Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)#Protected edit request on 9 March 2022

I’m curious about the discrepancy between the notability criteria for MMA and football athletes on Wikipedia. In MMA, an athlete must be ranked in the top 10 in their division by major sources like Sherdog or Fight Matrix to meet notability, which seems to set a relatively high bar for recognition.

On the other hand, football players are deemed notable simply by playing for a professional club, even in lower divisions or smaller leagues, as long as they meet the criteria of having played in a fully professional competition or for a national team.

Could you clarify the rationale behind these different standards? Is there a reason why MMA requires ranking at a higher competitive level, while football players are deemed notable for playing at a broader range of levels, including lower divisions?

I believe these discrepancies might need a more consistent approach, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this matter.

Thank you! Wiseuseraze (talk) 02:51, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

:Where are you reading that footballers only need to play professionally? We don't have any criteria for football anymore, and all presumptions of notability from playing any sport were removed years ago. JoelleJay (talk) 05:08, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

:And beyond anything else, the basic criterion for notability of sportspeople is the GNG. As with your inquiry about sambo above, there's simply no comparison between MMA and the vast amount of coverage association football gets worldwide. Ravenswing 05:35, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

JoelleJay and Ravenswing , Thank you both for the information. As I haven’t been very active on Wikipedia for over a year, I must have been referencing outdated guidelines. The criteria were different the last time I checked, which is why I got confused. I appreciate the clarification! Wiseuseraze (talk) 14:30, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

:{{Re|JoelleJay}} I think Wiseuseraze read that from WP:FOOTYN, which has not been removed for years.

:{{Re|Wiseuseraze}} I have to admit that this wiki removed most sport-related notability criteria, including football, was because not all athletes receive significant coverage. This is a big problem especially for those in their prime during pre-internet era (early 2000s and below), where there might be higher chances of finding significant coverage from archived newspapers than modern online ones. Playing in lower levels is also a very weak claim to notability in my view.

:⋆｡˚꒰ঌ Clara A. Djalim ໒꒱˚｡⋆ 12:28, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Pending AfD within the scope of this project. Cbl62 (talk) 05:29, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

Apparently it is not clear to all editors that SPORTCRIT #5 is required even for subjects that meet a sport-specific criterion. The lead should properly summarize the major points of the guideline, including the #5 requirement. Pinging @Cbl62 as author of that amendment. JoelleJay (talk) 19:23, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

