Joseph2302 (talk) 12:01, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

2006 ICC Champions Trophy squad templates

2006 ICC Champions Trophy squad templates are up for deletion. Please participate here. I personally don't know what is wrong with them? Thanks, Störm (talk) 18:07, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Are you happy with WP:CRIN?

If you think WP:CRIN can be improved in any way, however minor, then please make a proposal on this page so that the project can consider and discuss it. If there is a WP:CONSENSUS in favour of your proposed change, then it will be changed. This is the way it has been for a dozen years or more. Over that time, nearly all the main WP:CRIC members have contributed to CRIN and it is, I think, an effective and easily-understood guideline which, crucially, as virtually full project member support.

The universal truth, of course, is that there's always one and this is confirmed by some of the complete and utter shit I've been reading about CRIN at various AfDs. If the individual responsible would like to put up his objections and some suggested improvements here then he will be given a fair hearing. Otherwise, perhaps he might like to respect WP:CONSENSUS and shut up. He knows who he is.

Thank you. Jack | talk page 19:28, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

What's really the point, Jack? Our twelve years or more of hard work is being destroyed by people who are randomly cherrypicking articles they dislike. What's the point in people like us who have worked for all this time continuing to contribute when our hard work is simply going to be undone? And we know it's not a WP:CONSENSUS issue because other people are deciding to delete these things too. Apparently our basic guidelines, which are identical to every other team sport, are unacceptable.
We need to instigate a conversation somewhere, outside of this AfD and outside of this talk page, which in a constructive way questions the WP:CRIN guideline, asks whether it is fit for purpose, and ask what needs to be put in its place. Bobo. 23:30, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
I'm quite happy with it. I know we've tweaked it a little over the years (myself to bring women cricketers on par with men for international fixtures, for example). The problem is we'll never please all of the people all of the time. Every now and again, we get a silly season where a handful of cricket articles get sent to AfD, despite the individuals clearly meeting the one-game rule, but nothing is going to stop that. I see that happen to other sports too. And we're now at a stage that pretty much every RfC started to change anything (not just cricket, or indeed sports inclusion guidelines) seems to end with a no consensus, wasting lots of time. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 07:35, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
I think it's pretty much the most sensible thing we as a project have achieved: a clear, line-in-the-sand rule that anyone can understand and apply. I think the current debates indicate that while WP:CRIN can confer a presumption of notability on an individual or a match, WP is essentially a narrative encyclopedia, not a database, and unless sources are available that enable the construction of a reasonable narrative, then some articles will struggle to meet or retain article standards, however hard we fight to assert their presumptive notability conferred by CRIN. I wouldn't change it: just keep looking for broader sources that can reinforce it. Johnlp (talk) 08:50, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
I don't mean to sound suspicious but does is seem strange that those who complain about CRIN, or who vote "delete" on articles they full know meet CRIN, haven't piped up yet? As I said elsewhere, the fact that they were suspiciously quiet for 12 years tells me that CRIN wasn't the problem. Bobo. 09:11, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
While I don't think that every cricketer who has ever played a top-level game of cricket needs to have an article, I see CRIN as being as good a guideline as is possible to come up with. As everyone is aware, it is possible for people to interpret different parts of the various rules / guidelines differently or assign different weight to them. A couple that I would discuss are:
WP:CRIN / WP:ATHLETE state at the end that they are not hard and fast rules and that passing them does not guarantee inclusion. What situations would people see as being relevant here, or would cause them to delete / not include someone who meets CRIN?
WP:WHYN says "We require "significant coverage" in reliable sources so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic. If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page, but should instead be merged into an article about a larger topic or relevant list" which does seem to cover a lot of the single match players, where the articles read as if they could have been generated by a computer program that has scanned the scorecard of the game.
On the other hand, a lot of the AfDs are going after the low-hanging fruit where we have the minimal possible information on the players and there are 100s of other articles of similar quality. I think that the PRODing of players who meet CRIN is an abuse of process though. WP:PROD states that "PROD must only be used if no opposition to the deletion is expected." and the editors concerned must know that these are controversial. As I have said in past, I have things I'd prefer to do than improve stub articles, but equally I'm not going to spend time hunting out articles that I don't feel are necessary, to AfD them. Spike 'em (talk) 14:07, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't consider myself a "member" of the WikiProject, but I think a threshold greater than "1 first-class appearance" is necessary for stand-alone articles. What I would consider "enough" is 1 test appearance, 5 first-class appearances, appearances for multiple first-class clubs, or one first-class appearance plus a significant biographical reference. People who don't meet that should be included on collection articles such as List of lesser-known Sri Lankan cricketers, probably one per club. Based on the state of articles such as Bloomfield Cricket and Athletic Club, I find it hard to believe that a single appearance for the club suggests notability on its own. power~enwiki (π, ν) 15:50, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello, power~enwiki, perhaps you should join the project because you do think things through and can present a reasonable suggestion based on what is obviously support for the single event guideline. I think FIVE first-class appearances is rather a lot, though, especially for players in Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe where the number of matches per season is low. Your argument would be better if you said three, I think. Even so, I still believe that CRIN is right to insist on one top-level appearance. The problem is not CRIN but WP:N especially the so-called GNG – a woeful and woolly, weak and wobbly, shit and shambolic offering which probably originated at 4 Matthew Parker Street. Jack | talk page 10:44, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
At the risk of changing topics and/or getting too political, is it possible to be conservatively laborious? Bobo. 10:59, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
Despite what I wrote above about not changing WP:CRIN, one argument that does need to be strenuously rebutted is the assertion/implication made in some of the AfDs that CricketArchive and CricInfo are somehow not secondary sources but primary sources. To those of us who use those sites, this may be obvious, but patently it isn't obvious to some of the people weighing in at deletion debates, and I wonder whether it might be sensible to amend WP:CRIN to make the point for us that these are reliable secondary sources. Johnlp (talk) 20:51, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
That's a very good point, John. I've noticed that tendency as well. I'll make a suitable change. Thank you. Jack | talk page 21:48, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

In a discussion at my talk page with Johnlp, we've realised that the controversy over Sri Lankan players might be helped if CRIN states when first-class domestic matches began in each country (1988 in Sri Lanka) so a CRIN update has just been done to try and clarify (difficult given that England, South Africa and West Indies involve more than one country). Please review and let me know if you have any issues. Thanks. Jack | talk page 15:45, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

  • The rationale behind CRIN is, on the whole, reasonable. If someone has made X appearances they may well be notable. But where I appear to differ from others is that I don't think that having made X appearances always ensures notability by itself. This is entirely in line with CRIN - it has said this for a very long time. There have been some changes over time that have appeared to give CRIN a qualifying rationale in places and the general section has been "lost" at the bottom of the guidelines, but it's still there. I think, for example, that it was much clearer in this version from 2006 (I am not advocating a return to this version).
My biggest problem with CRIN itself is that it's far too long. There's a lot of arcana which could be either removed or demoted to footnotes. This would help make it clearer.
The emphasis on it being a guideline needs to be made more prominent. People are treating it as a rule that must always hold true. It really shouldn't be dealt with this way and it should be seen as utterly acceptable to challenge an article which technically meets it.
On specific points (there is a discussion about quantitative points above):
  • International players - I imagine that in nearly all cases these are likely to be notable by multiple criteria - certainly Test players. I can see a situation where, perhaps, it might prove difficult or impossible to find reliable, substantive sources about someone who has played only a handful of matches for a smaller affiliate nation (PNG, Nepal etc...), but I think those will be both rare and are unlikely to be anyone's major focus. The equal status of women's cricket here is helpful in encouraging articles about women cricketers;
  • FC, LA, T20 - figures of 5 and 3 appearances were mentioned above. I don't think it matters. I think one can be enough, I think five might not be enough - it all depends on the context and the sourcing which is available. That means that there won't be a hard and fast rule which applies in every context. It all depends upon whether we can find suitably in-depth sources to develop the article. Specifically I have issues wth database sources being considered in-depth - I'd like to see sentences at least written about someone's career in sources such as books, newspapers, websites etc... or have the feeling that those sources exist.
Expansion - collapsed by author in original edit for brevity
With modern players this is really quite easy because there is more coverage in the regional press and so on. Certainly I've come across articles for players who had not played a FC match at the time but who clearly had multiple sources which showed the degree of notability that two database entries simply do not. Certainly under-19 internationals might well have more notability than someone with a single appearance. I know full-well that there is this level sourcing on some of the players on my local minor-county side - but those players don't meet CRIN. So what do we do, make articles because there is better sourcing or not make them and accept articles without high-quality sources on a "marginal" first-class league? Tricky one - which is the sort of question where treating CRIN as a "rule" doesn't help.
There is a particular issue with biographical articles where we can't find forenames, dates of birth etc... I am fully aware of the context of this thread. With these people it's very difficult to even hope that we might one day be able to write a biography of them. I find it difficult in these circumstances to believe that we're ever going to find the sorts of sources we would hope for to be able to say any more than what is in the database sources - at which point I think it's fair to question why we have a standalone article.
Context is obviously a major factor here. A Victorian cricketer with a handful of appearances may not have anything much written about them on the internet. We need to judge what the chances of finding suitable sources would be - in some cases there may be a decent chance, depending on where they played, who for, what other cricket they played (do they have scads of appearances for a club side?), what else they did in their life etc... In which case I'm happy for the article to be there - on the grounds that I can presume that sources, if I went to the local record office for example, might exist. I plan on doing that at some point - just to see if those sorts of sources do exist. If they don't then I'd review this. I can certainly think of a number of cricketers who have less than 5 FC appearances who could easily be presumed to be notable based on there being a really good chance that other sources exist.
But we need to be honest and understand that there are going to be other situations where the chances of those sources existing are very limited indeed. The Sri Lankan situation seems to have come up a lot recently - in this case I, along with others, are attempting to understand if such sources do exist - not simply to show existence, but to show notability through something more substantive. I don't know for some of these players if those sources do exist - and in some cases I think it's utterly fair to take the view that the chances of them doing so, and thus of being verified as notable, is so limited as to make it extremely difficult to justify keeping those articles.
  • Related to this, I'm not convinced that the criteria allow us to include enough female players if they are used as a hard and fast rule. Female county players, for example, can, in some cases, attract enough sourcing to suggest notability. Not in every case, but there are certainly some - and in some cases very clearly more of the sorts of sourcing that we should be looking for than male players with a very small number of appearances. I think we need to do more to, where sources exist, accept that there is more of a place for women players.
  • Umpires, administrators and the like - again, are clearly notable if sources exist to show their notability. I don't have a problem - but I think it takes more than standing in one match to be notable for example. I think I have less issues overall with how this section of CRIN is used on a day to day basis.
  • Clubs - I don't particularly like the way that notability is linked to inclusion in an article (List of English cricket clubs). I think the rest of that bullet point does a reasonable job and it doesn't need that link. There is a noticeable lack of global coverage here - I don't know if that is intentional but I don't think we should attempt to list every league system for the sake of it. I think the standards for general inclusion are about right and I feel I would certainly be able to find substantive sourcing at this sort of level in every case.
  • Venues - this is very brief (which is good!) but I don't think that usage "ensures" notability - they are likely to be, sure. I think the use of "regular" is key in this section.
  • The general section - as I've already indicated I think this needs to be higher up and more prominent.
  • On sources. The Baseball project says "Although statistics sites may be reliable sources, they are not sufficient by themselves to establish notability" (WP:NBASE). Personally I think that's really clear and helpful and puts a much greater emphasis on using substantive sources. It doesn't mean that articles should be deleted if they just use them, but they're clearly looking for more substantive sourcing where possible. Is that possible? Usually, yes: a number of years ago I happened to be looking for information about Al Shaw (catcher). There is plenty out there about his single season with the Tigers - it's not massively in-depth but it's sentences and paragraphs in reliable news sources from the time (for example, his hand was injured when he was bitten by a dog during the season). It's precisely the sort of stuff we need to be looking for. I think a line like this would be a useful inclusion in CRIN.
Summary:
  • it needs to be shorter and use footnotes if expansion is actually needed;
  • an emphasis on the general section needs to be re-established to show it is a guideline and not a rule;
  • something to encourage articles on women's cricket perhaps;
  • some very minor tweaks to clubs and venues;
  • a note dealing with stats sources not establishing notability by themselves would be helpful.
I've thought for for a few days about whether or not to respond to this. On the whole I'm not sure it is a good idea for me to do so, but comments elsewhere have persuaded me to. Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:40, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
The key point you have made is your quotation from NBASE but in fact you have omitted to quote the footnote which is appended to the sentence. That reads, as a footnote to NSPORTS overall: "Articles that are not sourced to published material providing significant coverage of the subject (beyond just statistics sites) may be nominated for deletion". I admit I wasn't aware of that footnote though the piece in NBASE text rings a bell. To be fair, I essentially follow this rule myself in coverage of pre-WG cricket. I regard CA as an unreliable source for anything up to 1825 and merely as tentatively satisfactory for anything up to 1864. As a result, I use book sources only. For 20th century cricket, I think CA is reliable apart from the odd blooper and ESPN generally reliable so I think, personally, that an entry in CA for a player of the last thirty years (since Sri Lanka began its domestic first-class matches in 1988) is enough to confirm notability. The NBASE point, however, is valid. We have a problem.
Re everything else, I agree CRIN is overlong but the reason is that explanatory material has been requested many times and it has grown to accommodate. I'd be happy to reduce it but we don't want to lose anything meaningful. I don't think we have a problem in CRIN with women's cricket but we do have a lack of interest in CRIC so it is more of an issue for the project than the guideline. Not entirely sure what you mean by "the general section" but please relocate it if you think it needs more emphasis and, similarly, with any minor club/venue tweaks just do them. Jack | talk page 11:42, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
Am I alone in finding some irony in such a long response arguing, basically, for conciseness? I don't think WP:CRIN needs to be concise (WP:NCRIC is the quick-ref quick-hit version). WP:CRIN needs above all to be clear and comprehensive, so that it answers every question that is thrown at it. I think it pretty much meets that in its current state. Introducing debate about whether some players with one, three or five appearances may or may not be notable merely creates uncertainty and makes for wobbly lines that are based on personal opinions or systemic faultlines (I don't expect Sri Lankan cricketers to have the same level of coverage in English-language sources as, say, English or Australian cricketers). One appearance at FC or List A = a presumption of notability: you still need sources to verify that, of course, and articles that lack core details (full names, dates of birth) may still be challenged as incomplete and unsatisfactory articles (as distinct from articles about non-notable people). But CRIN is essentially fine as it is, and you don't see other WP sport projects, such as baseball, soccer or US football, looking to blur the clarity of their core policies. So why should we? Johnlp (talk) 12:05, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
No. Blue Square Thing (talk) 12:19, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
The "general section" is the bit right at the bottom of CRIN. It was right under the bullet list in the 2007 version I linked to above I think. That comes close to saying the same sort of things as NBASE does without specifically making the point about statistical sources.
Note that in the baseball project articles with just statistical sources exist aplenty. As I said above, there are more substantive sources in many cases, they just aren't in the articles. I think it's a reasonable thing to say in itself - where there is a reasonable assumption that more in depth sources could be found then that's fine. But I do think it needs to be a reasonable assumption based on an understanding of the sources. I've not heard back with regard to my enquiries about Sri Lankan sources yet - I suspect that I couldn't make an assumption that they exist.
I may think about alternative ways of writing this at some point to demonstrate the sorts of lines I'm thinking along. Blue Square Thing (talk) 05:23, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
There are Sri Lankan sources, though, as we were able to establish in the case of Suresh Perera (Old Cambrians cricketer). Admittedly, this was done in a very irregular way because we relied on help from the ACS who in turn had a contact in Sri Lanka who was willing to check a Sinhalese newspaper, Dinamina, for a specific match report and found a brief mention there of the player. While we should ideally see the source ourselves, this third-hand research was necessary because of language and location. Obviously, we cannot realistically hope to do that for every single Sri Lankan player but it does prove that Sinhalese sources exist and I believe this is all that is necessary per even the most ambiguous of the notability guidelines. One thing I don't know and which even the ACS could not then establish, is if there is a Sinhalese annual that would provide information after the fashion of Playfair (they don't, I understand, have anything akin to Wisden). Nevertheless, Dinamina is a good resource and it can be assumed that its cricket coverage probably matches that of newspapers in the English-speaking countries. Jack | talk page 09:44, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
If you're convinced that it will help us learn their names then carry on. It changes nothing about my opinion o needing to be able to presume reliable sources beyond databases. Blue Square Thing (talk) 18:26, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
The Sinhalese newspapers are reliable sources that provide the wider coverage required by your precious GNG and yet you still assert that we are relying on databases. How do you know what might be found in a local newspaper in a country which is cricket-mad? Absolutely ridiculous. I suggest that you think carefully about your arguments and try to understand how utterly illogical and hypocritical they are. I still haven't forgotten your interpretation of COPYVIO. Is there, perhaps, a competence issue here? Jack | talk page 21:03, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
You've completely misunderstood me. If they are suitable sources (as opposed to database entries) then they are precisely the sort of source that I'd be wanting to find - as **opposed** to databases which I think I've made clear above don't do anything to convince me as the sorts of sources we need to have in place.
You have, however, convinced me that I shouldn't have bothered responding to this thread. Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:11, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Richmond Cricket Club

