Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)/Archive 2

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Another try to get rid of the "hard" 5000 rule

The current guidelines read in part:

  • Published authors, editors, and photographers who have written books with an audience of 5,000 or more or in periodicals with a circulation of 5,000 or more
  • Recording musicians who have sold more than 5,000 albums, CDs, or similar recordings (see WikiProject Music's Notability and Music Guidelines)

As has been discussed extensively above and in the archives, that "hard" number is too high in some situations and too low in others. I propose replacing those two bullets with the following three (with the clear understanding that any of the other criteria may still apply to the individual and only one is necessary for inclusion):

  • Published authors, editors and photographers who received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work
  • Recording musicians with significant sales in a major market or genre or whose work is independently recognized for its influence (see WikiProject Music's Notability and Music Guidelines)
  • The person has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person. (Multiple similar stories describing a single news event only count as one coverage.)

Rossami (talk) 20:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I support this, especially the last point. I suggest a reword for the last point.
  • The person has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person. Multiple similar stories describing a single news event only count as one coverage. Reliable sources must be used, which excludes things like school newspapers, message boards, personal blogs, etc...
The reason for the amendment to the amendment, is, I don't want a popular kid in high school to get in, because he's featured in the school newspaper, or has a hundred friends on message boards. (although perhaps this is obvious, and doesn't need to be said). --Rob 21:22, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I somewhat support this. I'd prefer it to be non-vanity presses altogether for authors, and noted record labels for musicians as opposed to using "reviews" or "significant sales" and "recognized for its influence." I think the author one is an improvement, but have great concern with the musician one. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEMES?) 22:39, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
How about removing the musicians line completely and replacing it with an endnote such as "For musicians, see WP:MUSIC"? Rossami (talk) 06:25, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Makes sense. No need to have competing guidelines for the same group of people. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEMES?) 13:10, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with the boldly-imposed new standard, since it seems to set the bar much too high (especially in comparison to the place it held before), and may also be difficult to verify. The harder we make verification of notability, the more confusion and improper results there will be on AFD. I like Jeff's suggestion of non-vanity publishers for book authors, and to provide for the vanity scenario you cite on magazine/newspaper writers, we could maybe include something like:
  • Writes material that is regularly distributed by a major wire service.
  • Writes for a nationally-distributed magazine occupying a preeminent position within its market.
  • Writes regularly for the largest newspaper in a town of X persons, or for a newspaper with at least X market share in a major city.
  • Has published individual pieces in a significant number of different publications of this nature.
Do you think that this might be a workable compromise? -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 15:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't have any real issue with any of this in theory, my concern about writers was more on the book end than the magazine/newspaper part, which is one of those hairy places that I'm not sure everyone can be happy with. My issues with your 4 bullet points, however, is the subjectivity of it. What's a "preeminent position?" How are we deriving population/market share? What's a "significant number of publications?" I like where this is heading, I just personally prefer guideline bullets with clear definition to reduce quibbling, y'know? --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:55, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I would like to hear an example of somebody who passes your test, fails "The person has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works..", but still makes for a good article. I think we shouldn't have articles on people merely because lots of people have read what they've written *unless* somebody has written about that person. Someobdy who's written for the largest newpspaer in a town of X persons may be no more notable than somebody who has edited for the largest encyclopedia in the world. If nobody has written independently about a person, there's nothing for us to say. At best, we could reword the auto-bio of a reporter from the newspaper's web site. I think the current guidelines (with the most recent changes) are very inclusive and that's a good thing. --Rob 16:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I think the rewritten standard is more inclusive than the old standard. More importantly, it allows more flexibility for us to use common sense. The hard 5000 rule was too high in some cases and too low in others. This puts the question back where it belongs - asking whether someone else has written about the author yet. If not, then we are violating the tertiary source rule.
Reading through Hit's counter-proposal, I am uncomfortable with it for several reasons.
  1. Reading it literally, it would allow and even encourage the inclusion of literally hundreds of thousands of unverifiable biographies. There are 428 metropolitan areas with a population greater than 1 million and approximately 4000 with a population greater than 100,000. Every one of them will have their own newspaper (and most have multiples). Extrapolating from the staffing of one publisher, we can expect a staff of 1 reporter per 500-1000 people. And that's newspapers alone. (You could also try to extrapolate an answer from List of newspapers and it's drill-down pages. Using that as a proxy, I get a low-end estimate of 2500 newspapers.) There are some 1500 major magazines in our various List of magazines pages. Again, each will have dozens and perhaps hundreds of regular contributors. Remember that you can be a regular contributor without being a full-time employee.
  2. The purpose of our inclusion guidelines are to create rules-of-thumb - general guidelines where we can generally expect that the subject will have already been written about in some independent press. I do not have confidence that the proposed standards will be a useful rule-of-thumb in that regard. As Rob said above, many professional writers are unknown except for their own writings. Being a regular contributor is, in my experience, unlikely to be a good indicator of whether we can expect to be able to find verifiable, Wikipedia:reliable sources about the author.
  3. If we found an average reporter who met the proposed criteria above and matched that person to a businessman, engineer or doctor of equivalent experience, stature, etc (but meeting none of the other inclusion criteria), we would not accept a bio for the person of the other profession. Writing for a newspaper or magazine is a respectable profession but it is no more or less respectable or noteworthy than any other profession. Elevating reporters simply because of their profession seems inappropriate.
Whether someone else has written about the subject is a fairly concrete standard. I'm not sure I see how that will introduce more variability into our decision-outcomes. Rossami (talk) 22:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I see that Published authors, editors and photographers was changed on 19 May 2006 from "who have written books with an audience of 5,000 or more or in periodicals with a circulation of 5,000 or more" to "who received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work". This seems like a large change and could end up excluding some content that has been retained previously by reference to this notability criteria guideline. How about a admendment that reads