• Is there specific language that is being proposed? Has it been discussed elsewher? Cbl62 (talk) 19:27, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
• :What do you mean "discussed elsewhere"?
  The bolded part of the lead should include "In addition, all sportsperson articles must cite a plausible source of SIGCOV." JoelleJay (talk) 19:30, 6 March 2025 (UTC)
• :: Sorry for the lack of clarity. I thought maybe you had been discussing this issue with Vanderwaalforces (or other editors) somewhere else? Cbl62 (talk) 06:36, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
• :::@Cbl62 It was the other editor's comments in that user talk thread and the linked AfD that prompted this. JoelleJay (talk) 21:22, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
• Personally, I feel the current sentence in bold already covers it. A suitable source showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline is one that provides significant coverage. isaacl (talk) 06:19, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
• :The bolded part doesn't reference the newer requirement, and apparently this means the consensus for all sportsperson articles to meet SPORTCRIT #5 actually only applies to those who don't meet or have a sport-specific criterion...... JoelleJay (talk) 21:27, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
• ::The consensus achieved at the last large discussion was for all articles within scope (whether or not there is a set of sports-specific criteria for that sport) to include a citation to a source providing significant coverage. As I pointed out when it was added, the fifth bullet point isn't really a criterion for evaluating if the standards for having an article are met, and so really should be listed elsewhere. The bolded statement is slightly stricter, stating that enough sources should be provided to demonstrate that the general notability guideline is met. I don't see an advantage to weakening the statement in the lead. It correctly captures the end goal intent for articles on sports figures (and articles in general). isaacl (talk) 21:52, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
• :::There is the end intent of demonstrating GNG, but there is also the additional requirement that the article cite a GNG source. It's not weakening the bolded statement to say that there is this extra requirement. JoelleJay (talk) 22:34, 7 March 2025 (UTC)
• ::::The current bold sentence already says that sources should be provided, which is done by citing them. The current statement is stricter because it requires sufficient sources to be provided that collectively demonstrate that the general notability guideline is met, whereas the consensus at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability was that one suitable source be provided, and that "[m]eeting this requirement alone does not indicate notability, but it does indicate that there are likely sufficient sources to meet the GNG." isaacl (talk) 03:13, 8 March 2025 (UTC)
• :::::I understand that the bolded sentence can be interpreted as being stricter, but "should" is weaker than "must", and some editors think that GNG can be met with multiple non-SIGCOV sources added up. What about {{tq|The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline; at least one source containing significant coverage is required to be cited in all sportsperson articles.}}
  Or {{tq|In addition to the subject meeting the general notability guideline, all sportsperson articles must cite a source of significant coverage.}} JoelleJay (talk) 23:19, 9 March 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::One source is not enough to establish notability. ⋆｡˚꒰ঌ Clara A. Djalim ໒꒱˚｡⋆ 12:25, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::"Should" is often used in Wikipedia guidance as a soft-pedalling of "must", because often those arguing over the language will find reasonable exceptions. Personally I would prefer keeping the existing, stronger statement as a superset of the requirement to have one source, and discuss if there is a consensus to change the verb. isaacl (talk) 17:38, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::@Isaacl @Clariniie (and @Cbl62) Ok I get that the bolded part could be interpreted as weakened by the proposed addition; so what if we instead clarify in SPORTSCRIT #5 that "all sportsperson articles" includes those that meet any sport-specific subcriteria? The way people are supposed to interpret the guideline is that if someone meets a subcriterion AND meets SPORTSCRIT #5 then the presumptions of SIGCOV existing afforded by the subcriterion can be applied(*). However as can be seen in the linked example and dozens of others, a minority of editors insist that SC is just a separate section from the subcriteria, not encompassing them. Adding {{tq|All sports biographies, including those meeting any of the sport-specific criteria listed below, must include...}}. As this obviously follows directly from the consensus at NSPORT2022 as well as the numerous followup consensuses on this page, I really don't think it should need an official RfC and anyway this discussion itself has had no objections to the underlying intent of my OP, so I'm just going to boldly add it.{{pb}}(*) While meeting SC#5 but not any subcriterion is more discretionary, as, IME, even though I object to this, more leeway is given to subjects who used to meet a "more predictive participation-based criterion" like playing in certain leagues. But that's a discussion for another time. JoelleJay (talk) 15:41, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::As I stated, my suggestion is to move the text in question out of "Basic criteria" and put it in "Applicable policies and guidelines". For example, the following could be added as as new paragraph after the second paragraph: "All sports biographies must include at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject, excluding database sources. Meeting this requirement alone does not indicate notability, but it does indicate that there are likely sufficient sources to merit a stand-alone article.See consensus from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability." isaacl (talk) 16:25, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::::Yeah I agree that would be the better place, but I think at this point the requirement's been cited as "SPORTSCRIT #5" for so long that it would be confusing to move it. JoelleJay (talk) 16:40, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::::The bullet points aren't numbered, so not sure why people are choosing to use this jargon. In any case, an anchor can be created that is used to link to the paragraph in question. Personally I think it would be good to start transitioning away from using a cryptic, all-caps jargon phrase for something as straightforward as "an appropriate citation has to be provided". As we discussed last year, it's a documentation requirement, not a criterion for evaluating if the subject meets the standard of having an article. isaacl (talk) 19:02, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::::::People have been citing some variation of "fails SPORTSCRIT #5" as a deletion rationale for 3 years now, that's not going to change. JoelleJay (talk) 22:27, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::::::Feel free to continue to do so. Nonetheless, this can be made to refer to a new location in the text, particularly since it's jargon that doesn't mean anything in itself. isaacl (talk) 00:47, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::@Isaacl @Cbl62 @Clariniie Pinging again to reaffirm the overwhelming consensus that in SPORTSCRIT prong 5 the "all" in the phrase {{tq|all sports biographies}} does indeed apply to "all sportspeople", since to one editor this is still somehow a contentious interpretation of the NSPORT2022 RfC consensus. EDIT: Oh wait, now I see that the edit removing the language from this discussion also stealthily removed the pre-existing "all" as well but disguised this by formatting the manual edit to look exactly like a reversion (of course lacking the attached reverted notification too). I'm satisfied that this edit wasn't intended to mislead others into thinking it was a revert of a single edit. JoelleJay (talk) 00:46, 25 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::::As I mentioned, I don't agree with your proposed change. I think a better approach to clarify that the documentation requirement is generally applicable is to move it to the "Applicable policies and guidelines" section. isaacl (talk) 00:59, 25 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::::@Isaacl, you don't agree with changing "All sports biographies must..." to "All sports biographies, including those of athletes listing criteria below,..."? Because that is the change we are talking about here. It sounds like you strictly disagree with the current, longstanding location of that guidance? JoelleJay (talk) 15:08, 25 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::::::Yes, as I've mentioned twice before, I favour a different change than yours. isaacl (talk) 15:48, 25 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::::::::::::@Isaacl, so you don't agree that the RfC consensus applied to all sports biographies?? JoelleJay (talk) 16:02, 25 May 2025 (UTC)
• :::::::::::::I've already answered this question (and alluded to my opinion on the applicability of the guidance). (Note it's not necessary to ping me to this discussion since I'm already watching it, and in particular I don't want to be pinged so I can repeat myself.) isaacl (talk) 16:20, 25 May 2025 (UTC)
• :{{outdent|12}} Well apparently what you have said before is not clear enough so I am just asking you to state whether, regardless of your opinion on the existing placement and wording of "All sports biographies must...", you believe the statement "including those..." reflects the RfC consensus. (Fixed italicization, was not intended to look that aggressive) JoelleJay (talk) 17:23, 25 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::As I said previously, the consensus is that all articles within scope (whether or not there is a set of sports-specific criteria for that sport) should include a citation to a source providing significant coverage. isaacl (talk) 17:29, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