No, not another AfD, but this time the fun of a requested move! Please see the discussion here. Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 11:05, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

WP:CRIN change proposal

Based on several threads above and AfD discussions, I propose a change to WP:CRIN:

  • People who have appeared in exactly one first-class match (and have no other international appearances) should be included on a compilation page for players on the club which they appeared for, and not have stand-alone pages (unless they otherwise meet WP:GNG).
  • The compilation pages (proposed naming scheme of List of cricketers with a single appearance for Kurunegala Youth Cricket Club), as sub-pages of the articles on the clubs, clearly meet any WP:N concerns.

Ideally there will be a clear consensus for this with only minor wording changes, if not I'll set up an RfC later this week or early next week. power~enwiki (π, ν) 14:53, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Hello, power~enwiki. Can you answer a few queries for me?
  1. I'm not sure what you mean by "and have no other international appearances".
  2. Where exactly in CRIN would this go – presumably at the top with the summarised criteria?
  3. As you know there are problems with GNG which is seriously inconsistent with subject specific criteria throughout WP.
  4. One limited appearance list has already been deleted and it looks very much as if another is about to follow suit. The suggestion at the AfD is that we create compilation lists for all first-class clubs worldwide after the fashion of the English ones like List of Yorkshire County Cricket Club players.
Thanks. Jack | talk page 16:11, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
Yes, let's completely re-evaluate the guidelines because one person finds fault with them. That's a cute idea, Power-enwiki. This goes even further to proving that one major cricketing appearance is the only reasonable and logical yardstick and you are just trying to use WP:POINT to try and move the guidelines to your liking. As always, if you have a particular problem with WP:CRIN, or for that matter any other sporting appearance guideline (which are completely identical), please bring these up in an appropriate place.
If you are willing to fill in pages such as List of Panadura Sports Club cricketers, please do so. Otherwise please don't moan that other people don't like your proposed changes to basic article criteria which are followed by every team sporting Wikiproject. Bobo. 16:37, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
I don't see any merit in your idea, power~enwiki. You're basically proposing an arbitrary threshold of two appearances where the current CRIN says very simply that either they're a first-class (or List A) cricketer or they're not. On what deep knowledge of cricket do you base your threshold? And what about all those other sports where a single appearance in a top-level national-standard competition is sufficient for a presumption of notability? Johnlp (talk) 16:53, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
power~enwiki I personally think this deserves a thorough discussion and this ideally need RfC so we can have compatible guidelines. Störm (talk) 17:18, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
because one person finds fault with them have you not seen the massive wars at AfD recently? Clearly other people "find fault" with the guidelines. This will definitely need an RfC, I don't feel confident enough in the wording of my current proposal for it to be a !vote though. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:22, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
That's not what I meant at all. The whole point is that if we're going to have List of Derbyshire cricketers with one first-class appearance we might as well have one called List of Derbyshire cricketers with seven first-class appearances. That way we can disregard every article on every cricketer. Magic. Bobo. 17:48, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
It could be List of cricketers for Kurunegala Youth Cricket Club, and the one-appearance people could redirect there. My basic point is that having a list is better for these pages both because it clearly demonstrates notability, and it makes it easier to find this information. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:55, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
Maybe, but if people can't understand "being on this list means that the person with 200 appearances is just as notable as the person with 1 appearance", then that's not WP:CRIN's fault but the fault of the person who is refusing to understand simple guidelines. Bobo. 17:59, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Thank you again for your help with the two other matters, power~enwiki, but I'm afraid I must oppose you on this proposal regardless of how you answer my questions above or how you revise the proposal wording. The only practical and realistic way to define WP:Notability in respect of a sportsperson is to insist upon at least ONE appearance at the most senior domestic level (or international, which is a higher level). Other NSPORTS members like NBASE, NFOOTY, etc. have adopted the same maxim so CRIN is not on its own or out a limb anywhere. We cannot start saying that there must have been two appearances because it can easily be counter-productive.
Suppose we have two players. One of them played in a single match only and scored a century. The other appeared in two matches and didn't score a single run in either. Which one is notable? According to the one match ain't enough argument, the century scorer doesn;t get an article while the one with four ducks does. It doesn't work. Same in football if a guy with one match only scored a hat trick and someone with two appearances was so bad his manager substituted him after only three minutes each time. It doesn't work.
The only way forward is as per the current CRIN, the current NBASE, the current NFOOTY and the current NUNCLETOMCOBLEYANDALL – one appearance at domestic (or international) top level. Jack | talk page 18:32, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
I assume that the player who scored a century in their only first-class match and never played again would have some coverage as to why that occurred, or else I would suspect a bookkeeping error. The problem of currently-active players is not addressed in my proposal yet. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:36, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
No, not necessarily. Supposing he is a Sri Lankan or Bangladeshi player from c.2001 whose first name is unknown in English sources. We then have the WP:(whinge)IDONTLIKETHIS(whinge) brigade coming along, talking their usual absolute shite about FAQs and whatnot and claiming that the guy ain't notable despite the fact that there is an ACS contact in Moratuwa or Chittagong or wherever who has found reams of info in a Sinhalese or Bengali newspaper which tells us loads of stuff that only the fuckiGNG could attempt to deny. That's the reality of where we are today on this site. Okay? Jack | talk page 21:32, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
I'm not opposed to a wider proposal; similar arguments apply to footballers such as Arthur Grainger or Olympic athletes like Mareme Faye. The standard for American sports would have to be slightly different, as almost no players appear in exactly one professional match and the college/pro divide complicates things further, but most people who appeared only on one pro team and for only part of one season should meet the standard (Tarrik Brock as a representative example). power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:36, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, well, a truism is that all sports are different. Obviously, an American sportsman might have achieved notability at college before he goes anywhere near the NFL or the MLB or NHL or the seven foot tall freaks thing. Sports like cricket and football (real football played with the feet) do not have the luxury of Mercan college crap. Therefore, a sportsman in the real world beyond Trumpland gains notability by making an appearance in a top-level match. And, in cricket and football, top-level MEANS top-level. Right? Jack | talk page 21:32, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm done here. I've filed a WP:AN thread regarding the AfD nominations. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:09, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

WP:AN

Hello. You're all invited to [2]. Please take part if you wish. Thanks. Jack | talk page 22:34, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Greenfield International Stadium page move

Please see this discussion. Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 07:24, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Judging by at least two conversations

Judging by at least two conversations I've recently seen, the new problem is not WP:BIO or WP:CRIN but WP:ONESOURCE. Do the people who have been adding articles at random to AfD realize that a, they can fix these themselves, b, they can ask people to fix them instead, c, they've been misleading members of WP:CRIC all this time, telling them that they don't consider a single first-class appearance to be suitable for inclusion even though it is suitable for inclusion in every other competitive team sport? Which is it? WP:BIO, WP:CRIN, or WP:ONESOURCE? Perhaps this whole nonsense could be sorted if people note where WP:ONESOURCE is the issue?

And perhaps all of this nonsense could have been avoided all along if it had been noted in the first place... Bobo. 13:20, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

And we see again why it is all a waste of time. Your time editors and the eight people who read it. Buy the book. It is all in there children. Two come out every year.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.153.108.211 (talk • contribs) 07:28, 29 October 2017 (UTC)

List of Chilaw Marians Cricket Club players

In all the uproar about Sri Lankan cricketers, there have been suggestions that lists of players per club should be created. I've knocked this one together from an XL I have about Sri Lankan matches, nearly all of which originated at CA. This list is, surprisingly, the first one of an SL club and it can serve as a template if anyone is inclined to create more (I'm not). I picked Chilaw Marians at random and based the list on the format of the English ones. There are, I believe, about twenty SL first-class clubs. Thanks. Jack | talk page 19:52, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Nice work, Jack! This is a good start. I'd be interested in knocking up a few other lists. Would you be willing to share the XL list? I started work on similar lists for Pakistan domestic teams (example), but got distracted with other things, and CA going all paywall didn't help. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 09:03, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
@Lugnuts:. Hello, Lugnuts. Sorry I've not been available last few days (real world calling). I've added the XL list into a project file A–O and project file P–Z. They're cumbersome with nearly 13k lines total but can all be transferred into an XL for sorting and manipulation. I hope it's useful. Good luck. Jack | talk page 13:49, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
Brilliant - thanks for posting that, Jack. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 15:22, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Community reassessment

Jos Buttler, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Harrias talk 21:24, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

My Tuppence

Many of you will have noticed that I have not been active much on this project over the last 18 months. Why? Well I dispair. Everywhere I look there are rules w*ankers and mountains of bureaucracy everywhere. Where has the can-do attitude that this project once had gone? Now we have people attacking the inclusion policy, adding more mountains of bureaucracy to an encyclopedia which need not be taken so seriously by aforementioned rules w*ankers. When I joined this porject, some 8 years ago now, there were dozens of editors, we collaborated, got on with, and became one of the mot comprehensive sources for cricket information on the internet. Now the members of the project have depleted, and the expansion of the project has ground to halt.

The WP:CRIN rules were easy to follow, amongst other simple guidelines to follow was the stipulation of one first-class appearance for inclusion. Now we have people seeking to interfere in a clear and consise manner of inclusion, instead adding more and more red-tape to what should be a simple and concise encyclopedia. It is this bureaucracy and rules w*ankery which is driving away long-term editors and leading this project down toward the path of the Dodo.

I recall myself being caught up in bureaucracy a few backs regarding our old friend Daft, that left a foul taste in my mouth then, with rules, rules, rules and more rules! Now I come back and all I see is a talk page full of rules, rules, rules and more rules! What has happened to basic premise of this site gone? There's more creation of rules than there is creation of articles, quite frankly it rubs people up the wrong way. This is why brilliant users such as YellowMonkey, Parklands cobbler, Jhall1, and IgnorantArmies walked away and why they will not be the last to do so.

To quote BlackJack:

I have resigned from Wikipedia aka Nineteen Eighty-Four in order to pursue my writing and research interests elsewhere without having to put up with rules, more rules and the unqualified ruleswankers who insist on deploying them. I am following thousands of other genuine editors and I recommend that all remaining genuine editors do likewise.