  • Published authors, editors and photographers who received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work, or who have written books with an audience greater than 5,000 or in periodicals with a circulation of geater than 5,000.

Comments?--blue520 13:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I still think this is too strict. I think it should be "people who have published books for non-vanity publishing houses." We're trying to keep vanity pages out, so I don't see what the problem is with including non-vanity authors. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:49, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
In some cases that may be too inclusive (broad), can you define a non-vanity publishing house as I may have a differing concept from you. Secondly I am not sure on how to view your response, is a good but ....(your suggestion) or no and more so ...(your suggestion)?--blue520 09:21, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't know how having a third party publisher (not a self-publishing house), who accepts and rejects plenty of manuscripts, would be too inclusive. I also don't see why having a basically inclusive stnace on authers is a bad thing. A vanity press is something like iUniverse, who will print copies of your book regardless of how good or bad they are, and there's certainly no notability (or ability, for that matter) that can be gleaned from such publications. --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
No comments or criticisms? (Excluding the one by Badlydrawnjeff of still too strict) --blue520 08:36, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

had number of sold paintings been used? It is impossible to know what group/person/author/artist will be incredibly improtant in the future, so why not let in insignificant figures, since Wikipedia is not paper? snug 21:33, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm against the 5000 rule, but surely leaving it as Published authors, editors and photographers who received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work is even worse? Independent reviews by what standard of publication? Awards from whom, their local school literary journal? Granted, this is a step in the right direction for taking away a meaningless sales count, but leaving the standard all but without teeth is just asking for even more vanity AfDs that legitimately will survive due to this change. Please close the loophole and put some teeth back on this standard in some capacity, if not by the sales. Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola 02:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

That standard is actually working quite well in a number of other contexts. WP:CORP jumps to mind. Independent reviews rules out press releases and anything based on them. That cuts out an amazing amount of unverified garbage. Also implied here (and explicitly stated in WP:CORP) is the understanding that only reliable sources count, ruling out reviews by your high school paper or local literary journal. Multiple reviews or awards has the effect of ruling out the trivial awards. You may get one but one is not sufficient to support the article. And the AFD participants seem to be quite good at researching the awards and culling out the meaningless ones.
I guess my real question is whether anyone has evidence that this new wording is actually being less effective? Rossami (talk) 03:55, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Candidates and elections proposal

I invite everyone interested in deletion and inclusion issues to visit my proposal at Wikipedia:Candidates and elections. The proposal states articles on not-yet-elected candidates should only be created if there is enough independent, verifiable and noteworthy information about the person to merit more than a stub. If only a stub's worth of material is available, the information should be put in an article on the election itself or a list of a party's candidates in an election. The proposal links to sample articles I've created in my userspace. -- Mwalcoff 00:23, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Olympic sportspeople