:I reverted this wording change because it didn't look like consensus was achieved here. If consensus is achieved, I have no issue adding it back. --Habst (talk) 12:22, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

::There wasn't consensus for my original suggestion of updating the lead and nutshell. The added words to SPORTSCRIT however are a straightforward clarification of existing consensus, as should be obvious by the RfC close; the longstanding wording of SC5 ("All sports biographies must"), which you stealth-reverted as well; the outcomes of thousands of AfDs; and the clear agreement in this discussion that indeed "all sports biographies" means "all sports biographies", even if the optimal location of that criterion is disputed. JoelleJay (talk) 15:14, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

:::@JoelleJay, I want to reach an agreement, so can you start a new topic asking for that specific wording change then? If that achieves consensus, another editor can add the change. --Habst (talk) 15:24, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

::::There already is agreement. It is only you who has been trying to override consensus with your unintelligible revisionist reading of the RfC. The wording is minor and has been stable for two+ months, it received no objection during the above discussion (other than Isaac disagreeing with the longstanding placement of that guidance; I cannot imagine page-watchers like @Cbl62, who has been very prompt in reverting other NSPORT edits of mine, would have let this go uncontested otherwise), and a formal discussion closure is not required nor is an uninvolved editor required to implement it. See e.g. this close by @Ravenswing. JoelleJay (talk) 16:13, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::JoelleJay, I have a lot of respect for your contributions and have always tried to treat you with respect. Saying more of these words "unintelligible", "revisionist reading", etc. isn't helpful. I have no issue with you making the change if there is consensus for it, but I don't think it's been achieved yet. --Habst (talk) 19:35, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