Rules, rules, rules and more rules. This project is stagnant and having seen what it has turned into, it's one I will no longer be contributing to. Sadly I feel BlackJack and Bobo won't be far behind me. Until the endless bureaucracy and creation of red-tape ends, this project will continue to hemorrhage contributors. If you continue to let the bureaucrats fight you on their own terms, you are going to lose. PinchHittingLeggy (talk) 22:39, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

I gave up a fair while ago. I've been working so hard on enhancing my music collection that I simply haven't had the time or inclination to contribute to Wikipedia. Until a dear friend of mine passed away around six weeks ago, I was planning to set up a radio station through a third party based on a list of approaching 50,000 songs which I had collated over the last 15 months. Completely unrelated to any of the nonsense that's been going on recently. In fact, I was only aware of the nonsense when I randomly popped up on here after a week out.
I look back on some of the articles (including non-cricket articles) that I've created on Wikipedia. Gretna F.C.?! Andrei Kanchelskis?! Was there really such low-hanging fruit back when there were only (or should that be already?!) 200,000 articles on the site? As I've said elsewhere, a few things happened at the same time for me. I ended up in hospital, a dear friend passed away as I mentioned, and a couple of other things got in the way which I wish hadn't have done. I'm not using these as an excuse. Absolutely not. I've just been very resistant to all the things that have been going on. And having my project motives questioned was the last straw.
I made some mistakes. My ironically over-completionist nature compelled me to add articles on cricketers whose ECC members whose articles did not conform to Wikipedia standards. I'm over that. I learnt new things. And that's the answer to this all. A new experience is only worthwhile if it teaches you something positive. This, categorically, has only taught me negative. I will never, ever apologize for writing articles about players who conformed to WP:CRIN. Nor will I ever apologize for defending my, and the project's, right to do so. If an alien from outer space came and discovered we were omitting some articles by choice while permitting others, they would shrug, go home, and watch the alien equivalent of Coronation Street. With the theme played on electrotheremin.
Everything I have done for this project, I have done out of love. And I refuse to allow myself to slip and do so out of any form of malice. It is when we fear that love won't win the day, that we decide to allow ourselves to go off the rails.
I am from Shrewsbury. I have friends who attended Joe Hart's wedding. And every single one of them thinks he is an utter... well, I refuse to use words like that. This is not the world we should be living in. When the most controversy attached to a place is how to damn well pronounce it... you have to wonder whether anything interesting goes on... Here endeth the lesson. Bobo. 23:09, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
I wait all night for stuff like this. You can't make it up even though you have — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.157.35.111 (talk • contribs) 22:10, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
It is indeed dispiriting to feel that we are under attack from people who've shown no interest or knowledge in cricket or the project in the past. I quite understand why people would feel demoralised and like giving up. But the fewer of us who stick around to try to defend what we built (and intend in my case to go on building: still on Cambridge University cricketers), the more likely it is to be dismantled. So I'd ask those thinking of leaving to at least look in every once in a while and to still be prepared to step in to help where possible. Thanks. Johnlp (talk) 00:24, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
I haven't actually left the project, though I haven't been very active recently. That's partly from sloth, partly because I've been devoting more of my time on Wikipedia to my other interest of contract bridge, and partly due to a degree of disillusionment with all the bureaucracy, which I'm not interested in. Even the relatively benign side of that bureaucracy, such as the effort that is required to create a Featured Article, seems to me disproportionate. Naturally I want any articles that I create to be good articles, but I'm not interested in jumping through hoops to make them Good Articles with a capital G, still less Featured Articles. Oh, and some of the slanging matches that have gone on here recently, which I've resisted taking part it, have been a bit of a turn-off too. JH (talk page) 10:06, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
For my part, I refuse to take part in any more discussions which concern guidelines, policies or processes. I intend to focus on articles only from now on but am happy to discuss articles per se and any research which may help article development. I entirely agree with the comments above and I think "jumping through hoops" says it all really. Jack | talk page 14:50, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
What's the point when people make their own guidelines up? If people are unwilling to work to brightline inclusion criteria, then why are they trying to put an encyclopedia together? Bobo. 17:51, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
For the record, IgnorantArmies was blocked as a sock (wtf?!). I hope one day he'll come back. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 15:23, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
And Parklands cobbler is still here - I see their name crop up tons of times on my watchlist on cycling articles. Maybe that's it - people's interests and priorities change. I understand the frustration of people trying to change the guidelines on notability because they don't know the topic area, that's never going to end. I had one user try their hardest to change one, despite the fact they knew nothing squared about the subject area. I don't normally get involved in long debates/RFCs/clusterfucks about changing x to y, or agreeing an inclusion (or exclusion) clause. I just get on with what I like doing. And I know for a fact it annoys the hell out of some users & admin knowing that I'm not going away anytime soon (suck it up, snowflakes). Take the rough with the smooth. One article getting deleted via AfD shouldn't get people down. I know it does, but it shouldn't. Silly season seems to be extra long this year, put some logs on the fire and sit it out. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 18:24, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Cricketer at AfD

Serious one this time. Please see this discussion. Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 18:56, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Callum Ferguson

I've been working on improving the Callum Ferguson article over the last few days and I have a couple of questions about. Firstly, is it a problem that the vast majority of the sources I've included are from Cricinfo? Does there need to more variety? And secondly does someone else need to change the quality scale thing or can I do it myself? TripleRoryFan (talk) 23:45, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi TripleRoryFan, you have done a great job with this article. In answer to you questions, you are not alone in raising concerns about solely sourcing from ESPNcricinfo. Where you can, use newspaper and websites for sources. And secondly, I have updated the ratings on the talk page but yes can be bold and do that yourself. Cheers – Ianblair23 (talk) 00:41, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Ideally there would be more variety, but ultimately Cricinfo is an independent reliable source and if that's all you're able to access then it's fine to build an article primarily from articles from one website. Especially with Fairfax scrapping their archive service and the Murdoch papers trying to paywall everything. Jenks24 (talk) 01:04, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
That's some nice work, TRF! Just to echo what the others said - fine to use Cricinfo for most of the sourcing. If you cand find newspaper articles, then that's even better. I see he's from Adelaide and plays in Melbourne. I'm not that familar with newspapers from Down Under, but if either of them have the equivalent of the Sydney Morning Herald, then that's a good place to start. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 15:31, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
It'd be worth trying searching within some newspaper sites. I did a quick search on the Guardian site - which publishes an Australian web edition - and it brings up several useful articles (this, for example). I would imagine that other sites will bring up articles as well - it helps hat he has a slightly unusual name. A google news search might turn up some stuff as well, although it'll need combing through to try to find the more reliable ones. Blue Square Thing (talk) 16:07, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Very good work, TRF. I've added CricketArchive as an extra source; it verifies your opening sentence. If you you need anything else from that site, which is subscription at present, please let me know and I'll find it for you. All the best. Jack | talk page 17:10, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Domestic vs International career

I've noticed that for most biographies of international players, their domestic and international career are under two different headings. I've been following this structure in the articles I've worked on, but I was wondering if this is a consensus decision made at some point or if it's alright to do it differently if it makes more sense to include them under the same heading. TripleRoryFan (talk) 05:26, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

It depends on what works best for that person; in general most biographies are written chronologically. Harrias talk 10:22, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
I doubt very much that anything formal has ever been agreed upon - perhaps this is a good opportunity to think about doing so? I've suggested style guides in the past, similar to the excellent ones that have at Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Players. That suggests a separate sub-section for club and international which might work - I have no objection to separate sections if they are merited and as Harrias says, it might make sense to have early domestic/international/later career in many cases - not so useful where a player is still active perhaps. Obviously it depends upon the complexity of the subject and how much detail we have available. So, Marcus Trescothick (a featured article) has multiple sections because of the complexity of his career, Adam Gilchrist is structured differently (and could probably use reviewing - the IPL and Middlesex sections don't really fit and it has all the tables that have been added to the end) as is Percy Chapman - who played in a different era - whereas for a player with only a handful of international appearances it might be more appropriate to include them as a sub-section perhaps: Jonathan Agnew for example.
I don't know if there would be any interest in trying to hammer out rough style guides or not? It might help us to avoid issues such as the addition of multiple tables to the bottom of articles with very limited context (Gilchrist, Buttler etc...) Blue Square Thing (talk) 10:34, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
I think it'd be a good idea to have a rough style guide, though I have no personal preferences as to how it'd be done and as I'm still an inexperienced editor wouldn't really have much I could contribute to it. Also I looked at the boxes on Gilchrist's page and wow it looks like a bit of a mess. That kind of thing makes me think we could do with a style guide about career highlights/stats and how to show them in a sub-section, as well as what is/isn't notable in that regard. I don't know if we really need Gilchrist's stats against every Test and ODI side to be in his article. TripleRoryFan (talk) 12:11, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
I think the key point is we have a new editor who is keen to get stuck in - welcome ot the project @TripleRoryFan:! Do what you feel is best for each biography you edit. As long as you write it in a neutral way and source everything, then the extra bits about layout can be addressed as you go. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 07:57, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
I agree with Harrias. Write it chronologically but possibly with domestic and international in different sections – it depends on the scope, to a large extent on the scale and, again, what works best in each case. The style guide for football is okay for football but football is not cricket so I say no to that sort of guide here. Btw, we do have WP:CRIC#STYLE but that is about the detailed aspects of writing a cricket article. Jack | talk page 17:20, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Does anyone else have any views on whether it might be worth considering style guides of any kind? Blue Square Thing (talk) 17:51, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Quality of articles

Largely following on from the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket#My Tuppence topic above, there is another problem besides ruleswankers and pedants who do not understand that, as editors, we are here for the benefit of the readers. Article quality. I have for a long time been concerned about the poor and inconsistent editing that occurs throughout CRIC and I've been trying to do something about it lately but, frankly, I don't know why I'm bothering. To be fair, there was greater tolerance of POV in the early days and much of the dross is a hangover from that time because standards have changed over the years. Even so, there is no excuse at any time for poor quality work manifested by failure to check what has been written. Although there are some people who do not like standards, MOS is actually okay because it allows a degree of flexibility and its "demands" are 99% fair enough (unlike the GNG and other total shite). We are here for the benefit of the readers and they have a right to expect a certain standard. On the whole, it hasn't been provided.

Ruleswankers, pedants, WP:IDONTLIKEIT, poor spelling, poor grammar, stupid linkage constructions (e.g., [[first class cricket|first class]] [[cricket|cricket player]]), bad English and all the other problems around scope, structure, categories, templates and of course sources. Quite a list. People with multiple identities. Here's a comment from a chap in the ACS who I know by e-mail (I did meet him at Lord's last year). He is a published author, though not on cricket. He says: "The trouble with Wikipedia is always the unhealthy admixture of those who see the site as an opportunity to exercise some kind of control mechanism with those who think they can write. In between are the pigs in the middle, the few who do not seek control and who can write. In the end, like Saturn and the French Revolution, Wikipedia will devour its own children (the pigs in the middle) or at least drive them all away". He's right. Jack | talk page 21:26, 9 November 2017 (UTC) who

How about looking at the ways in which featured articles, such as Marcus Trescothick, have been developed as an example of how a cricket article can be written? That's the sort of place that I start looking when I need reassurance - although, of course, there's nothing wrong with some inconsistencies and there are always going to be exceptions in the way things can be written. Blue Square Thing (talk) 23:38, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
We're supposed to be contributing to this project out of love for Wikipedia and our love for sport in general. When you have people snapping back at you saying, "two sources aren't enough to ensure notability omg lol", these are the people you need to be asking questions of. These are people who do not love the project and would, frankly, argue the same thing against a twig in an empty forest, not knowing that it's doing neither them or the world any good. Saying, "I approve of these articles but not these ones even though these ones are fully sourced and conform to the same guidelines omg lol" is a dangerous breach of WP:IDONTLIKEIT and indication of great boredom. Once again I question why it takes people eight years to decide they don't agree with the presence of certain articles.
The sad thing is, these people are, in general, too stubborn to understand that their hatred of the project, and their willingness to breach NPOV, will drive those who are attempting to improve the project, away. I have no interest in contributing to a project which its own members are attempting to destroy. Bobo. 14:26, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Yes, absolutely, and one of the worst offenders has recently produced "work" on Colin Blythe which is way below standard and dishonours a great cricketer. You would expect someone who has so much to say about the site as a whole to produce good work but he doesn't. He is a liability. Jack | talk page 22:05, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Be the bigger man, Jack. Please. You're better than that. Everybody who, lately, has stood in the way of WP:CRIC and its principles has been a liability to the project and the encyclopedia as a whole. This is not the doing of one person. It's an epidemic, which sadly will not go away. Bobo. 22:33, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, Bobo. You are right. Jack | talk page 08:04, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
Like I said above, this is an epidemic. And it is as repulsive as Frankenstein's monster. Don't blame the ignorance of one person. Blame the fact that this ignorance has permeated beyond safe levels of sanity. Bobo. 09:24, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Cricket cabals

Remember the old days when people used to complain there was some kind of WP:CRIC cabal which used to continuously whine that articles should be kept on (apparently) completely ridiculous grounds which were (apparently) unjustifiable by alternative means of logic?

Has anyone noticed that the same thing is now happening in the opposite direction, and that these people who are doing the same in the opposite direction are incapable of realizing that this is a problem?

Why is one, which was based entirely on NPOV criteria and being able to judge every individual on the same level, being seen as disgustingly out of touch with the rest of the project, and does this justify the fact that the other is being allowed to state their case so fervently against the most basic of guidelines we work from on day one?

