WT:Notability#A reliable source for open source

I am raising this issue here for comments since I see it as an issue that is coming up indirectly at AfD discussions and related questions of notability. It relates to what is called churnalism, which is the proliferation of reproduction of press releases from universities and companies. One example is the 58 articles listed [https://acs.altmetric.com/details/167943289/news here], mainly IMO because the Internet likes cats. (I am using that example as I don't want to denegrate the work of others.) I do not consider those 58 articles as WP:SIGCOV, it is WP:TOOSOON.

When it comes to BLP academic notability, churnalism articles are generally discounted or ignored, the key test is peer recognition. While I have often seen them ignored for proposed products or new science papers, I have also seen them invoked. I think opinions plus some general edits to the various notability pages might be useful. (Apologies if there is already material and/or an essay or three that I have missed.) Ldm1954 (talk) 11:49, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

:N.B., there is an essay WP:CHURNALISM which is relevant, but not exactly on this. It could be expanded. Ldm1954 (talk) 12:27, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

::Think there is one existing aspect of notability that can already be used, in that a burst of coverage is not considered a factor for notability, but enduring coverage. Churnalism is not enduring.

::The other factor that could be argued is that when there is clearly one primary source that dozens of other sources have reported on (this is not limited to scientific fields), those additional sources are not independent nor secondary coverage generally if they are just repeating the points of the primary source. (I have seen good secondary sources discuss the impact that the primary source describes in a larger manner, transforming that information, which is fine). We don't use primary sources for determining notability. Masem (t) 12:35, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

:Thanks for raising this issue. WP:CHURNALISM is an issue in many topic areas and I think it's inevitable that we'll need to confront it across the board. For now, I've only seen reactions on a source-by-source basis. The problem with that it fails to address the problem across the board. It also fails to consider that some sources do put out low-quality fact-checked reporting mixed in with low-quality clickbait for engagement. And that's going to become more and more the norm, as the journalism industry suffers economic hardship. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:37, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

::It's already in the guideline: Wikipedia:Notability#Notable topics have attracted attention over a sufficiently significant period of time. {{xt|Brief bursts of news coverage may not sufficiently demonstrate notability.}} It doesn't matter whether that's technically churnalism (e.g., a quickly copyedited press release) or just the thing that everyone independently decided to write about last Thursday (e.g., "Look at what she wore to the gala") and never thought about again afterwards. If it's only in the news for one week, it's not notable/doesn't qualify for a separate article. (Something that is only in the media briefly could still be appropriate to include as a paragraph in a larger article.)

::I assume this relates to the dispute at Superwood, which the OP has sent to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Superwood, and the complaint the OP filed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Aggressive editing by CresiaBilli. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:18, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

:::While that is one example, I can think of many other instances in AfC/AfD/PROD from science press releases; as in the example I mentioned earlier, it is not hard to get 50 or so hits. As the other comments above indicate, I am not alone in my concerns. While WP:Sustained as you invoke is relevant, people have responded by claiming WP:Sigcov. I think the policy you point to could be usefully reinforced by being more specific, including mentioning churnalism. Ldm1954 (talk) 01:45, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

::::A bunch of articles reiterating a press release is not significant coverage, because those aren't secondary or independent sources. Masem (t) 03:12, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::SIGCOV is about how much (relevant) content the source contains. SIGCOV is not about whether the source is otherwise useful or any good. A press release, like any other type of source, can be full of useless fluff and have no SIGCOV. A press release, also like any other type of source, can also be full of relevant and encyclopedically appropriate facts, in which case it's SIGCOV (but still worthless for proving notability due to its non-SIGCOV failings). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:32, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::To expand: Press releases can be independent of the source. We tend to think of them as "buy our product" or "look at what I did", but that's not the only use.

::::::To give a real-world example, the most recent press release from Consumer Reports (which prefers to call them "news releases") is https://www.consumerreports.org/media-room/press-releases/2025/05/consumer-reports-investigation-uncovers-krogers-widespread-data-collection-of-loyalty-program-members-to-create-secret-shopper-profiles/ The subject is a US retailer named Kroger and their privacy practices. Consumer Reports and their press release is WP:INDY of Kroger. It's still not proof of notability, but it's an independent source if you want to expand Kroger#Controversies.