IMO this appears to be a significant change and in a discussion that is unclear and with limited participation. IMO at this point this would benefit from a clear and succinct statement of the proposed change. BTW I'm in favor of requiring included sourcing, at least to meet this "partial GNG" requirement. I wish it would include more than biographies. The current bigger new article problem is large amounts of "stats only" articles. North8000 (talk) 18:41, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

:@North8000 The wording proposed and implemented here is {{tq|All sports biographies, including those meeting any of the sport-specific criteria listed below, must include...}}. The prior wording was {{tq|[All] sports biographies must include...}}. All other thread participants had been pinged in that edit and no one registered an objection to that particular modification. The addition does not introduce any new requirements, it just emphasizes the fact that "sports biographies must" means "all sports biographies must" and clarifies that the guidance in SPORTCRIT bullet 5 applies to all sportspeople regardless of their meeting a sport-specific criterion. This follows directly from what is in the RfC close: {{tq| Proposal 5 had a substantial amount of support and participation, and there is a consensus to add an inclusion criterion for sports biographies requiring that they have at least one reference to a source which has significant coverage of the subject}} and the RfC proposal/discussion itself, which make no mention of any athlete bios being exempt from this criterion. JoelleJay (talk) 18:59, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

::@JoelleJay, can you make a new topic with only that proposal? If this topic originally proposed something different and didn't achieve consensus, I don't think that justifies the change being made. For example, WP:NSPORTS2022 says {{tq|"This is meaningfully different from the proposal; the original proposal required that the source be present from inception"}} -- I'm not sure how best to communicate that in NSPORT. --Habst (talk) 19:33, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

:::This was always a workshop about reflecting the fact that this requirement applies to all sportsperson biographies; the updated language containing the above materially trivial change was a natural product of that discussion. Participants were notified and did not object to that modification, and no one had contested it in the succeeding months. {{pb}}The quoted passage from the close has nothing to do with this discussion nor with how the guidance should be understood, so I don't know why you are bringing it up here.{{pb}}This all just looks like a continuation of your ongoing attempts to disrupt sportsperson AfDs with tortured, roundly rejected interpretations of PAGs. You've been brought to ANI once and are under editing restrictions due to that behavior already, that should have been enough of a warning to drop the stick. JoelleJay (talk) 20:01, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Again, I will continue to always assume good faith in you and using words like "disrupt" is not helpful. I was never brought to ANI; please see User talk:JoelleJay#Magda Castillo and I don't understand why you need to keep using this as a WP:Scarlet letter in unrelated discussions. Please refrain from personal comments and keep them about the substance. --Habst (talk) 21:03, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

::::: FWIW, JoelleJay is correct that you were brought to ANI; where she's incorrect is that you "are under editing restrictions" because of it. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:07, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::Habst did agree to editing restrictions due to his behavior, though? JoelleJay (talk) 21:18, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::: I mean, he said he'd be more careful and not comment on AFDs where there were no significant accomplishments or coverage...you could call that an "editing restriction" if you like, but I don't see it as all that relevant. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:21, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::The ANI close said {{tq|User:Habst has committed to a change that will address this issue.}} The change specifically being a restriction in the type of AfDs he comments in for the next three months. That sounds like a time-limited editing restriction to me. JoelleJay (talk) 21:49, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::OK, I was summoned and I will grant you that accuracy in wording is important. It was closed just a few minutes after being posted; the person who posted it made an agreement and no admin action was taken. What is the relevance in bringing it up in this unrelated discussion? --Habst (talk) 22:46, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