Surely there's someone out there who understands how hypocritical this is? Bobo. 16:14, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Wisden prophesy came true

Colin Blythe was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in the 1904 edition. In its dedication to Blythe, who is my new favourite-ever cricketer (absolute top bloke), Wisden predicted: "As he is still under twenty-five the best of him may not have been seen, but even if he should only remain at his present standard of excellence he ought with ordinary luck to be a most valuable member of the Kent eleven for ten years to come". 1904 + 10 = 1914. Spot on. Colin Blythe, despite being epileptic, quit cricket when war was declared and enlisted in the army. He was killed at Paschendaele in 1917. Jack | talk page 20:44, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

RIP. JH (talk page) 21:11, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Help with Richie Benaud quote

A break away from the dross of AFD. Can anyone help with the classic "And Glenn McGrath dismissed for two, just 98 runs short of his century" - which match this was from? Thanks! Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 12:17, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

If it was an international, one of these, perhaps? Spike 'em (talk) 12:43, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I've made the assumption it was an international match. Thanks for the link, Spike. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 14:45, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
I tried searching and watching a few YouTube tributes, but can't find a mention of when it actually happened. Spike 'em (talk) 15:23, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Worcestershire players

If anyone is interested in removing POV, a prime target must be Category:Worcestershire cricketers. In article after article, we are told that the subject was a poor player who scored a "mere" x runs and was "unsuccessful", etc., etc. I've already removed loads of this condescending crap but there must still be much more needing attention. It is Worcestershire only as far as I can tell. Thanks. Jack | talk page 23:28, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Does there appear to be a particular culprit? Might help us narrow our search when it comes to which articles to amend. – PeeJay 01:01, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
Well, now I look closer it goes back many years to User:Loganberry who created nearly all the Worcs player articles. To be fair, NPOV was a very loose concept in those days but there never was any good reason for subjectivity like "he never enjoyed any great success, taking only four wickets in first-class and List A games combined" and "Shutt's batting was extremely poor: in 24 innings at first- and second-team level he scored a total of just 35 runs. His highest score was a mere 8". Those were in Albert Shutt and are typical. Albert Shutt is a BLP. Thanks. Jack | talk page 07:19, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
I really don't see any great problem here. It's not doing Shutt any great disservice to suggest that his first-class career was less than glittering; he's still a first-class player and therefore notable, which is a distinction the rest of us won't achieve. The need to be factual doesn't have to reduce us to a mechanical recitation of facts entirely bereft of adjectives and other descriptive phrasing. Johnlp (talk) 10:23, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
I also, FWIW, disagree with "naming and shaming" individual contributors who operated at a different time in WP's development when standards were different and who aren't around now. Whatever happened to WP:AGF? Johnlp (talk) 10:29, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
No, WP:NPOV is absolutely clear and it's quite right. Offering subjective views like that are out of order. The man was good enough to play first-class cricket and all we should do is record the facts as we find them. We may only make assertions about his ability if we are citing the view of a reliable source. The "opinions" about Shutt and the others are WP:OR as well as POV. Jack | talk page 11:02, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
"Shutt's batting was extremely poor: in 24 innings at first- and second-team level he scored a total of just 35 runs. His highest score was a mere 8". It seems to me there is nothing subjective or POV about that. The statistics of his career obtained from Cricinfo or CricketArchive and quoted in that passage are surely all the supporting evidence that is required and leave no room for doubt. Yes, there are plenty of cases where one can find subjective, POV opinions given in articles which need to be removed, but it doesn't seem to me that that example is one of them. JH (talk page) 16:17, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
Now that I think about it, what is the point of any adjective being used in Wikipedia? Almost any adjective implies POV. Bobo. 18:31, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
I just removed "substantial" from Albert Shutt's article as for me, the word "substantial" is inexorably attached to the words "main course". And I think that qualifies as cannibalism... (but seriously, the word has so many conflicting senses that to use it in an absolute form in an article could be seen as misleading)... Bobo. 18:36, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
If you're going to remove all adjectives and descriptive phrases, we might as well just give up. It'll destroy this project far faster than the chipping away of the deletionists. User:Jhall1 is right: there is nothing subjective or POV about the statements in Shutt's article that can't be inferred from the statistics, and the later removal sounds to me like WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Surely there are better things to be doing around here than reducing our impressive coverage of first-class cricketers to the point where the stats sites are a better read? Johnlp (talk) 22:08, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
Jack is absolutely correct about NPOV. If the inferences are that obvious, the reader can make them for themselves; Wikipedia is not supposed to guide them towards the "correct" interpretation of the facts. It's the same as if we have an article on, say, an earthquake – we shouldn't write, "tragically, 100 people were killed", even though the event being regarded as tragic is also an obvious inference. Jellyman (talk) 08:12, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
Your earthquake example is not the same at all: all readers can make their own inferences about that. A cricketer who gets 35 runs in 24 innings might be seen as prolific for a non-cricket reader coming from a different sport, and there is surely some duty among this knowledgeable community to make it clear to the less knowledgeable that, in cricket, it really isn't very good at all. What a joyless place this has become. Johnlp (talk) 09:52, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
I seem to remember Mr. Wales posting about this very topic many years ago. Forgive me for not being able to find the right quote on the spur of the moment: "If you're making it clear to readers through NPOV facts that such an event or such a feeling was the case, then there should be no need for such emotive language because it will already be clear to the reader." This is why we don't need to include sentences in articles such as: "Gujurat lost by an innings margin and everyone was so depressed that they went home to listen to Justin Bieber." Bobo. 11:55, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
You are entirely missing the point I'm making. Johnlp (talk) 12:06, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
We are an encyclopedia. We are reporting facts. If we are reporting simply facts, there should be no need for emotive or extraneous language. On a more serious point, speaking of Worcestershire cricketers, what about the phrase "at the age of just 26" on Harold Bache's article? Once again, I consider "just 26" to be a violation of reporting facts in the way we should. Bobo. 12:11, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
I don't disagree that we have to be factual. But we should also be guiding a reader whose knowledge of cricket is minimal or even nil to understand our more subtle appreciation of the significance of facts. Why do we highlight that Albert Shutt produced 35 runs in 24 first- and second-eleven innings? Because that to us indicates that he wasn't really selected for his batting. Is that obvious to, say, an American reader with no knowledge of cricket? No, because our American might think that was a reasonable rate of return. So we make it clear: otherwise, we're adding no value beyond what a reader might get from the stats sites. Johnlp (talk) 12:22, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
Surely we should be separating first- and second-eleven statistics entirely. We can point out that his second-eleven career was... such-and-such, and separate it from the information about his first-class career. This is the problem I would have with, for example, Indian cricketers whose articles I would often write the other way around, not actually reaching the information about a first-class career until maybe a second paragraph, the first including all the information about their youth career. Bobo. 12:28, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
On a sidenote, what is Cricket Archive's Second XI coverage like these days? When we started making comments about it all those years ago, it was patchy at best... Edit: Taking a random match as an example, I can see its coverage is still not perfect. Bobo. 12:31, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

We are reporting verifiable facts, as Bobo says, and we may also report verifiable opinions. So, if Wisden comments on a player's performance as "poor" we can report their opinion and cite it, but we can't state our own opinions which are original research. In the case of this man Shutt, how does the editor know he performed badly just because he made a low score? What if it was a sticky wicket on which he valiantly held on at one end and enabled his partner to score much-needed runs? I remember Pat Pocock batting in a Test for over an hour without scoring and someone said it was the greatest duck ever, because of the match situation. Anything we say to the reader, who is paramount, must be verifiable. If people could come on here and freely say that this man is a crap player just because they don't like him, where would be? Although the notability rules and guidelines are questionable (to say the least), the three WP:CCPOL and the WP:MOS guidelines all set good, sound standards. Jack | talk page 12:45, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Assessment of articles on Sunrisers Hyderabad

I am quite new to this project and don't exactly know on how the assessment of the articles works. I created some pages (updated others) involving Sunrisers Hyderabad IPL team and am hoping if someone could assess those articles and give some inputs. The articles are listed below
Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2013
Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2014
Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2015
Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2016
Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2017
List of Sunrisers Hyderabad cricketers
List of Sunrisers Hyderabad records
And also can anyone tell me exactly on how to get my articles assessed without posting in this talk page? Sagavaj(talk) 20:19, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Achievements/Awards boxes

I was wondering what the consensus was on boxes like the ones seen at Rohit Sharma#Awards which have players' centuries, man of the match performances etc. I personally don't think they should be in the articles like that per WP:NOTSTATS but I can see that they're in a large number of articles. I've been working on Tom Cooper's article and wanted to get rid of them, but since I saw they also existed in a lot of other articles I kept them and changed them a bit, then added prose here. I still don't think they should be in the article at all but I wanted to know what the project's consensus was before I got rid of them. TripleRoryFan (talk) 02:47, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

I reckon they look awful. If you look at most of the project's FAs they don't seem to have them. I'd support getting rid of them but you're right that they seem to have infested a lot of articles. Jenks24 (talk) 06:46, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
I agree. They are indeed a breach of NOTSTATS as they don't convey useful information to the reader; their information is indiscriminate per WP:IINFO. And, as Jenks rightly says, they have no aesthetic value either. It's fair enough mentioning an MoM award in the narrative if the performance was especially outstanding like a match double or a world record or whatnot, but a table of them is ridiculous. I would just remove them and include NOTSTATS in the summary. Jack | talk page 08:27, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
The tables are usually a mess, with different tables for the same player having different formats / columns / ordering. I made a start tidying up Ben Stokes yesterday and was thinking of creating some templates to make them more consistent, but if the data is likely to be removed then it is not really worth the effort. Spike 'em (talk) 14:38, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
I'd support the removal of these too. Maybe we can form a WP:CONSENSUS on this, based on the existing WP:NOTSTATS policy. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 09:48, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
Are there people who oppose their deletion? Like is there someone actively keeping them up to date or something? Did they come from any decision or consensus at some point? I'm struggling to understand how they're in virtually every international cricketer's article if so many people oppose them based on a policy. TripleRoryFan (talk) 12:16, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
There are lots of people who edit cricket articles who never take part in discussions. So far 3 people have specifically opposed the sections, which is hardly "so many". NOTSTATs doesn't say there should be NO stats, and even suggests creating a table if it helps the text, but in most cases there is no link between the tables and the rest of the article. Spike 'em (talk) 13:56, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
I shouldn't have said "so many", I was just surprised that nobody had said they should definitely be kept since they'er so widespread. I agree that a summary of their statistics is a good idea, but that already exists in the infobox. I'd be happy if there was a template for how these man of the match awards and centuries and stuff were to be put at the bottom of the player articles, but right now it does feel messy and as they seem to be added indiscriminately with no explanatory text I don't see them being a positive thing as they are now. TripleRoryFan (talk) 00:34, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm quite happy to start a WP:RFC to get a wider input from other users, esp. people with a neutral POV who aren't part of this project. I'll do that mid-week if there are no objections. Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 12:04, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

(Feel free to paste this into any RFC, I'm not very active) Delete them. Not encyclopedic, fan boyish. Think how they'd bloat Donald Bradman. And I agree with many of the comments above. This is not the role of Wikipedia. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 14:30, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Team info in infoboxes

I don't have any great expertise here (and this might have been covered before but I searched and couldn't find anything relevant) but I'd like to request that we consider having two sections for teams in a player's infobox. I think we should have one for first-class/List A teams, and one for T20 teams. Kevin Pietersen's article is perhaps the worst culprit of what a cluttered infobox can look like at the moment. Under my proposal, he should have one section saying he was at Natal 99-00, Notts 01-04, Hampshire 05-10 and Surrey 10-15, and any other county/state/province side he played serious FC or LA cricket for. He should then have a different section beneath that for the million T20 sides he has played for. Kieron Pollard is another. There is a precedent in infoboxes doing this - rugby players who play for both a state and Super Rugby team have it displayed in this way, and I think that would greatly de-clutter and clarify the situation. Thank you. JamKaftan (talk) 19:28, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

  • Support. Great idea. The thing is to combine all T20 apps in one line regardless of team names. Pietersen's infobox is farcical. Jack | talk page 20:09, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. Wholeheartedly agree. Especially makes sense since nowadays the domestic Twenty20 sides are (in most places) separate from the FC and LA sides nowadays. Might also be worth considering splitting Twenty20 clubs up further by the country for some players since a lot of them will simultaneously have teams in the IPL, BBL, CPL, County Cricket, etc. and including them all in one group could be confusing for readers since that doesn't happen in most other sports. TripleRoryFan (talk) 02:10, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that's good, TRF. I agree. We could just use the tournament name instead of the country but I'm open on that. Jack | talk page 10:59, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Can we see a suggested layout for KP? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:57, 29 November 2017 (UTC) {{