::::::What the OP is saying is that if Consumer Reports investigates a problem, and proactively provides information about the problem to the news media, then any resulting/related news articles should be ignored as worthless churnalism. I think you'll find that the role of press releases and publicity in the news is more complicated than that simplistic judgement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:41, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

::Specific suggestion (wordsmithing possible). After the paragraphs in Wikipedia:Notability#Notable topics have attracted attention over a sufficiently significant period of time add:

::Similarly, reproductions or close paraphrasing of press releases from, for instance, companies or other organizations (aka churnalism) does not count as sustained coverage. This is particularly the case because in most cases these are not secondary or independent sources.

::My intent is to include some specific wording that can be used in WP:NPP, perhaps eventually be added to the tagging scripts. At the moment I argue that there is a gap.Ldm1954 (talk) 03:38, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

:::So... the answer kinda depends on what job you think the sources are supposed to be doing for us.

:::If your idea is "Wikipedia shouldn't have an article on ____ unless real-world, for-profit businesses thought that spending at least n hours paying someone to research the subject, because spending money on reporters' time is how the newspaper proves that it's really worthwhile and important content", then of course you're going to object to "shortcuts" like reading information supplied by the subject.

:::If your idea is "Wikipedia shouldn't have an article on _____ unless professional editors decided that ____ to give them space in their publication", then the method by which the article gets written becomes much less important. What matters in that model is that the editor/publisher chose to have something in their newspaper/magazine/whatever about _____. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:30, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

I've got no objection to the suggested wording, but feel that this is fixing the smaller problem (because scientific churnalism isn't really different to any other churnalism, on which we have policies already). The huge, huge elephant in the room of science and technology is the vast increase in barely-selective journals with dubious peer review, merging into the substratum of predatory publishing and paper mills. I'll give a specific borderline example, Kirtiraj Gaikwad, recently kept at AfD based on WP:NPROF#1. He produced 45 publications in 2024, and has produced 13 already this year. Two thoughts: (1) honestly, do you believe that a researcher can produce a meaningful, novel paper in little over a week? (2) if someone produces 45 papers per year and cites themselves in each publication, is it surprising that their publications are highly cited? This sort of thing runs a risk of drastically undermining the spirit of NPROF, with the risk that the non-academic wikipedia-world will eventually rebel, and argue that peer-reviewed output isn't evidence of notability because (1) there's good documented evidence that in many cases peer review is compromised or simply not happening, and (2) citations are so contaminated by non-independent citations (self-citation, and you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours citation rings with friends) that #C1 is fatally flawed. And I'd have to agree. Elemimele (talk) 12:05, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

:That might be something that is covered by what are considered reliable sources under WP:SCIRS and WP:MEDRS , and works that are not reliable sources (including non-peer reviewed journals) do not qualify to demonstrating notability. However, this also feels like more a problem specific to NPROF in handling academics that publish in this fashion, since the criteria there are a bit different from GNG due to NPROF's predating of GNG. Masem (t) 12:17, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

::Oh, that's really interesting. I didn't know NPROF came before GNG, I just sort-of-assumed GNG was the original gold standard and academics got a special dispensation. I think you're right that it's specific to NPROF and I'm grateful that Ldm1954 started this discussion (I don't want to derail the topic though). Academics are unique because we're assessed so heavily on the sheer bulk of our publication output, and because of the sheer volume of outlets to be assessed; I'm not sure how we can do it without overwhelming the reliable sources noticeboard. It's really hard to distinguish a lowish-impact niche journal respected in its field and genuinely peer-reviewed from a lowish-impact predatory journal that claims to be peer-reviewed and isn't (let alone from lowish-impact non-predatory journals with stressed editors who can't find any peer reviewers and therefore fudge the issue). Elemimele (talk) 13:05, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