I support the wording modification. I could make arguments in both directions on whether or not it is an actual change. What it does is reinforce that meeting another criteria does not remove the requirement that there must be at least 1 reference included which establishes 1/3 of GNG compliance. It only requires one reference, and the criteria is lighter than a full fledged GNG reference which is why I called it "1/3 of GNG compliance". What's in the modification is already logically contained in the current wording, but in the squishy Wikipedia system, "reinforcing" is still a bit of a change. I think that this is good middle ground which prevents extreme exclusionist, extreme inclusionist and extreme completionist situations. With the caveat that I don't want "mass" anythings on this.....(creations or deletions). Having a "1/3 of GNG" reference means that it's more likely to be a bit of a real enclyclopedia article vs just some database stats and factoids.North8000 (talk) 20:49, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

:I think the real problem is not the wording, but the placement of the documentation requirement under the "Basic criteria" section, which leads to some people thinking that it is a criterion that doesn't apply for all biographies. Thus I feel a more suitable fix is to remove the text from the "Basic criteria" section and to add a paragraph after the second paragraph in the "Applicable policies and guidelines" section: {{tq|All sports biographies must include at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject, excluding database sources. Meeting this requirement alone does not indicate notability, but it does indicate that there are likely sufficient sources to merit a stand-alone article.See consensus from Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability.}} isaacl (talk) 21:42, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

::I agree that this would have been a better place, but it's been three years at this point and thousands of AfDs, major RfCs, and other discussions have been closed on the basis of "SPORTCRIT 5", so if we were to move it to the earlier section we would still want a pointer to it from the SC section to avoid confusion. JoelleJay (talk) 21:59, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

::Might I suggest that we go with the additional paragraph at the end of Applicable policies and guidelines as @Isaacl suggests, and also replace the existing fifth bullet of SPORTCRIT with something like {{xt|As noted above, all sports biographies must include at least one reference to a source providing significant coverage of the subject, excluding database sources.}}, to provide the pointer that @JoelleJay suggests? I realise that this is repetitive, but if there is still a lack of clarity that all sports bios must contain a reference to at least one decent source, then I think the repetition is warranted. One might also bold or italicize all for emphasis. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 10:22, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

:::I would support this. IMO repetition is fine in guidelines; most people are never going to read the whole thing in one go, they're going to read the section they're linked to. JoelleJay (talk) 15:57, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

• My two cents: I'm not a fan of "including those of subjects meeting any criteria listed below." It unnecessarily cuts the flow and simplicity of the sentence. I understand the rationale for it, but I believe the prior phrasing "All sports biographies must..." was already clear and inclusive and does not need the additional clause. Cbl62 (talk) 11:59, 28 May 2025 (UTC)
• :@Cbl62 I also thought this was clear, but apparently people get confused by "basic criteria" and "sports criteria" being separate sections and think that "basic" applies only to athletes not meeting the criteria below. I think clarifying this at the expense of flow is a better tradeoff when it comes to AfD, where indeed I didn't see that argument come up at all for the two months SC had that wording (whereas it did still come up with just the "all" wording). Or perhaps we could just have a note with the "including" clause? JoelleJay (talk) 15:50, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

{{Reflist-talk}}

So there's a new article called GOAT (sports culture), which I worry may be too subjective to be reasonably maintainable for an encyclopedia. Of the article's 171 references, only 49 are used to support prose and the remainder are holding up lists that are essentially reincarnations of things like WP:Articles for deletion/List of ice hockey players considered the greatest of all time and WP:Articles for deletion/List of association football players considered the greatest of all time for which there was consensus to delete. What do others think? Left guide (talk) 11:33, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

:I think the term GOAT is perfectly acceptable. The list entries would be subject to normal editing and consensus building. - Enos733 (talk) 16:35, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