Kevin Pietersen
MBE
Pietersen in 2014
Personal information
Full nameKevin Peter Pietersen
Born (1980-06-27) 27 June 1980 (age 44)
Pietermaritzburg, Natal Province, South Africa
NicknameKP, Kelves, Kapes, Kev
Height1.93 m (6 ft 4 in)
BattingRight-handed
BowlingRight-arm off break
RoleBatsman
RelationsJessica Taylor (wife; m. 2007)
International information
National side
Test debut (cap 626)21 July 2005 v Australia
Last Test3 January 2014 v Australia
ODI debut (cap 185)28 November 2004 v Zimbabwe
Last ODI16 September 2013 v Australia
ODI shirt no.24
T20I debut (cap 7)13 June 2005 v Australia
Last T20I27 June 2013 v New Zealand
Domestic team information
YearsTeam
1997–1998Natal B
1998–1999KwaZulu Natal B
1999–2000; 2010KwaZulu Natal
2001–2004Nottinghamshire
2004Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC)
2005–2010Hampshire
2010–2015; 2017Surrey
Twenty20 team information
YearsTeam
Australia
2014–presentMelbourne Stars
England
2003–2004Nottinghamshire
2005–2010Hampshire
2011–2015; 2017Surrey
India
2009–2010Royal Challengers Bangalore
2011Deccan Chargers
2012–2014Delhi Daredevils
2016Rising Pune Supergiants
Pakistan
2016–presentQuetta Gladiators
South Africa
2015–presentDolphins
West Indies
2014–presentSt Lucia Stars
Career statistics
Competition Test ODI T20I LA
Matches 104 136 37 253
Runs scored 8,181 4,440 1,176 8,112
Batting average 47.28 40.73 37.93 40.76
100s/50s 23/35 9/25 0/7 15/46
Top score 227 130 79 147
Balls bowled 1,311 400 30 2,390
Wickets 10 7 1 41
Bowling average 88.60 52.86 53.00 51.75
5 wickets in innings 0 0 0 0
10 wickets in match 0 n/a 0 n/a
Best bowling 3/52 2/22 1/27 3/14
Catches/stumpings 62/– 40/– 14/– 85/–
Source: Cricinfo, 19 October 2017
I don't really know how template stuff works but here's an example I made of what it could look like (I've dropped the squad numbers from the infobox in this because they take up a lot of space and I think they should be removed altogether since they don't really have any significance in cricket and don't even exist in first-class teams). I've divided it up further by country (you could do by tournament but there've been three different English tournaments and I'm not sure which ones he did/didn't play in). TripleRoryFan (talk) 22:21, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Three English ones already! I've lost track of 'em. I think your layout is a significant improvement and I vote we adopt yours. Well done. Jack | talk page 05:42, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Looks good. I'd prefer going a bit further and having it hideable (e.g. "[show]" and "[hide]") with the default being set at hide for T20 teams (and possibly all domestic teams). Especially for players like this the bloat is too much. Jenks24 (talk) 09:46, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Yep, was going to suggest the same on the collapsiblity. I would consider there to be a minor error on the Pietersen info, which in itself is unimportant at the moment but raises a questions for me : how should we list players who have recently (or ever) only played T20s for what would be considered their "main" team. For franchise tournaments where there is no link to a 1st class team it is not an issue, but in English domestic cricket (and SA / NZ?) the T20 teams are one and the same as the 1st class teams. I don't think there will be many cases where a domestic player will play a significant number of T20s and never play a List A or 1st class, but it is possible and in 2017 Pietersen was a T20 only player for Surrey. For single country domestic players, should we add the same team in both the existing club section and the new T20 section or just use the T20 for players who play in more than one country? Spike 'em (talk) 10:25, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
I think it depends on the context. If it's a player who specifically only plays in Twenty20s for a season it should probably only be included in the Twenty20 section, but if they happen to miss all first-class and list A matches due to injury or poor form but otherwise would have been in the team I think it can be included in the other domestic team info section, especially if they play list A and first-class matches in the season before/season after. TripleRoryFan (talk) 11:36, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
This discussion from December 2015 is probably worth revisiting as it contains some similar ideas.
Any changes obviously need to ensure that there is no impact on existing info box use. The issue is primarily one that impacts a fairly small number of players who play in franchise T20 leagues. Perhaps the type of league needs to be the division rather than simply by type? So a player who plays for an English county side probably doesn't need that in a new section, but one who has played on the franchise circuit might well benefit from a separate section. I imagine the number of players this applies to will increase, but primarily we're looking at those such as Gayle, McCullum etc... Blue Square Thing (talk) 17:23, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
The consensus on that discussion seems to be to implement the changes Harrias suggested but it doesn't seem to have happened. I think it's a great idea to reduce the amount of information in the infobox and make them collapsible, otherwise you end up with players whose infoboxes are about as long as the actual text of the article itself. Any idea why it didn't get done?
I think the issue with separating domestic and T20 doesn't just give clarity for people who play in a number of franchise leagues, but also domestic players. Like an Australian domestic player with a long career might have played for a couple of states and several BBL teams, so clearly differentiating which teams are which could be helpful (e.g. in Adam Zampa, who has played for two states and three BBL teams). TripleRoryFan (talk) 22:09, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Given any change to use a new template will require editing players we can deal with players on a case-by-case basis. Aus domestic players will need separate sections as the Big Bash teams are separate entities from the state teams. English domestic players I'd keep as is (unless they also play franchise cricket), except the odd instance like KP. We'd need some guideline on what to do with overseas players in English cricket. Some come over for the whole year and play all forms of the game, whilst others just play the T20 competition. For the latter, I'd put the info in the T20 section, but for the former should we just list them in the Domestic teams, or both Domestic and T20? I've resurrected the test template, and am adding @Harrias:'s version for KP. I've been trying to figure out how to do the collapsing and now I've seen his work, I'll attempt to merge the two. Spike 'em (talk) 09:19, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
Kevin Pietersen
Pietersen in 2014
Full name Kevin Peter Pietersen
Born (1980-06-27) 27 June 1980 (age 44)
Pietermaritzburg, Natal Province, South Africa
Role Batsman
Batting style Right-handed
Bowling style Right-arm off break
National side  England
Tests 2005–2014
ODIs 2004–2013
T20Is 2005–2013
Source: Cricinfo, 19 October 2017


Happy to help with this. Worth bearing in mind what our MOS says on infoboxes: "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance." In my opinion, Infobox cricketer has become a bloated mess, and would seriously benefit from a significant trim and overhaul. Ideally, we want a solution that involves as little changing of current articles as possible, and as much done in the code of the infobox as possible. This was part of what derailed my proposed changes before, as it would have involved editing pretty much every cricketer's article to get it to work properly. Harrias talk 10:38, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Just for completeness, I've changed the KP details in the 2nd infobox to appear as it would if we adopted Harrias's version. Will try to work on a version which separates T20 franchises if I get a moment. Spike 'em (talk) 11:10, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
Could we get a look at what a non-international player might look like? And someone who played ages ago - the sort of chap who would only have FC apps and might have only played for one team? They presumably make up a significant proportion of the info boxes we have and it might be nice to see how this sort of thing affects them. Blue Square Thing (talk) 11:27, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, that is one of the main things I'm testing at the moment. I've picked another Surrey player at the start of his career and testing the various infobox formats at User:Spike 'em/sandbox/OP. If you had the name of an olden-days player in mind I'll add them too.Spike 'em (talk) 11:52, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks - much appreciated. Someone like Dick Blaker is worth trying. Or maybe Jack Hubble - old school one team men (or one + the usual odds). Blue Square Thing (talk) 12:56, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

My 2p. The version that lists all the teams is horridly bloated and needs the show/hide idea. The second version is better, but hides his overall stats, which I think should always be visible. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 12:06, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

I can see both sides of that one - no real preference. What I would quite like to be able to see is their FC debut perhaps. Or their FC span anyway - rather like Harrias' version has with the Test span etc... To me that's quite interesting and should probably be visible by default. Blue Square Thing (talk) 12:56, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Also, one way of reducing bloat would be to remove the names of the countries the teams play in. Just go with the chronology. Many of the team names are fairly self-explanatory and for any that aren't, people can click through easily enough. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 12:08, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

The idea with having the country names isn't to give more information but to separate out Twenty20 franchises by country so that they make more sense at a glance than having four different teams with overlapping spans. TripleRoryFan (talk) 20:35, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
How about stuff like family and height. Are we looking to keep it or get rid of it. Pros and cons of both options. Blue Square Thing (talk) 12:56, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't see much use for the height field. KP is 6ft 4. So what? And factor in the edit-warring and anon IP unsourced additions I see in this one field alone makes it feel that it's more trouble that it's worth. The relations though is def. worth keeping, but only if the relations are notable in their own right. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 09:40, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
I'd get rid of the height, nicknames, even full name – that is always given on the first line of the article, so why repeat it in the infobox? Harrias talk 07:20, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable to me - nicknames are particularly prone to munchkinism. There needs to be a field below the title for name I imagine, but otherwise that's fine. Some sort of non-international playing span that's visible always would be my only real want I suppose.
I know it would be a tonne of work, but I'm increasingly thinking that it might be better to just start again and kill the old info box off gradually... Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:18, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
If we're looking at radical changes I think it might be a good idea to completely do away with the player's domestic clubs in the infobox and instead add a table to players' articles similar to the ones that show career stats for football (soccer) players. Really the only things that need to always be visible in a player's infobox are their name, their birth date, their country, their international career span, batting handedness, bowling style and whether they're a batter/bowler/all-rounder/wicket-keeper. Career stats I feel shouldn't be automatically visible, because right now there are a lot of stub articles where the infobox is longer than the actual text in the article because the career stats are shown by default. TripleRoryFan (talk) 09:45, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
I mean most cricketers don't even have international career; also even for international players I feel at least the most important sides should be mentioned, like the domestic first class team played for. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:51, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
I'd be fine with including first-class teams, but when it comes to Twenty20 teams there's just too many of them, especially if the player plays in multiple Twenty20 leagues, to include all of them in the infobox by default. TripleRoryFan (talk) 11:41, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia has many thousands of wikilinks which point to disambiguation pages. It would be useful to readers if these links directed them to the specific pages of interest, rather than making them search through a list. Members of WikiProject Disambiguation have been working on this and the total number is now below 20,000 for the first time. Some of these links require specialist knowledge of the topics concerned and therefore it would be great if you could help in your area of expertise.

A list of the relevant links on pages which fall within the remit of this wikiproject can be found at http://69.142.160.183/~dispenser/cgi-bin/topic_points.py?banner=WikiProject_Cricket

Please take a few minutes to help make these more useful to our readers.— Rod talk 14:43, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

All done. Thanks Rod. Cheers – Ianblair23 (talk) 10:24, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
That's great thanks.— Rod talk 17:45, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Some advice please Rod ,Ianblair23 : As part of this, I've editted Francis Appleyard and changed his place of birth from one DAB to another. All I can find on the internet is that he was born in Clifton, Yorkshire of which there are many! Previously his place of birth was Clifton, South Yorkshire, which is just a redirect to the main Clifton DAB. There are (at least) 2 Cliftons in South Yorkshire! Is it ok to leave it pointing to the more specific DAB, or is it better to remove the link altogether? Spike 'em (talk) 11:43, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
The ideal would be to find a source which makes it clear which Clifton he was born in, failing that I would leave it pointing at the dab page as you have done. For any dab queries try: Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation.— Rod talk 20:00, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I have noticed that there is only one LGBT related cricket biography relating to a former Bermudian cricketer Linda Mienzer. Are there any more cricketers who are related to LGBT? I am not quite sure whether LGBT sportspeople are allowed to play international cricket. Abishe (talk) 07:48, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Lesbian, gay and bi sportspeople are definitely allowed to play international cricket (e.g. Steven Davies and Alex Blackwell), but if you're talking specifically about transgender sportspeople I don't know whether they're allowed to or not. TripleRoryFan (talk) 09:02, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Not notable as a cricketer but Cate McGregor has played club cricket identifying both as male and female. Hack (talk) 09:22, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Not many cricketers, especially internationals, are out. The Steven Davies article has sourced information that when he came out in 2011, he was the first international to do so. That's only 6 years ago. Astonishing really. I'm guessing that'll change with time. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:16, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

And the Blackwell article says she was the second, and that was only 4 years ago! --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:17, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
If anyone knows about any other LGBT cricketer then add him/her to Category:LGBT cricketers to ease up the navigation. Störm (talk) 13:06, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I have added Lynsey Askew, who is married to Alex Blackwell, to the category. Also Elyse Villani, after adding some information and a source to her article confirming that she identifies as gay. Jellyman (talk) 16:22, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

With regard to Linda Mienzer, the sources given indicate that she is gay, but there is absolutely nothing to support the assertion by the article's creator that she is transgender. This is a pretty major thing to get wrong in a BLP, and certainly not something that should be left in with a "citation needed" tag, as had happened. I've now removed the claim from the article. Jellyman (talk) 22:28, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Template for collapsible cricketbox

I think it is useful if we also have a collapsible scorebox for cricket in same way as how it is present for football. This will be very useful, especially in a very big tournaments. I think this can make pages look better instead of using current Limited overs matches template(Or someone can just make that collapsible). Did anyone try to do that or is there any discussion on this anytime? Thanks. Sagavaj (talk) 2:07, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Like this? Harrias talk 07:19, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
30 July
Loughborough Lightning
128/9 (20 overs)
v
Yorkshire Diamonds (H)
85 (17.1 overs)
Loughborough Lightning won by 43 runs
  
 
14:30
Scorecard
Sophie Devine 52 (38)
Jenny Gunn 2/20 (4 overs)
Lauren Winfield 23 (13)
Rebecca Grundy 3/21 (4 overs)
  • Loughborough won the toss and elected to bat
  • Points: Loughborough 3, Yorkshire 0
There's a summary box as well that can be used - but rarely is. In many cases it seems that "articles" about tournaments are little more than an intro paragraph, a bunch of tables and then several rolling lengths of scores. It would be useful to reduce the length of scrolling at least. Blue Square Thing (talk) 08:20, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
Per MOS:COLLAPSE - "Collapsible templates should not conceal article content by default upon page loading". Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 15:16, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
Collapsed or auto-collapsing cells or sections may be used with tables if it simply repeats information covered in the main text (or is purely supplementary, e.g. several past years of statistics in collapsed tables for comparison with a table of uncollapsed current stats). You could count that information as being supplementary; but maybe not, if the description of the tournament is indeed like that hiding it won't fix the problem. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:04, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
Collapsible shouldn't conceal main summary of articles but I think that individual contributions come as secondary and team scores as main content. @Harrias that is correct but why don't we use it more often? Sagavaj (talk) 16:15, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
I would agree that the collapsible templates don't hide anything that is crucial for the article. In almost every case the information in them is supplementary - so MOS:COLLAPSE is met by using them. If someone does score a 300 or take 7/9 or similar then I'd hope that that would be mentioned in the main article - most of the time though it's someone with best bowling of 2/43 and a high score of 32. Not exactly worth a drama.
They probably aren't used more because people don't know about them or prefer to fill articles with data. I imagine. Blue Square Thing (talk) 18:48, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
Or they do know about them and like to adhere to the MOS. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 08:49, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
I think you can do both though. If you take the view that the highest scores etc... are supplemental then the MOS is adhered to. I wouldn't do that for final matches of a competition, but I do think it's utterly reasonable, as a compromise, to suggest that we should be aiming to minimise the amount of scrolling that a user has to do to get from the top of the first fixture to the bottom of the final one.
To be honest, I think it's also possible to take a view that there shouldn't be very long lists of scores presented as score templates. These generally aren't necessary and might be better presented via an external link. I'd much rather see a prose summary than a whole pile of scores - although I understand why that's not done. Blue Square Thing (talk) 17:32, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
I think that both have merit in certain places, it genuinely depends on the scope of the article. Compare Somerset County Cricket Club in 2009, 2016 Women's Cricket Super League, English cricket team in Bangladesh in 2009–10 and 1978 Gillette Cup Final. All written by me, and all either Featured or Good, but all using very different methods to present the score, depending on the scope of the article. Harrias talk 19:40, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
I tend to think the choices made in all those articles are entirely reasonable - and I agree totally that you can have both statistical information and prose. I understand why prose isn't being added to most articles in the sort of way it is in those articles though.
I suppose that my issue is with articles such as 2013 Indian Premier League which is a really interesting article to consider (I don't think anyone who's contributing to this discussion has edited it in a major way by the way). There's actually some pretty decent prose and then you get to the map. And then... I just don't see why the whole section of scores is necessarily valuable enough to need to see all the detail - I counted 14.5 screens worth of scrolling, albeit on a laptop. The WSL one, otoh, needed 1.5 scrolls. 1.5 is fine. It's appropriate. 14.5?!
Is there are one line template at all? Literally one line per match, to replace the need to wrangle with table syntax (which I appreciate many people find difficult) as in the Somerset article? Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:58, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
In articles like 2013 Indian Premier League which was mentioned above, it will help a lot if we can use collapsible boxes or other idea is to move entire scores to a new wiki page and just keep Group Stage summary table that's already present in the page? I don't think that many people will specifically look into each and every score. We can just keep knockouts (play-off stage) I guess. Just a thought. Sagavaj (talk) 00:03, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
There's an argument that this would be better served by an external link. Or possibly by completely collapsing the section other than the knock out games using Template:Collapse. I imagine that there would be objections from people that want to see lots and lots and lots of match scores and no prose in articles though. Blue Square Thing (talk) 10:45, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

All this "does not meet GNG" nonsense

Okay. Let's take this slowly.