:::Yes, NPROF is handled uniquely both due to predating GNG and that in general academics are difficult to write about from a biographical side but their research is what gets the focus. But all that said, chugging out papers in non-peer-reviewed or predatory journals should not be applicable for that demonstration. But that's all under the focus of NPROF there. Masem (t) 14:30, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

This thread is interesting but confusing because it seems to be about very different topics. Some parts of it are about academics and that SNG. But even there it seems to imply that (mere) publishing of papers by the article's subject is a way to meet criteria #1 of the SNG but I don't see where that is in the SNG or on the noted example article/AFD. But then one of the discussed examples is about a product which is very different. North8000 (talk) 14:13, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

:I may have side-tracked things from Ldm1954's original concerns about academic churnalism. But yes, {{u|North8000}}, mere publishing of papers by the article's subject is indeed deemed a way to meet criterion #1 because (1) the peer review process is take as indicating that the work is independently viewed as valuable by someone other than the author, and (2) high-citation is taken as evidence that it's made significant impact in the scholarly discipline. My argument is that paper-mills and citation-rings and even just splitting your work into hundreds of micro-papers in low-end journals make a nonsense of both aspects, and that this is very much akin to churnalism in that it's the creation of a very large number of near-meaningless sources. Elemimele (talk) 17:51, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

::The Least publishable unit is rewarded by some systems, so it'd be surprising if we didn't see it. I thought I'd heard that (some?) citation metrics discount self-citations, though. (Or maybe that was just a proposal for how to improve metrics?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:26, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

:::Citation rings, as mentioned by Elemimele, are about getting others to cite you (and you cite them) so that the high citations are not self-citations. It can be difficult to distinguish these from legitimate but specialized subfields where everyone cites everyone else because that's all there is to cite in the subfield. But in the occasional case when dubiously inflated citations are suspected in an academic AfD, my experience is that it is typical to look for other indicators of academic impact and other WP:PROF criteria instead. A recent example (ending in delete): Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roshdi Khalil. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:41, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

:Churnalism: can we please return to the issue of churnalism, and leave citation metrics to WT:NPROF. I think I saw in the comments a concensus developing for adding something like the text I gave. Yes? Ldm1954 (talk) 07:32, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

::Not hearing any disagreements, I have been bold and added two sentences (slightly ce) to the text as I indicated above. Ldm1954 (talk) 13:58, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

:::I've shortened the addition, because half of what you wrote wasn't true, especially since press releases can be Wikipedia:Independent sources, and their problem isn't the lack of independence or being primary; the main problem with a press release is that it's self-published – a problem that completely goes away when The Daily News independently decides to write an article about the subject of the press release, no matter how badly the article is written (including, but not limited to, copying large chunks out of a press release).

:::I also wonder whether churnalism ought to be handled as a problem of "multiple sources". The guideline says "Similarly, a series of publications by the same author or in the same periodical is normally counted as one source." This is the main problem with churnalism: it's basically the same source.

:::On the more general question, I am doubtful that we need this in the guideline, and I predict that including it will cause problems. Specifically, just like we occasionally have editors exceed the intent of various rules – a frustrated editor declaring that they're hereby WP:CHALLENGING every single uncited sentence in every single article, or POV pushers declaring that all sources supporting the other POV are unreliable, or deletionists declaring that no _____ (fill in the blank: current events, influences, children, websites, small businesses, etc.) is ever notable – I expect we will see an increase in the number of AFD noms and delete !votes that baselessly assert that every source is mere churnalism and therefore banned by WP:N. (How does the nom know it's churnalism, you might ask? Well, first of all, no true source would ever bother writing about that kind of unimportant subject, second, everyone knows that true sources only write criticisms instead of the positive facts related in that source, and third, it's obviously UNCIVIL of anyone to question my omniscience. I just know, okay? And you will never, ever convince me that I'm wrong.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:07, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