:Even when this guideline was actually usefully, I don't think it was intended to judge inclusion of a page's content, though it was never explicitly stated. WP:N, however, says: {{tq2|They {{em|do not}} limit the {{em|content}} of an article or list, though notability is commonly used as an inclusion criterion for lists (for example for listing out a school's alumni). For Wikipedia's policies regarding content, see Neutral point of view, Verifiability, No original research, What Wikipedia is not, and Biographies of living persons.}} —Bagumba (talk) 05:06, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

:The GOAT part might be notable, but the list part seems like WP:OR. SportingFlyer T·C 06:15, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

::Agree. I think the article is fine up until "List of sports players considered the greatest". The article should be about the history of the term GOAT in sports media/discussion, but not an actual list of everyone who has had that title used for them. It's completely duplicative of List of sports figures considered the greatest. Alyo (chat·edits) 18:19, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

There are two sets of circumstances in which medals and other awards may be "won" retrospectively:

• Where the event originally was not one where a medal would have been awarded (either because of the rules at the time, or because of the status of the event) but later on it was decided to award one retrospectively. This can happened decades after the event. One example of this would be the 1911 Turin Gymnastics Tournament - it was purely a team event with no individual awards, but later on the FIG decided to recognise individual scores at the event and so a lot of databases will show individual "gold", "silver", and "bronze" "medals" being won at it when no actual medals were awarded at the time. Another example would be the winner of the Swiss Badminton Open in 1990 - actually this event wasn't held, apparently due to money issues. Instead another Swiss tournament ("The Watchmaking Metropolis Tournament", later called called "La Chaux-de-Fonds International") was retrospectively recognised as the 1990 "Swiss open" on a lot of databases.
• Where the original medal-winners were later disqualified (the men's 100 metres event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics is the classic example of this). Again, this is something that can potentially happen years after the event.

It turns out we actually have a lot of articles that fall in to at least the first category here because a lot of events were held where, in the early years, no individual awards were given. For notability purposes it's pretty clear that the assumption that these "winners" would have received significant coverage in reliable sources is actually pretty dubious, because they weren't seen at the time as event "winners" in the way they would be now. For the second it's less certain but again someone who was originally in 4th place but now has a bronze is not going to receive the same kind of coverage that they would have received if they won it directly (either in the event or by a disqualification that followed shortly after the event), especially if the retrospective award is delayed by a significant amount of time.

I should emphasise that this is not to knock these people and their accomplishments. This is simply about the degree of coverage their accomplishments generally creates.

I think it's worth adding a note about the general assumption of notability for retrospective award-winners being weaker particularly when the retrospective award was given a significant amount of time (e.g., years) after the event to WP:SPORTBASIC. FOARP (talk) 09:12, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

:The {{section link|Wikipedia:Notability (sports)|Basic criteria}} section doesn't mention award winners at present, just a more broad "success in a major international competition". Thus I think such caveats are better placed within the sports-specific guidelines that mention awards where some awards have been granted at some future point past the competition. isaacl (talk) 15:26, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

::Given the closure of a number of AFDs related to gymnast articles for retrospective "world-championship" medal-winners as either delete or redirected, I think it can uncontroversially be said such medals are not a reliable indicator of notability. For this reason I will add some text to WP:NGYMNAST along these lines:

::{{tq|"An elite international competition is any competition, at which individual medals were contemporaneously awarded, with considerable international WP:GNG coverage between at least eight notable athletes. Examples include:}}

:::{{tq|*World Championships from 1922 onwards}}

::(additions in underline) FOARP (talk) 14:26, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

:::I don't agree.

:::* The best example to start with are the early modern Summer Olympics were no medals were awarded. However, these retrospective medals have significant impact. So your claim {{tq|For notability purposes it's pretty clear that the assumption that these "winners" would have received significant coverage in reliable sources is actually pretty dubious, because they weren't seen at the time as event "winners" in the way they would be now.}} is not self-evident.