"If a topic has received significant1 coverage in reliable sources2 that are independent of the subject3, it is presumed4 to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list."

  • 1 "Significant". A completely nonsense, cloudy term which has no actual meaning and can be interpreted a million different ways by a million different people. The fact that we use the two most trusted online databases to back our information up is completely lost on the people who quote this criterion. This is the epitome of "significant", the modern-day equivalent of keeping everything in books rotting at the back of a shelf.
  • 2 "Reliable". As reliable as any online database edited by dozens of people all over the world can be. Or indeed any secondary source by which we may work, which may have been filled with POV puffery by anyone who may have initially contributed to it. It is well believed that Wikipedia is not enough of a "reliable" source of its own and the fact that people quote it in all kinds of academic disciplines is, in many cases, completely discouraged. Thereby to refer to something as "reliable" in a context which very few people in the public eye can actually regard as "reliable" is complete nonsense.
  • 3 "Independent of the subject". If you need convincing of this then really to have hundreds of contributors all over the world contributing to these databases is evidence enough. The people who maintain these sites volunteer their time to do so just as people spend their time whining about articles on here.
  • 4 "Presumed". A completely nonsense weasel word. It either "is" or "isn't". No "presumed".

GNG is nonsense. Anyone who is unwilling to work to SSG is in gross violation of NPOV, the policy we all learn on our first day on the site. This is disregarding the fact that this guideline is utterly contradicted by WP:SPORTSPERSON, rendering both so-called "guidelines" complete nonsense vis-à-vis each other. Bobo. 11:55, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Okay. Let's take this slowly.
"If a topic has received significant1 coverage in reliable sources2 that are independent of the subject3, it is presumed4 to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list."
  • 1 "Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material.
  • 2 "Reliable" means sources need editorial integrity to allow verifiable evaluation of notability, per the reliable source guideline. Sources may encompass published works in all forms and media, and in any language. Availability of secondary sources covering the subject is a good test for notability. "Sources" should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability. There is no fixed number of sources required since sources vary in quality and depth of coverage, but multiple sources are generally expected. Sources do not have to be available online or written in English. Multiple publications from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability.
  • 3 "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it. For example, advertising, press releases, autobiographies, and the subject's website are not considered independent.
  • 4 "Presumed" means that significant coverage in reliable sources creates an assumption, not a guarantee, that a subject should be included. A more in-depth discussion might conclude that the topic actually should not have a stand-alone article—perhaps because it violates what Wikipedia is not, particularly the rule that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.
GNG is well-defined, and a key part of the overarching WP:N. Anyone who follows it is creating a well-referenced, article that clearly defines its subject and what makes the subject notable. There are plenty of other guidelines which strive to define notability, and these can all be considered, despite sometimes giving contrary advice and information. Harrias talk 17:17, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
GNG is not well-defined, and the fact that we use it in order to breach NPOV is a disgusting blot on our project. This project has become Frankenstein's monster and that is truly, truly saddening. There is no point creating any more articles on any further first-class non-English players as they will just get deleted because "lol gng". The very fact that you are admitting that these POV guidelines "strive to define notability" and clearly fail to do so because they are being blatantly contradicted proves that no good is being done with them. Bobo. 17:37, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Regarding 4, or that it should merged into another article. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:20, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
"GNG is nonsense." - Well try starting a proposal to change it at the GNG page. However, there's more chance of a Test match starting in my nearby park today, once they've cleared the snow off the ground. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 09:16, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm not saying it's changeable. Absolutely not. Things that are broken on Wikipedia are broken for the sake of the project. The fact that it is directly contradicted by other "guideline" pages proves that there is no such thing as consistency. Which is more important in terms of Wikipedia as a project? GNG or NPOV? Bobo. 10:02, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

CricketArchive ...

...at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CricketArchive. If anyone has an opinion one way or the other...

In other news, can anyone confirm or deny whether B. W. Wijetunge (also at AfD) is the Bernard Wijetunge (Jr) who played for St Peter's College and Old Peterites? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.74.175.21 (talk) 23:14, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Deleted! Someone needs to fix the template {{Cricketarchive}} to remove the redlink (it's protected, so I can't). Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 07:54, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Lugnuts I put a template editor edit request for that change. Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:30, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks! Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 08:31, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Bad news. I'm in no doubt that it's notable, even if acceptable citations seem to be hard to find. It seems ludicrous that Bloggs of Blankshire, who played one f/c match in 1891, should be notable but CA is not. JH (talk page) 10:17, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
I agree this is bad news. Ironically, ESPNcricinfo, which I regard as an inferior source of cricket data and stats (though better on news and features), will survive as a standalone article because the various financial machinations that saw it end up in the ownership of Disney and Hearst have been externally recorded and are therefore quotable. Johnlp (talk) 11:00, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Well having an article says nothing about its quality of data. ESPNCricinfo is farrr more popular than cricketarchive - which is only really used by cricket stat nerds. If one wants to know that "it is the most comprehensive.." yadda yadda one can visit the website itself. Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:58, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
If anyone feels strongly about it being restored, ideally with any extra sourcing found beforehand, then please take it to deletion review. Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 12:23, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Just keep in mind that deletion review is not for re-arguing the AfD. Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:27, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Template:Australia national cricket team squad

I recently updated this template but was thinking it's a bit of an unusual one since national teams don't really have a national squad, especially across all three formats. I was wondering what people here thought about it. I was thinking of splitting it into three templates, one each for Tests, ODIs and T20Is and taking the original to TFD but I wasn't sure if there should be three more navboxes inserted in some articles, and even then it would need to be updated ahead of every new tour the team goes on. No other national teams have this navbox, so it could also just be deleted altogether. As it is now it's a bit unwieldy with 31 different players on it. What are other people thinking about it? TripleRoryFan (talk) 08:20, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

As you say national teams don't really have a squad. They may have a squad for a tournament or a tour, but a home side just now doesn't have a picked squad as such - players may be regulars, but they will come in and out of the team as required. Why have any template in that case? More often than not they aren't accurate and are suggesting something exists that actually doesn't. I'd get rid of all of them. Blue Square Thing (talk) 09:53, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
I'd say it looks like OR pretty much. Should be deleted as there's no RS that describe a "Aus nat cricket team squad", and yeah it doesn't make any sense. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:59, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Alright I'll take it to WP:TFD. TripleRoryFan (talk) 11:17, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

If anyone's interested in discussing it at TfD here is a link. TripleRoryFan (talk) 11:52, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Unable to find any record

Of this cricketer - Sumit Sharma. Unable to find him on ESPNcricinfo or in the services squad.... Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:06, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

There are two biographies on Cricinfo for individuals with the same name [3] and [4], neither of which are for this article. Only the latter has played first-class cricket. Doesn't seem to exist on Cricket Archive either. Seeing as the article claims they've played in a recent-ish edition of the Ranji Trophy, but there's no record of them, it looks like a hoax. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 13:27, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
And here's all the players who represented Services in that edition of the Ranji Trophy. He's not one of them. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 13:29, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, Yeah that's what I though so. The creator of the article being "sumit764" makes it likely that the only Sumit Rajendra Sharma is him..have PRODed it. Galobtter (pingó mió) 13:31, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
No probs. I reckon it could be speedy deleted, based on the lack of sources and the false claims in the article (number of innings/centuries, high score, etc). Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 14:17, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

"Sub-minimal sourcing"

Can someone please scan through the lists of articles on single countries' Test cricketer articles and ensure that these articles don't suffer from the same "sub-minimal sourcing" as any other articles which may be argued? Right now I could go to an article such as Fazl-e-Akbar and say "I'm voting this for AfD because there are no sources/external links".

Admittedly I set up Fazl-e-Akbar's article, 13 years ago, unintentionally neglecting to insert the external links, but as per the usual arguments, "Surely 13 years is long enough to find sources!!!" (By which I probably mean "People have had enough time to do so by now..!") There are dozens of other examples for every Test-playing nation. Bobo. 10:35, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Fazl-e-Akbar has a prolific first-class record. He has taken 600 wickets with 37 5W-hauls. Will be a very bad choice if someone AfD him blindly. Störm (talk) 14:49, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
With things being as they are, I wouldn't put it past anyone! Bobo. 16:13, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Is it just me

I'm not crying or anything, just feeling frustrated. Is it just me or am I starting to feel victimized? If we had had a rule all along that only cricketers from majority English-speaking countries had been allowed, this disgusting hacking down of cricket-player biographies would not be happening. What in the name of heck is happening to our project that we're allowing this to happen - by members of our own project. Truly disappointing. It's amusing how quickly this project has gone from "WP:CRIC is way too inclusionist" to precisely the opposite. We've been accused for so long of having an inclusionist cabal - why is the opposite now not true? Pure hypocrisy.

The fact that this is happening after eight years of these articles being on Wikipedia is not even the point. Bobo. 09:27, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

The discussion on the seven Sri Lankan cricketers up for deletion may have taken an interesting turn. Why not spend a bit of time improving the referencing on the huge new batch of first-class cricketers under threat? It could help your cause. Johnlp (talk) 11:17, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
If "please include a reference to CI" had been the solution all along it would have been politely pointed out to us all instead of mass-sending everyone to AfD. Sadly this will presumably still only be seen as "routine aggregated coverage" and still be attacked. Bobo. 11:24, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Maybe. But also converting "External links" to proper inline citations and a reference list might help. Johnlp (talk) 11:28, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Doesn't really make a difference to the content of the articles. If those who were sending the articles to AfD really considered this the problem they would have done this themselves and been cool with it. Bobo. 11:29, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
I am not member of this project and have little or no interest in it. But I hate mass bundling of nomination like is being done now. And hope it will stop. But for the meantime my suggestion is to try to improve any article one is interested in (although we don't own them). To be candid, I hate articles of these players lingering with one citation (which is actually only there to prevent deletion, not build real biography), and Cricket and Rugby players are the typical example of such permanent-stubs. Also I think any player's bio which cannot be expanded beyond such official statistics, is better to left to be deleted, because it is not worthy to write wall of text to argue on that needlessly. –Ammarpad (talk) 11:42, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Perhaps if this had been pointed out to me by the currently fervent deletionist cabal (not including yourself Ammarpad, with the greatest of respect these users have been around longer than you), eight years ago, then this could have been avoided all along. Sadly I have a strange feeling that even if I had included references to both, this would still not have been seen as satisfactory. Bobo. 11:45, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
What I also find interesting is that several of these deleted articles still have, or in some cases already did have before I wrote them, articles of their own on other language Wikipedias. I wonder if other language Wikipedia projects have different article inclusion guidelines or anything as nonsense and flimsy as GNG to fall back on. Surely in the light of all this rule-buggery, the only relevant policy (considering that GNG is as much a guideline as CRIN or any other) is NPOV... Bobo. 11:47, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Bobo192 For me, sadly all are going to have similar fate. All work written by you is not yours or mine but it is in public domain. With time policy change so the criteria. You and I can't defend them forever so I will advise leave them as they are. Whatever people want to do will do without looking at CI or CA. You had done your job well thats it. Störm (talk) 14:39, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Reading those two multi-article AfDs, it appears that WP:V is being brought in and I'm afraid many of our articles have no defence against that. Johnlp is right that all articles MUST provide inline citations. External links are the same as "additional reading" and don't qualify, as I've pointed out in the past. Anyway, I'm on holiday and I'm pissed off with this site so I'm away again. Jack | talk page 01:19, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Need to AfD

Anyone having free time may nominate this bundle of articles or either redirect to T10 League. They are:

I guess they can all be redirected as possible search terms. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 15:22, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
I also think redirecting them will be better. If other people agree then I will redirect them. Störm (talk) 10:25, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Also agree with redirection. Not notable enough for separate articles, but may be searched for and can be covered in the context of the competition. Jellyman (talk) 11:08, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I've redirected them all. See how long that lasts... Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 14:34, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I've also been following this one after Pakhtoons and Tigers turned up as links to dab. Is T10 the best destination for Bengal Tigers (sports team)? We also have a Bengal Tigers (Cricket team) redirecting to Celebrity Cricket League. Certes (talk) 10:10, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Both of those should probably redirect to Bengal Tigers, and I'll add a sports teams section to that . I'll fix it later. Joseph2302 (talk) 16:42, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes, if there are other teams with that name, then change it to the dab page. Didn't think of that! Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 20:35, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

CricketArchive and CRIN

I haven't much time to spare as I'm not at home but, looking in, I see all sorts of trouble for many cricket articles. There are two multi-article AfDs which will probably remove a large number. My position is and always has been that I absolutely support WP:V and there is no excuse for failure to provide verification. My reading of those two AfD pages tells me that a new strategy is unfolding and that WP:V is coming in as the heavy artillery to replace the tired old notability thing. I'm not going to take part in either discussion but as far as I'm concerned, anything which fails WP:V (or WP:OR or WP:NPOV for that matter) must be deleted and that is a view I've always held. Notability is different and is nowhere near as urgent. It looks as if all these players are subject to WP:BLP which makes it even more important that verification is provided.