I noticed that the subject-specific notability guideline for boxers (WP:NBOX), is not actually a notability guideline at all—it just defers to WP:SIGCOV and lists some properties that a boxer whose coverage will meet SIGCOV enough to satisfy notability requirements may have. There are tons of SSGs like this, and I don't understand why they exist. If SIGCOV exists, then this guideline is not necessary (as we don't consult SNGs for indications that a subject has good signs in their favor that a search for significant coverage will be fruitful before searching), and if it does not, then this guideline only serves as something for editors to trip over and misinterpret in defense of non-notable boxers at AfD. Where is the utility? I believe these sorts of "guidelines" should be retired. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 07:54, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

:NSPORT doesn't mean anything anymore. It's not helpful at all. The sport-specific sub criteria at NSPORT is just leftover stuff from before WP:NSPORTS2022 that wasn't "participation based" (all of the participation criteria was removed). None of the individual sport guidelines have been updated with replacement criteria so we're pretty much just left with skeletonized guidelines that offer unhelpful advice like likely to be notable if they've been inducted into the hall of fame. The greatest hockey player ever, Wayne Gretzky, doesn't even pass WP:NHOCKEY. The NBOX guideline, in particular, is too strict now. You have to be ranked top ten in the world to be notable. There used to be a lot more criteria at NBOX but it was removed due to NSPORTS2022, so the only thing leftover from before NSPORT2022 is that top ten stuff. I've been seeing people cite NBOX to delete stuff, like at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Emiliano Vargas, which is silly. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 08:08, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

:{{tq|The NBOX guideline, in particular, is too strict now. You have to be ranked top ten in the world to be notable.}} It is neither strict nor lax; it simply isn't. It does not make any prescriptions about notability. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 08:13, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

::I know but people cite it like it does, so it existing in its current form isn't helpful. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 08:16, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

:::The point is to encourage editors to do a proper WP:BEFORE search, and thus limit the number of AFDs in the topic area.

:::By noting criteria where it is likely that SISCOV exists, we are essentially telling deletionist editors: “Hold on… there should be sources for this person/topic… BEFORE you nominate this article for deletion, please triple check that sources truly don’t exist.” Blueboar (talk) 11:32, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

::::As well as to encourage editors to do a better job of sourcing an article on an athlete before they rush to create the article. Masem (t) 15:40, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

:::: {{tq|By noting criteria where it is likely that SI[G]COV exists, we are essentially telling deletionist editors: “Hold on… there should be sources for this person/topic… BEFORE you nominate this article for deletion, please triple check that sources truly don’t exist.”}} – it doesn't have that effect at all. We still have deletionists making mass noms for topics meeting NSPORT with almost zero BEFORE (I've been accused of "playing games" on more than one occasion for asking e.g. "what BEFORE did you do for this pre-internet gold medalist at a major international competition?") and if anyone says to keep while referencing NSPORT they are chastised by the aforementioned deletionists. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:29, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

::::But they already have to do BEFORE! ꧁Zanahary꧂ 17:47, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

::One side note. The defacto meaning of the SNG is that if you meet it you can bypass GNG / sports basic. So it's not correct to say "You have to be ranked top ten in the world to be notable." In reality it's "If you are rated in the top ten in the world you can bypass GNG/sportsbasic. North8000 (talk) 15:04, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

:::I disagree slightly… I don’t think it is a case of “bypassing”. We would still need to supply a source to verify that the subject is indeed “in the top 10” of their sport… and that in itself should qualify as significant coverage.

:::It’s more a case that when a subject passes an SNG, it is almost guaranteed that the subject will also pass the GNG. Yes, there are extremely rare situations where a subject might pass an SNG, but NOT also pass the GNG. However, we don’t write Policy/guidance to cover extremely rare circumstances. When one does occur, we can discuss and reach consensus to apply Ignore All Rules. Blueboar (talk) 15:41, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

::::Regarding the first part of your post. That just requires meeting wp:ver for that factoid which can be done without GNG sources. Regarding the second part of your post I'm going to give a confusing answer which appears to self conflict. I agree with you that the guidelines say that, and I think that it's important that they say that. In essence that the SNG's are mere predictors of GNG compliance. I also still assert that operatively / defacto, meeting a SNG criteria allows it to bypass GNG (and in sports cases sports basic) evaluation. What reconciles it is that they are all inputs into the decision process of the fuzzy wp:notability ecosystem. The items that you point out are highly influential in that process.