::::*See for instance the people who received most recently retrospective medals receives extra coverage. Some examples [https://sportgeschiedenis.nl/olympische-spelen/het-is-de-150e-geboortedag-van-francois-brandt-de-roeier-die-niet-wist-dat-hij-olympisch-kampioen-was/ François Brandt], [https://www.limburger.nl/sport/wielrennen/na-123-jaar-alsnog-erkenning-voor-limburgse-bastaard-olympisch-kampioenen-mathieu-cordang-en-harrie-meijers/22278866.html Mathieu Cordang and Harrie Meijers]

::::* We cannot ignore the retrospective medals, or removing them from the articles. One of the reasons being they are counting towards the All-time Olympic Games medal table, which seems to be very notable and is discussed in many sources.

:::* You're specifically pointing to Gymnastics, were medals were retrospective recognized in 1931. While also these people receive because of that sourcing. Althoug Hendricus Thijsen was deleted for the reason of lack of coverage, he received sourcing because of his retrospective medal see for instance [https://www.bhic.nl/ontdekken/verhalen/lord-of-the-rings-uit-waalwijk here], [https://sportgeschiedenis.nl/nieuw/henricus-thijsen-uit-amsterdam-heeft-nooit-geweten-dat-hij-in-1903-wereldkampioen-turnen-was/ and here].

:::* You're proposing that the pre 1922 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships are not an elite international competition because no medals were awarded. Recognition and the value of achievements is not purely a medal; as in that era awarding medals was not as common as it is now. For instance the 1903 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships was immensly popular. Citing the newspaper of that era about the event The number of gymnasts participating in this festival exceeds all expectations. This international competition is of interest in almost all European states and promises to be of great importance. and furthermore "All available places in the hotels have already been booked. The municipal government has made the schools available, but even that is not enough." with the Ministry of War therefore agreeing to use two barracks for housing. And after competition the gymnast were regarded heroes "No wonder that wherever the Dutch gymnasts appear, they are seen as the heroes of the day!".

:::*You're refereing to the recent AFDs related to gymnast articles. However, in my opinion the quality of searcing for content is not always adequate. I also saw multiple times in these discussions claims like {{tq|searching offline archival material is wrongheaded}} because they are all primary sources ([https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Fran%C3%A7ois_Hentges&diff=prev&oldid=1288265249 1 example]).

:::95.98.65.177 (talk) 08:15, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

::::To be clear, the "festival" being referred to above was the 27th Belgian Federal Festival of which the 1903 international tournament was only a small part. Similarly, e.g., [https://archive.org/details/lastampa_1911-05-15/page/n3/mode/2up?q=%22di+Torino%22 the 1911 international tournament got only 1-2 paragraphs, but the festival it was part of got a whole page of coverage in La Stampa]. The description even of the banquet was way more in-depth and detailed that that of the international tournament.

::::No-one is going to search offline archives. Insisting on that is simply a non-starter. The people who need to do something like that, are the people who create articles - and if it wasn't done, then it is ridiculous to insist that other editors do it. FOARP (talk) 09:04, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Yes indeed as you say {{tq|No-one is going to search offline archives}}, your previous claim of {{tq|the closure of a number of AFDs}} is not a valid argument that sources doesn't exist. 95.98.65.177 (talk) 23:01, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Even if they have no special rules (that is, they use the "Basic notability" rules) those sports are so major that they should have bullets/subsections. I look at the page and they are missing. I think: is it an oversight? Is there another WP page devoted to those sports? How many hundreds of editors have come to this page and wasted time wondering about MAJOR sports that are not even listed here. Noleander (talk) 00:55, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:Those are major sports that do not need specialized advice as the more minor ones given on the list. Masem (t) 01:30, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

::See WP:NSPORTS2022. GiantSnowman 01:55, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:TNT? NSPORTS, in its current form, remains only as a community time sink for maintenance of a now toothless guideline. —Bagumba (talk) 02:23, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