I notice in particular a view by BU Rob13 that we should "delete all which are sourced only to CricketArchive, which may not even be a reliable source and certainly doesn't satisfy WP:BLP". I am the main author of early cricket on here (anything up to 1825) and I've said many times that as as far as early cricket is concerned, I will not touch CricketArchive (CA) with a bargepole. Neither, for that matter, will I use anything from ESPNcricinfo except occasionally when one of their narratives adds a bit of weight, but I never use their statistical stuff in an 18th century article. Other CRIC members, who work on the game's later history and on the present day, swear by CA.

WP:CRIN is under fire again but none of its critics have actually proposed a solution or suggested any re-wordings. CRIN is not the actual guideline, of course. That is NCRIC which is really no more than a summary that equates to NBASE, NFOOTY and the rest of NSPORTS. CRIN provides the detail which a serious cricket editor might need so it is more of a help desk than an actual guideline.

We need to assemble ideas on how to improve CRIN (and, thereby, NCRIC) if it really is a problem. It might be that CRIN only seems to be a problem because of some people's interpretation and it could be that the real problem per se is one or both of GNG or NSPORTS. As for CricketArchive, we need to consider its reliability and whether it is appropriate as an article's main source given the needs of WP:V. Note that WP:CRIN does give warning about usage of the statistical sites and spells out the need for book sources.

I propose a formal discussion here about both CRIN and CricketArchive. This isn't just a matter for WP:CRIC and I would like to invite the following people who may not be CRIC members but have taken part in the two multi-article AfD discussions: User:Aftabuzzaman, User:Ammarpad, User:BU Rob13, User:Dee03, User:Inter&anthro, User:Johnpacklambert, User:L3X1, User:NukeThePukes, User:Power~enwiki, User:Reyk, User:Rhadow, User:Saqib, User:Störm, User:TheGracefulSlick and User:Wajidshahzeed.

Can we please have a rule that this discussion is used in a positive way so that people express a view about the suitability of CRIN and CA for verification purposes; and put forward any practical solutions. No ranting and raving about CRIC being a law unto itself, on the one hand, or about the destruction of CRIC on the other. Could any admins who are involved please ensure that people discuss the issues in a positive and respectful way?

I'll start the ball rolling.

In my considered opinion, neither of CA or ESPN should be the main source of any cricket article. Furthermore, CA should never be used at all in any article about people or events before 1826 (there is a valid reason for that date) and only with caution in any article between then and 1863 (again, there is a reason for that date). The same applies to ESPN re statistical material but its narrative pages may be used with caution if and only if it can add weight to a book source. From 1864 onwards, I believe both sites are semi-reliable but as such they are unsuitable to be used as main source and should only be included as secondary sources to add weight or to provide a reader with, say, a scorecard (although CA is now a subscription site). There is and never has been a substitute for book sources in cricket and, lets be honest, those two sites are themselves tertiary sources just like Wikipedia.

Turning to CRIN, I do not believe there are any fundamental issues with it but it is not carved in stone and it is amended a few times each year. If some people interpret it wrongly that is their problem. One thing I will point out is that there are people in CRIC (especially myself and Lugnuts) who frequently use CRIN at AfD to get articles DELETED because they fail CRIN. That seems to pass unnoticed. As for NCRIC, it insists like CRIN that a player must have made at least one top-level appearance. It does not seek to supersede any other guideline and it merely says that anyone who has played in a top-class match is presumed to be notable by CRIC. How it is interpreted is not the guideline's problem because it equates to the other main NSPORTS SSGs in terms of the one-match criterion. If all of these SSGs are wrong, then an RfC is needed at NSPORTS overall or at GNG overall.

Okay, that's it. I will let you all have your say now. I may not be back on here for several days or more. Jack | talk page 08:43, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

For modern players, book sources are unlikely to provide much information, and so basing an article on ESPNcricinfo (match reports, prosaic player biographies etc.) is perfectly acceptable. Obviously, per WP:ONESOURCE, we should be providing at least two sources irrespective, particularly as they will almost all be BLPs for this era. Harrias talk 09:02, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. We've been doing fine for the last 13 years. Anyone who disagrees with CRIN is being disruptive to the aims of the encyclopedia and is trying to destroy a project we've been working on for all this time. Anyone who disagrees with the guideline of CRIN also disagrees with the fundamental rules of BIO and NPOV.
If the same thing were happening with NFL, NBA, NHL, or MLB players, these users would probably be either castigated, Wikiproject-banned, or permabanned for disruption. The fact that any source will have a non-zero unreliability rate unfortunately has to be taken as read if we're working on the basis of having to work by secondary sources.
We have become Frankenstein's monster, destroying that which we love. And that is disappointing. Bobo. 10:53, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
The fact that so many people have said, "Wahh! CRIN is way too inclusive!!" and not been able to provide a single, NPOV, workable solution is equally disgusting. "Okay, what's your solution?" "Um... dunno." I still stand by my belief that GNG is biased nonsense which we are attaining anyway by working by CRIN. And again, the fact that the two main notability guidelines (GNG and BIO are as much guidelines as CRIN) are completely contradictory is disappointing. The only policy we should be working towards is NPOV, the policy we learn on our first day on the site. And this has been grossly overlooked. Bobo. 10:59, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

It is a shame to see 13 years of work dying a death of a thousand cuts (the stream of deletion notifications on User talk:Bobo192 is a crying shame, and verging on harassment) but perhaps lists of players will be a better solution for the more obscure ones about which it is difficult to find further information? (I'm sure such information would be turned up, if enough effort was spent to look in the right places: often offline sources in a distant country in another language. No doubt many of the "one match wonders" are prominent members of their community, notable in other ways.)

I wonder if the same issue applies to other sports. There must be plenty of people who appears only once for a major team, with no other claim of notability, sourced to a entry in a so-called statistical database. For example, Jon Ratliff? Joe Hietpas? George Washburn? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.198.252 (talk) 11:37, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

As I've said, if the same were to happen in any major team sport in the American sphere, I have zero doubt that the people involved in sending the players to AfD would be severely castigated and topic-banned. Thank you for finding, on such short notice, examples of players with such a record as I've been searching for all this time. Bobo. 11:40, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
If I may apply a kind of "six degrees of separation" example, C. Sandanayake appeared alongside notable cricketer Indika Gallage in his only first-class appearance. Would Indika Gallage be able to verify this cricketer's name? "Ah yes I remember that guy, his name was..." (I'm stretching for the sake of verification but I hope my thoughts are understood...) If the only rationale for some delete votes is "Don't know the player's first name", this is depressing. Bobo. 11:50, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
  • We are in this jam because we have a nation of a particular size speaking a language other than English for which no one anticipated the consequences when WP:CRIN or WP:NFOOTY was invented. Compare Sri Lanka with Trinidad & Tobago, which doesn't consider intranational play first level. And they publish in English. Now we have a stack of players, mostly from Sri Lanka, who played once only. Truly, they are not notable, but for the sake of uniformity fans want them in Wikipedia. The articles on the club teams are short; list these stats-only players there. That includes the ones for whom we know their names but have no newspaper articles. If the team article gets too long, make a List of Colts single-appearance players. Convert existing articles to REDIRECTS. Require a citation per entry on the page. The minimum standard for a standalone article should be a textual article supported by a statistical entry. No stats-only articles. Publish the standard for the team articles and let the bad articles migrate to the team articles over a period of years. Admit that this is a divergence from the standard WP rules. Document the fact that this agreement was reached with editors outside the cricket sphere so that future arguments can be settled quickly. One of the attempts earlier to stymie this effort was a call for the team articles and lists to be inclusive from the start. A permanent record would stop the argument of the hour. Rhadow (talk) 13:26, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Everyone understands the consequences, and it is the same approach used for other sports. (That said, I can see some merit in redirecting very short articles to comprehensive list articles instead. Are you going to help us to create them?)
The Trinidad and Tobago national cricket team plays first-class cricket (and no doubt there are some T&T players with only one appearance), but its players can play Test cricket as part of the multinational West Indies cricket team (a situation which is pretty unusual, and a result of geography and history). It also has a population of just 1.5 million. Sri Lanka has around 20 million, large enough to sustain domestic first-class cricket.
The point is that playing in a first-class or List A cricket match creates a presumption of notability, and that sources almost certainly exist to demonstrate that conclusively if only one knew where to look.
Wrong. We are in this situation because nobody can follow NPOV. This isn't a "divergence". This is a disgusting violation. "If a team article gets too long"? We wouldn't include lists of players in a team article anyway, these would go on a page such as List of Colts Cricket Club players, not of "Random list of players which we've cobbled together, against the principles of NPOV, based on those we've decided to delete because we're flouting basic guidelines". We've had these guidelines for as long as WP:CRIC has existed - a single first-class cricketing appearance, and I believe Jack or any other long-term participants will back me up on that. The fact that people turn up over ten years later and say, "I'm not happy"... where were they ten years ago when these things were being decided? What is their NPOV solution with regard to CRIN? (GNG and BIO are both guidelines so that is not a viable argument, GNG is merely an excuse to violate NPOV). Bobo. 13:34, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
@Bobo192: What makes you say that those who don't like how inclusive WP:NCRIC is are in breach of WP:NPOV? Harrias talk 13:45, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure I understand your question. Either everyone with a first-class appearance is notable by CRIN (by way of NPOV), or nobody is. GNG is as much a guideline as CRIN, the fact that GNG completely contradicts what is present on other guideline pages is not relevant in this situation although in any normal situation it would nullify both arguments equally. Bobo. 13:49, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Sorry Bobo192, I have amended my last post to add "WP:NCRIC" in, so hopefully it makes sense now. I just don't understand your argument that wanting a less inclusive guideline breaches our neutrality policy, which primarily refers to article content, not inclusion criteria. Harrias talk 14:01, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Methinks there are some who would rather argue this topic than come to an agreement. One editor's name appears 29 times on this page. I propose alternate debate rules here. After you make your case, keep quiet until you make a single summary argument at the end. Rhadow (talk) 14:35, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
(ec)Flying visit. I agree with Rhadow that all should state their case and then withdraw until making a closing statement at the end. That is how a discussion like this is done in a professional environment and we should try to be professional too.
Having said that, I'm somewhat concerned by a comment I read above that the only policy we should work towards is NPOV. That is not so because NPOV is one of three core content policies along with WP:V and WP:OR. Site rules are explicit in stating that "these policies jointly determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles, and, because they work in harmony, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another". WP:V is essential because it is the machinery by which the other two can be identified and WP:V is the big issue in numerous cricket articles which do not provide citations. WP:V signposts notability because, without it, there is no way of knowing if a subject is notable or not. Jack | talk page 15:15, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Okay. Maybe I'm slightly off with that one. However, NPOV is the policy we learn on the first day of participation on the site, and is the easiest one to follow in principle. Bobo. 17:42, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
This RfC? Which also states in the closing notes - "As with the RfC on secondary school notability, this should not be an invitation to flood AfD with indiscriminate or excessive nominations" Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 15:11, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Can also see User talk:TonyBallioni, where interesting discussion is there, and he says the close was extremely bad. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:54, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Per WP:PAYWALL, part of the WP:Verifiability policy, a source shouldn't be discounted because it's difficult to access. If you're going to use CA as a source, cite the actual page you used. This has been a core part of Wikipedia from the beginning. Hack (talk) 15:33, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Apart from Cricinfo, CricketArchive we should find tertiary sources in addition to the above websites. I believe sources like CricHQ, PCB, Cricbuzz Howstat would be very useful and effective in the WikiProject Cricket. I sometimes refer to CricHQ and PCB to create articles related to Cricket. Bobo deserves the credit for his great efforts in creating these biographical articles related to cricket. This is due to a major misunderstanding between WikiProject Cricket and those who are not part of the WikiProject Cricket. Soccerway, Footballdatabase etc are some of the football databases that I have come across when reviewing new articles related to footballers who are not much popular in the sporting world. But why, Cricinfo and CricketArchive have been ignored by the AfD nominators. Abishe (talk) 19:02, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
If these sites have anything pre-21st century about non-Test cricket, chances are that they have nicked it from Cricketarchive or Cricinfo. Tintin 01:44, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

We need to revise where appropriate and then hold an RfC to determine consensus on whether the revision meets community standards. We especially need to get to the bottom of whether experts agree that CricketArchive is a reliable source **as a priority**. Surely ACS or some of its more media-friendly writers have covered the site in their publications? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 16:51, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