::::If you get into other SNG's, there are clearer cases where it's sufficient to clearly pass a SNG where it's pretty clear that the subject could not pass GNG. For example, a very small town or settlement under n:geo or academics under the academic SNG. Sincerely North8000 (talk) 16:27, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

::: {{tq|In reality it's "If you are rated in the top ten in the world you can bypass GNG/sportsbasic.}} – I 100% agree that's what it should be. But in reality it doesn't have that effect. Instead, if the topic isn't top 10, its "delete because fails NBOX" – now if the topic is top 10, its "delete because while the topic meets NBOX, a 30-second Google search in English on this 1960s Iraqi boxer didn't find anything, so clearly the subject is not notable". BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:33, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

::::Thanks for your post. I'm skeptical of your statement that what I said is not the case. The proof of the pudding is: Can you show me a case where a subject clearly meets the SNG but where it got deleted anyway? I mentioned this as the proof of the pudding because the rest of your post can be taken as "somebody said otherwise". "Somebody" can say anything including clearly wrong stuff. I'm also skeptical because this is flat out contrary to what WP:Notability says which is that meeting either GNG or the SNG is sufficient. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:33, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

::::: From the past week: Kindie Derseh Kassie & Kinde Atanaw (I think); and also recently, from the top of my head: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lee Yeon-woo, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shahanuddin Choudhury (arguably – and subject has been identified in modern times as Bangladesh's best athlete of his era), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Konstantinos Lolos, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kouami N'Dri (and editors are fervently arguing against including any details about him anywhere), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rabieb Sangnual, many others. We've deleted Olympic medalists before (some gold): I can try to dig some of those up if you like. BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:21, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::Thanks. {{ping|BeanieFan11}} I don't have enough Wikiminutes to to a thorough deep dive on 7 articles /AFD's. I did scan all of the them. There's one common theme there which I didn't think about. Which is that in general they also said that they did not meet sportsbasic, and that that is a requirement of meeting the SNG. I view sportsbasic as a sort of "GNG lite". I was wondering which of these is the case regarding your post / view?

::::::#Just responding to my claim

::::::#That if they meet the sports-specific they should not be required to meet sportsbasic

::::::#That in general, they did also meet sportsbasic but got deleted anyway.

::::::If you have on case which best illustrates your thoughts, that would also be useful for the discussion. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:08, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::: Personally, I think we should have it set that someone who meets the sports SNG bypasses GNG/SPORTBASIC. There are subjects that have accomplishments I think are worthy of automatic inclusion (e.g. Olympic gold medalists). Regarding SPORTBASIC, we actually have deleted articles both passing the SNG and SPORTBASIC as well (on the basis that "fails GNG"), see e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adam Cooper (soccer). BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:16, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::{{Ping|BeanieFan11}} Thanks. I think that sports are the highest drama area of wp:notability and that it would be good for all concerned to do some work on it to reduce that. My view of how wp:notability works in practice is at Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works. I think that sports is unique in these respects:

::::::::#Routine or semi-routine coverage is less meaningful because generating a huge amount of it is more of a form of entertainment rather recognition

::::::::#Sports is more prone to "stats only" articles which is not what an enclyclopedia does. I'm not thinking about athletes, I'm thinking about "scores from the XYZ tournament" or "results from the 2005 season of the XYZ team"

::::::::#A major change a few years ago means that a larger amount of current articles don't meet the current standard. (I.E the previous "did it for a living for one day" standard) Wikipedians are more concerned about new articles than purging old ones, and would probably be OK with a slow motion moderate triage, but not with unleashing some big deletionist effort.