::Hell, at this point, I'd advocate tossing ALL SNGs in favor of the GNG. Toss NSPORTS, toss PROF, toss them all, let them stand and fall on the GNG. Ravenswing 04:58, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Agreed. GiantSnowman 14:02, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::: There's benefit to having some of them, e.g. NPOL is particularly good, but NSPORT? Not so much... BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:30, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::My take's evolved over the last twenty years, surely, but my objections to SNGs comes down to this: almost without exception, they're carve outs implemented by partisans to insulate their particular bailiwicks from broader notability standards. NPROF, for instance, boils down to "Here's why obscure academics of whom no one's heard outside their narrow disciplines ought to have biographical articles anyway, because, y'know, they're worthy, unlike those sports figures and porn actresses." Granted, it sucks that the world cares more about 5th round NFL draft choices than about the average Nobel laureate, but we ought to be making as few subjective value judgments as we can. Ravenswing 15:43, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::: The issue with relying solely on GNG is cases like, e.g., obscure but prominent early Maldivian politicians, for which the coverage most certainly exists, but a plain English Google search is not going to find it. Without criteria such as NPOL we'll have deletion-obsessed editors AFD them and demand "you show me coverage now or it gets deleted!" BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:47, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::That is, in fact, the rule of the road. And if a wider application of the same provoked more editors including such sources in their newly-created articles -- as they're supposed to be doing in the first place -- so much the better. Ravenswing 22:44, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:::I dont agree to remove the SNG, but I'd point out NPROF predates WP:N and thus should be treated in the same bucket as other SNGs Masem (t) 15:33, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

::To my surprise at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kyle Hill, there is still something meaningful at WP:NBASKETBALL.—Bagumba (talk) 09:25, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

• I understand the frustration, but blowing up NSPORTS is not the solution. Wikipedia remains better with NSPORTS in place. Here are a few examples off the top of my head as to why NSPORTS still serves a valuable function:

:: (1) Though less comprehensive than it once was, NSPORTS provides useful guidance for the sports that it does cover in detail. E.g., WP:NTRACK, WP:NCYCLING, WP:NGOLF, WP:NGYMNASTICS, WP:NTENNIS, etc. New page patrollers and new editors rely on these as reasonable guidelines.

:: (2) WP:SPORTSEVENT provides useful guidance on when individual games/matches warrant stand-alone treatment. If this were eliminated, there would be less guideline against mass creation of articles on such games/matches.

:: (3) The "Basic criteria" at WP:SPORTBASIC provide helpful guidance on sports as a whole. For example, prong 5 passed with overwhelming community consensus in 2022 and ensures that there is no resumption of mass creation of sub-stubs sourced only to databases.

:: (4) WP:YOUNGATH is another valuable element of NSPORTS, providing a bulwark against mass creation of articles on high school athletes.

: We shouldn't allow our frustration over the repeal of participation standards for some sports to lead us into jettisoning all of the other valuable guidance we have built in NSPORTS. Cbl62 (talk) 17:05, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

As an active NPP'er, I think that it's good to have an SNG for sports. The previous "did it for a living for one day" standard for biographies was too lenient and that has been fixed. WP:SPORTBASIC is pretty useful for biographies. It's sort of a "GNG lite" which I think is middle of the road of what the community thinks on these. And IMO things are sort of working on biographies. IMO the big problem is a flood of completionist "stats-only" articles with only "stats only" sources on seasons of teams, competitions, and events. This goes agains the goals of wp:notability, and WP:Not Which is that we are an enclyclopedia which covers article type topics with articles. One roadmap for a fix would to expand the WP:SPORTBASIC "GNG lite" criteria to apply to all sports related stuff. Then either ditch the rest of the SNG or else create tidy stringent criteria which be an available alternate (bypass) to even the tuned up WP:SPORTBASIC. Sincerly, North8000 (talk) 19:16, 1 May 2025 (UTC)