As I wrote in the Cricket Archive article before it was deleted, ACS's website talks in its Records section of the "unmatched database held by CricketArchive", and elsewhere it mentions how its own members' research is fed into CA and "helps CricketArchive to... keep their world-renowned database as accurate and up-to-date as possible". Cricket Archive's Philip Bailey, who has a WP article, has won the ACS Statistician of the Year twice (once jointly) and long-time CA co-ordinator Peter Griffiths won it once. Johnlp (talk) 23:29, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
The ridiculous thing is that, for old England cricketers, Bailey et.al's Who's Who of Cricketers would pass the WP:V criteria easily. Yet Cricketarchive, which is maintained by the same person, with the same but updated+corrected info won't be treated as authoritative. One problem here is that the rules specified for one area of knowledge would not apply equally in every area. There is a second, more obvious problem, but I will leave that out of here. Tintin 10:30, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Precisely. Yet we have some people contributing to this debate who write something as patently false as "CA no more reliable than a blog" (And such unhelpful ad hominems as complaining that an unnamed person's name appears "29 times" on this page. If Bobo was meant, it was only 20 at that time. But this is an active Wikiproject talk page with 13 sections, so who is counting.)
  • My proposal is that we scap the cricket notability guidelines fully, and make all cricket players either pass or fall on the general notability guidelines. This would free us from lots of articles with no useful information on players, and focus our coverage only on the players who have received significant coverage in reliable sources, which is what we should be creating articles on in Wikipedia anyway. On another note, Wikipedia is not built on primary sources, but secondary sources, and this important point seems not well grasped by those above.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:31, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
That's not really a "proposal". That's selectively deleting 13 years of history based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT. We do not use primary sources in our articles and to suggest we do so is not just clumsy but downright deceptive. If you wish to hack articles down because of this criterion then please do. But to turn up after 13 years and declare that you don't like the way we do things is... suspicious. Bobo. 04:02, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm trying really hard to stay out of this debate but you've been complaining non-stop that nobody's coming up with an alternative to CRIN. Whenever some does present an alternative you ignore it, start straw manning them, accusing them of IDONTLIKEIT and implying there's something untoward happening. "To turn up after 13 years" implies there's something wrong with someone having an opinion different to a consensus from 13 years ago. The wikiproject doesn't own any of these articles, so if they go against what the rest of wikipedia does then obviously something should be done about it. TripleRoryFan (talk) 05:37, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
What the rest of Wikipedia does? Name a single team-sport Wikiproject which works on different subject-specific article inclusion criteria. If someone came along and ordered that an American football, baseball, ice hockey, basketball, soccer player were deleted, they would be derided and probably ostracized from the project. Bobo. 06:13, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
If you found an NFL player who doesn't meet the GNG and you took it to AfD you'd get the same thing happening as is happening for cricket players now. TripleRoryFan (talk) 06:14, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
No I wouldn't. I'd work on the same subject-specific article inclusion criteria which have done no harm over the time they have existed. Please find such an article of an NFL player which does not meet either subject-specific inclusion guidelines or the general notability guideline to prove your point. Bobo. 06:19, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
I can't because I'd wager there aren't any, that's my point. CRIN is a far more inclusive guideline than the respective guidelines for most other sports. TripleRoryFan (talk) 06:29, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
There aren't any short articles on single-appearance NFL players, sourced to what could be pejoratively termed purely statistical coverage in a database? (Or, in other words, an independently compiled and reliable secondary source.) How about Alex Espinoza, or Phillip Riley? Given they played in the US, no doubt some additional sources could be found (just like for the baseball players mentioned above; and the same is true for these first-class cricket players, but you'd need to work laboriously through offline paper sources in a foreign counry in a language other than English).
A single appearance in a match which is seen as "major" (or whatever term you wish to use). Identical to every other team sporting Wikiproject, no more or less "inclusive" or "exclusive". Bobo. 06:30, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
"participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level" not every full member country of the ICC has fully professional first-class competitions, so not every first-class cricket match meets the same criteria as in other sporting codes. TripleRoryFan (talk) 06:35, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Trying to think of what countries' players I have added to based specifically on league competitions. England, South Africa, Pakistan, India, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka. Do all of these count? Bobo. 06:38, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
I never said anything about your articles specifically, I'm just trying to make the case that generally a single first-class appearance isn't necessarily grounds to say a cricketer meets NSPORTS in the same way that other sportspeople do. If it was, they'd probably all meet GNG and we wouldn't be having this big issue. TripleRoryFan (talk) 06:47, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
In which case this is not about NSPORTS or CRIN but a violation of NPOV. Bobo. 06:49, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
I have no idea why NPOV is relevant to this, please explain. TripleRoryFan (talk) 07:01, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
The trouble I have with saying GNG prevails over CRIN is that both are guidelines of what I see as identical standing. I feel the only policy we should be working towards is one of compete neutrality and the easiest one to use is the policy we all learn on our first day. Apart from this I don't see how any of our articles would be seen to fail GNG based on the fact that we need to ensure we include reliable sources independent of the subject, which - we all hope - all first-class cricketers' articles do. Bobo. 07:06, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
WP:NPOV says "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." That's talking about neutrality in article content, not holding different guidelines in equal weight. TripleRoryFan (talk) 07:11, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Which, we probably all hope, is what every cricket biography article does, whether it be an article based on a player who has made a single first-class appearance or an article based on a player who made 200 - presenting facts neutrally. I seem to remember writing an article about a guy who made 105(?) runs in the only List A innings in which he batted. I would love to know what the press made of that innings at the time! Bobo. 07:15, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
The hard thing of course is maintaining NPOV on articles of players who do have exceptional statistical records, based on what secondary sources will have said about them in the years since their records have been available/present/made. Bobo. 07:17, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
I understand what NPOV means for writing cricket articles, but I don't understand why you're saying it's relevant for inclusion criteria because I don't see the connection. TripleRoryFan (talk) 07:20, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
As I see it, it is unfair to say "GNG trumps SSG because..." when GNG is as much a guideline as any sports-specific criterion, and the only policy in question is NPOV. Coming back to the original topic, NPOV should ensure that we use all of our usual secondary sources and ensure to cite appropriately. Bobo. 07:23, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't think there's any reason to suggest that all guidelines are automatically on the same level as each other. Of course we should use secondary sources and cite appropriately, but that's WP:V not WP:NPOV, and NPOV as far as I see doesn't have any bearing on whether to include particular articles on Wikipedia or not. TripleRoryFan (talk) 07:33, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
I would have hoped that by using our current guidelines and sources we are adequately meeting WP:V, otherwise there are a dangerous amount of non-Test playing first-class cricketer articles under threat - especially those who have only made a few first-class appearances. Thank you for helping me to remain rational about this, TripleRoryFan. I'm trying to see this from all sides, I promise. I've been promising to step back for the longest time but am finding myself unfortunately involved again. Bobo. 07:37, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Summary

  • This is going nowhere and I suggest closure on the basis of status quo.
I agree with the points made above by Harrias and Dweller about the online sources. ESPN is of course acceptable in terms of its narrative content and, as it can safely be assumed that it does verify content, its statistical information is also acceptable (subject to editor preference, especially re period). CA is more difficult to assess and Dweller is right that it should be discussed separately by those who know the subject (and my take on it is clearly expressed above so go ahead without me). Re the ACS, I know this is unorthodox but I can tell you that my ACS contacts agree CA is fine for 20th and 21st century cricket; but be careful before 1900 and increasingly so the further back you go (I personally won't use it at all before 1840 and with caution between then and 1863).
One point that does need to be made is that CricketArchive and ESPNcricinfo are INDEPENDENT of each other and of all other publications.
It would not be possible to "scrap" NCRIC without scrapping NSPORTS as a whole. NCRIC stands on the clearly-stated rule that a cricketer must have made one top-level appearance. This very same rule, subject to differences in wording and presentation, is equally the basis of WP:NGRIDIRON, WP:NFOOTY, WP:NAFL, WP:NBASE, WP:NHOOPS, WP:NHOCKEY, WP:RLN and WP:NRU. These are ALL of the other team sports in which major team v. team matches are held. The individual sports differ, of course, but the sentiment is the nevertheless the same. Therefore, NCRIC complies with the rest of NSPORTS and to suggest scrapping it is not feasible. CRIN is nothing more than the detail of NCRIC and it is managed to the extent that is reviewed and amended every few months. There is no doubt that local consensus favours CRIN as written and revised because it is a useful document; no doubt that sitewide consensus favours NSPORTS as written unless and until someone succeeds with an RfC to the contrary.
I don't think this discussion has produced anything new. Same old, same old. I feel that I've wasted my time as usual and, looking around, I have the impression that this site (not just the cricket part) is sinking fast. This is where I get off. Jack | talk page 10:44, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you Jack. I was working on a response at exactly the same time you were. I've had some time to sleep and think and am probably a little less frustrated now than I was then. As you have said, CRIN is not "awfully inclusive", it is exactly the same amount of inclusive as every single other sport-specific guideline. I don't see why anyone interested in cricket and interested in improving the coverage of cricket would even want to participate here any longer as long as these people who keep changing the rules we work to every ten seconds to breach NPOV are doing so. And until someone comes along with new subject-specific guidelines which don't breach NPOV, there is no reason for either me nor Jack, as we have both poured our heart and soul into the site for the last 13 years, to do so. This is no longer a project but an agenda. Bobo. 11:05, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Timeline history of international cricket

Template:Timeline history of international cricket has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Frietjes (talk) 15:47, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/C. Sandanayake

Hello. I have suggestion regarding biographies under discussion. I suggest we should redirect them say to List of Indian cricketers for whom we currently can't find coverage. Störm (talk) 09:16, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

  • I agree with this idea and I suggest to give more priorities to the abandoned biographies of cricketers who played during the ancient era. Later, we can add current cricketers to these lists. This is the only way that those articles which have been nominated for AfD can be managed in this manner. Abishe (talk) 10:37, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

What a stupid suggestion. Or did I miss the part where there's only ever been a dozen Indian cricketers? Fools running roughshod over a project they have neither contributed to, nor respect the democratic process it was once run with. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.29.217.239 (talk) 20:29, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

WP:NOTDEMOCRACY TripleRoryFan (talk) 00:30, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
The IP contributor has a point. There already is, for example, List of Madhya Pradesh cricketers on which CE Holkar already appears; ordering lists by teams rather than countries stops them from getting too unwieldy, and is how this project has been working for a long time. Johnlp (talk) 23:25, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Hello Johnlp -- List by team works fine for all the single appearance players. If they played twice ... for different teams ... then you have double work on your hands. Rhadow (talk) 00:55, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

These lists already exist, though. And if we're talking about players who haven't played much cricket, most of them only one first-class match, then odds are they only played for one team. TripleRoryFan (talk) 01:42, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
@Johnlp: For example, if 'A' played two List-A matches for two team but still we can't find anything about him then where redirect should go? List of Indian cricketers will work as central list and we can easily redirect. I think this still need more discussion but that was my last attempt to resolve the issue within WP:NCRIC. Thanks. Störm (talk) 07:14, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
@Störm: I'm rather confused by your talk of "redirects". Are you suggesting that we remove the current text from the individuals' articles and substitute a redirect to these new list articles? If so, and taking CE Holkar as an example, you would have a bluelink in a "List of Indian cricketers" which, if you clicked on it, would take you, via the redirect that would then be where CE Holkar's current, rather lacklustre article used to be, straight back to the "List of Indian cricketers". That doesn't seem logical or useful. And why create a new list of literally thousands of names when there are already, for many teams, more manageable lists, such as the one cited above, that include bluelinks to individuals who have articles and redlinks to those who don't? If someone played for more than one team, they appear in two or more lists, for sure, but in any case they'd probably be a bluelink anyway. Johnlp (talk) 21:33, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
@Johnlp: I'm saying don't blue-link on List of Indian cricketers but rather on the by team lists. So, when you click on them on by team list they will take you to 'List of Indian cricketers' where we will have some details about that player. On the other hand, if we don't have such list then we will only have names on by team lists and can't redirect one name to 'two lists' when cricketer played for two teams. Störm (talk) 15:50, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
@Störm: Ah, thank you, I see what you're trying to do, and applaud you for trying to find a compromise in these sadly ill-tempered discussions. I fear that the lists you propose will, however, be too unwieldy to be useful and too colossal to construct; I suspect also that aggregating the information that's in the standalone articles won't make it any the less susceptible to challenge from the deletionists, though it may be easier to defend if it is in bulk. Johnlp (talk) 22:22, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
@Störm: But if two key forces in recent AfDs agree with this compromise (Reyk, Rhadow) then there is a ray of hope. Otherwise, this battle will never stop. I don't think it is colossal to construct rather it is very easier, whenever a player is in danger of deletion we can merge/redirect his content in this list and can break if it becomes too long. Störm (talk) 07:03, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
I do my best to AGF, but I do also wonder whether this isn't pandering too much to the demands of people whose interest in this wikiproject has not been apparent until very recently. Johnlp (talk) 00:12, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
If people had been able to stick by insultingly easy to understand guidelines, this whole mess wouldn't be happening right now. Bobo. 10:14, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
Clearly they aren't insultingly easy Bobo192, otherwise we wouldn't currently have this conversation, the one above, another at Wikipedia talk:Notability and yet another at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports). In addition to that, a variety of AfDs, the majority of which lately have gone against what you claim are insultingly easy to understand guidelines. So sure, fight your corner. But don't continue to fight your corner by insulting and questioning the motives of those who argue against you. Harrias talk 10:44, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
We appear to have been doing fine for the last 13 years. Who does that reflect worse on? Those who have been following guidelines or those who decide they can't understand them? As I've said above, this is no longer a project, it's an agenda. Bobo. 10:49, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Island Cricket at AfD

Please see this discussion. Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 08:40, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Articles requiring attention

Just in case anyone has time on their hands, there are quite a few cricket BLPs requiring attention. There are 438 BLP articles requiring further sourcing and 13 marked as unsourced. Overall, 14% of the project's articles are tagged for attention at the moment. Hack (talk) 03:42, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Hack. I've not seen this list before - it's very useful. I've sourced about half a dozen of the unsourced BLPs. Poor Monte Lynch! Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 12:54, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, this week's update shows that there are now three unsourced articles left, though the number of articles requiring further sources has gone up. Hack (talk) 11:46, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Asia Cup page move

Please see this discussion. Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 08:50, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Steve Smith page move

Would anyone object if I move Steve Smith (cricketer, born 1989) to Steve Smith (cricketer) as he is clearly the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC as far as cricket is concerned? Steve Smith (cricketer, born 1961) did play 3 Tests and 28 ODIs, but is not as significant as the second-best Test batsman ever. I think a similar move was made for James Anderson. Spike 'em (talk) 10:29, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

What does Ricky Ponting have to with this? Harrias talk 09:58, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Quality over quantity! Spike 'em (talk) 10:05, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Makes sense. I see that the Burnley Brian has always been at James Anderson (cricketer), although there was a bold move in June 2016 to move it to the year dab (which was moved back). Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 10:32, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, I checked again and saw it was only ever temporary. For some reason I only ever noticed the move back.Spike 'em (talk) 10:38, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
I agree entirely (actually only noticed that he was at the born page just the other day), but in the past I've asked about "partial primary topic" about players like Alan Keith Davidson, who was at a born page until Blackjack moved him to (IMO) the current worse middle name page. That discussion was here. I think that partial primary topic disambiguation should be used in these few clear cut cases, with hatnotes to the secondary articles. The-Pope (talk) 11:01, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I've made a WP:RM as it seems the redirect to DAB is getting in the way Spike 'em (talk) 11:26, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

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