::::::::IMO the best standard for sports (and middle of the road for the current community) is sports basic. Which is sort of GNG-Lite. It would probably let only a portion of professional athletes through, which I think is about right. We gotta remember that while wp:notability is somewhat about recognition it's also about having the material from which to build an encyclopedia article, which requires in-depth coverage. So the article is more than a stub or just turning some factoids into sentences.I think it would he fine if that if some very high bar specific SNG criteria are met (like Olympic Gold medalist) to bypass even sports basic but that would be a complex job to work out. For example, in your last example, the scope of the competition pool for coach of the year and how prominent of an issuing organization. BTW, on your example, as a NPP'er I probably would have passed it as an edge case. I can't see the article to know the full situation but for whatever reason some prominent reviewers (including one who leans towards inclusionist) chose a stricter GNG type standard rather then the GNG-Lite standard of sportsbasic. And maybe on even these that clearly meet a high bar SNG they should wait until a source with some in-depth coverage is found so that it can be a real article. Long story short, for all sports, I'd be an advocate for a "GNG-lite" "sportsbasic" type standard. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:20, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::: My biggest issue with how NSPORT works right now is what are we supposed to do when it is exceedingly clear SIGCOV exists, but the editors at AFD don't find it. As an example, we once had a subject who was identified as one of the greatest Niger athletes ever (and his accomplishments proved it -- multi-time Olympics, one of their only Olympians ever, and national records still standing decades after his career if I remember right) and then later one of their greatest coaches before his tragic death at a young age. No Niger newspapers were searched and we deleted the article because he "failed GNG". But does anyone seriously think none of the newspapers in Niger would cover their possible greatest athlete and coach, either for his Olympic participation, national records or his tragic death? We recently had a similar example were someone was identified as one of the greatest Sierra Leone athletes and a "household name" there. We deleted it again, despite no one looking in newspapers (where the coverage almost certainly would be). We also had a few days ago someone who was the first Olympian ever for Mauritania -- their only medalist at the African Championships ever in any sport. No one made any effort to look into Mauritanian sources and it was deleted. As I mentioned above, Choudhury arguably met NATH and was recognized as the best Bangladeshi athlete of his era (i.e. best of 100 million). No effort was made to search Bangladeshi sources and, once again, it was deleted. At the moment, anyone can nominate any number of sports articles for deletion with zero BEFORE, demand that "you show ME the coverage NOW" – and unless someone like myself spends substantial time searching and finds sources on e.g. an accomplished pre-internet, foreign-language subject, it will be deleted. Does that sound like how NSPORT should work? BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:59, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::I think that from a process standpoint we see things differently. It's true that (source-dependent) wp:notability is based on whether or not suitable sources exist. But whose job is it to find them? IMO that is the main job of starting article is to find them and put them in. When I start an article, I put in GNG sources before I write the first sentence of text. And the creator can't be troubled to look for those, why should thye be able to unload that job onto an overloaded NPP'er or a AFD participant? North8000 (talk) 17:44, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::: {{tq|IMO that is the main job of starting article is to find them and put them in. When I start an article, I put in GNG sources before I write the first sentence of text.}} – Which brings us back to the original question: if GNG is needed to be proved from the very start by the article creator regardless of passing NSPORT, why do we have NSPORT, and of what use is it? BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:25, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::{{section link|Wikipedia:Notability (sports)|Basic criteria}} isn't a light version of the general notability guideline. It places various bullets points from {{section link|Wikipedia:Notability|General notability guideline}} into context for sports. The intent of the sports-specific notability guidelines is to defer to the general notability guideline (and has always been since its inception). The confusing aspect is that many saying "per WP:NBOX", for example, aren't really saying "per the sports-specific notability guideline for boxing", which includes deferring to the general notability guideline, but are saying "because the athlete meets one of the criteria listed in the boxing section". For better or worse, English Wikipedia's decision-making traditions means that editors are free to make achievement-based arguments for having an article on a specific topic, even if in broader discussions, a consensus had been reached for using the general notability guideline. isaacl (talk) 17:15, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::I used the term "GNG lite" mainly because of the "at least one" wording. North8000 (talk) 17:48, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::As you may recall from the discussion at {{section link|Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)|Lead and nutshell need updating}}, the last bullet point in the "Basic criteria" section isn't a criterion for determining if a topic meets the standards for having an article. It's a documentation requirement, added after the 2022 request for comments discussion. (In my opinion, it belongs in the "Applicable policies and guidelines" section.) The first sentence in the sports-specific guideline makes it clear that deference is to the general notability guideline, and the "Basic criteria" section points to this notability page as the main page. isaacl (talk) 18:01, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::IMHO in practice I think it is. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:17, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::"editors are free to make achievement-based arguments for having an article on a specific topic" Not anymore. If you do enough of that, you'll get topic banned like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1186#Repeated_bludgeoning_and_WP:IDHT_across_20+_AFDs_by_USER:Habst Habst]. !Voters at AfDs nowadays want to see the sources regardless if it passes a sport-specific subcriteria. However, an AfD nom that only says "Not meet WP:NBOX" is perfectly fine apparently even though NBOX means nothing. Being top ten in the world is a very high bar. It's a pointless guideline. It doesn't do its job of indicating where coverage is likely to exist. Obviously top 10ers and hall of famers have coverage (the sky is blue also). Wayne Gretzky doesn't even pass the skeletonized NHOCKEY. The sport-specific criteria are just deletionist tools nowadays. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 18:11, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::Most of our SNG are framed that the criteria are rebuttable presumptions of notability as to allow an article in mainspace to exist about that topic and given the time and visibility in mainspace needed for the article to develop to a point where the topics notability, based on the GNG, can be shown without question. There's no deadline to show that but if editors are struggling to show sources exist over a good BEFORE search and multiple AFD, that's a good reason that the initial presumption has failed and the topic is actually not notable. So the criteria of SNG are supposed to be conditions where a topic that meets them likely has had or will get significant coverage in future sources; the best example of this would be academic prize winners like the Nobel, where such laurets will get new coverage due to winning the prize if they didn't have an article already. But this in the field of academics where there is little coverage in the first place (which is why NPROF is as it is). When it comes to sports there is an overwhelming abundance of coverage for most after the mid 20th century, that it would seem absolutely unnecessary to require special SNG criteria except for more niche sports and for athletes from more remote countries (eg while one for Olympians makes sense), as otherwise a successful athlete, like Gretze, will easily meet the GNG (though that brings up making sure to filter out routine coverage like box scores from actual biographical material) Masem (t) 19:28, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::You're preaching to the choir. The point I have made above is that it is inappropriate for people to cite NBOX, and other skeletonized post-2022 sport criteria, as a deletion rationale. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 19:35, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::If they are saying that such is per se a reason to delete (vs. a reason why the SNG way in can't be used) the top of WP:Notability clearly says that they are wrong. That meeting either the SNG or GNG satisfies wp:notability. (I know that some people say that, just like some people say that the earth is flat :-) )North8000 (talk) 20:30, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::As long as they are saying the reason to delete is both the failure to meet NBOX *and* the GNG (and any other possible SNG a person could meet), that is a valid reason. But to only rest a AFD on saying NBOX is not met is definitely wrong. Masem (t) 20:40, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

So let's say we zap the whole SNG and replace it with GNG lite. In general terms the criteria would be to meet both of these (would need more specific wording):

1. Multiple prominent sources included that provide some type of coverage. Since nearly all sports figures in question have this, this is just the criteria which provides the basis for "GNG-lite" #2
2. At least one GNG type source included.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:30, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

:Your wording requiring sources to be included is a huge and non-consensus change to the general notability guidelines, which currently (despite the misinterpretations of many AfD participants) only require that the sources exist. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:13, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

::This is only a requirement in the SNG for using the SNG, it does not modify GNG.North8000 (talk) 20:23, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

:::The whole problem that sparked this debate is people using the SNG as an excuse to delete articles that would otherwise pass a WP:BEFORE-compliant use of GNG. Because your rewording goes counter to WP:BEFORE, it does not address the problem. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:39, 30 June 2025 (UTC)