Can we please add a bit to the sportspeople paragraph specifically including Olympic competition as an explicit inclusion criterion? -- Jonel | Speak 04:21, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I would support that, as its already a defacto rule, that all verifiable Olympic competitors are included. --Rob 05:56, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I tried adding that all Olympic athletes are notable, which I feel is the AFD standard, but was reverted. Has any Olympic athlete bio been deleted (for reasons other than verifiability, copyvio, or attack)? I may have forgotten about a case, or more likely, simply missed one, so I welcome some examples. --Rob 18:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Not as far as I know. The AfDs I'm familiar with are Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lecomte, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Albert Baumann, and the current one (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christine Robinson). Lecomte is about the strongest candidate of any Olympian for deletion, as he came in dead last in an early event without selection criteria and we only know his surname. He got kept with quite a strong consensus. -- Jonel | Speak 01:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Lecomte came last, but most people saw him as coming eighth, so that might change things a bit. The early pioneers of anything always get kept as trailblazers, even if they failed. I doubt that a wildcard entry would automatically get kept today, unless they were Eddie the Eagle, Eric the Eel or the Jamaican bobsled team, etc, there would probably be a 40-60 either way.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 01:37, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I cant think of a single situation where an Olympic athelete wouldn't merit a WP entry. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEMES?) 01:30, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, there haven't been any articles put up yet on an African/South American/Middle East wildcard entry in swimming that often come home 25% slower than the winner. Apart from Eric Moussambani who made a media stir. If someone decided to put in 50 bios of wildcards who were much slower than a suburban swimmer in Australia or the US, they might get deleted. And in case anybody thinks I have an anti-Olympic bias, please look at my userpage.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 01:37, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I still don't see why having those articles would pose a problem. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEMES?) 01:40, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, some people will say, Even though the times are poor, they are notable in their own countries. I do not think that this is necessarily the case, as I believe if the sport had a notable presence in the given AFrican country, then they would have produced better than a suburban level recreational/fitness swimmer. I seriously believe that if some person in Saudi Arabia swam 100m in 58s, when the world record is 47.84s by Pieter van den Hoogenband, then obviously nobody cares much about swimming in Saudi Arabia, and hence, the person is not notable in terms of sporting achievement, and that they aren't "well-known" in a social/popular sense, because if the sport had a good profile, they would do better than the champion at a high-school sports day.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 01:45, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. Olympic coverage is generally done on a nationalistic basis. No matter how bad you are, you're notable in your country if you're the best (least bad) of your country, especially if you're the only one from your country in the sport, and more so if your the first from your country in the sport. People who never heard of a sport, become instant cheerleaders, when their country is represented in that sport. People may not always care about the sport per se, but they do care about their nation's representative. --Rob 02:19, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
That's probably a pretty good rule of thumb but I don't think we should necessarily enshrine it as an absolute rule. There were 11,100 competitors in the Summer Games of 2004 plus another 2,400 in the Winter Games of 2002. Even allowing for some overlap of returning competitors, do you really think that we can be positive that we can write solid, verifiable, non-stub articles on every one of those people? While many and even most Olympic athletes are appropriate for inclusion in the encyclopedia, I am not comfortable with the rule that all of them are by definition.
Do we really have so many deletion nominations about Olympic athletes that we can not continue to evaluate the situation on a case-by-case basis? Rossami (talk) 04:00, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that the convention has been "experimentally proven" so to speak. There have only been a few, and until a sample of the worst possible modern-day wildcard entrants get deleted, we will not know whether the bottom segment is worthy. At the moment, only a few mid-range athletes have been created, AfD'd and then survived. We don't know what would happen to a bottom range candidate yet.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 04:28, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Of all the many Olympian athletes, can you name one single one (verifiable of course), that you would support the deletion of, if it were to have an article. And do you think the community would support the deletion of it? I doubt there's an example. --Rob 05:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the last placegetter Vilayphone Vongphachanh in 50m freestyle for women 2004 Olympics, the time is slower (50% slower than WR) than the times at sportsday for U-13 girls, at my old high school, which was not sporty at all. Unless she was notable for doing a Moussambani, I think it simply proves that nobody in Laos could possibly care about swimming. As for the nationalism argument, I don't think that all athletes of a given country are given coverage, only the better ones. The TV station will focus on their country's best athlete, rather than play up the one who got a wooden spoon.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 05:37, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I think Vilayphone Vongphachanh makes a nice little stub. Making that article increased our Laos Olympian bio coverage by 50%. Hopefully somebody from Laos will one day improve those bios further. If we were delete all bottom ranked Olympians, we wouldn't be able to have any Olympian bios from Laos (as 3rd-last appears to be their historical best). --Rob 18:15, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Looking even beyond the athletic performance standard (which I still feel that people like Vongphachanh meet), I think it'd be hard for a modern Olympic athlete to not qualify under BIO for receiving significant media coverage. The event itself is televised worldwide and watched by a kajillion people... -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 15:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
All people who competed in a Olympic game is notable for me. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 06:55, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Small, but important, change

Should we change "sports" and "sportspeople" to "competitions" and "competitors?" Shouldn't people that win recognized, nationally known non-sports competitions be recognized too? --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:25, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

For example? Rossami (talk) 23:50, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
National Spelling Bee? Competitive eating? Granted, many of these may fall under other aspects of WP:BIO - as does every sports figure anyway - but most people will be looking to a sports clause, and this small change will make it easier to differentiate. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:45, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I would support being friendlier to non-athletic competitions, if they have substantial media coverage. But I don't think it's realistic to remove the differences fully. For instance we de-fact include every Olympic competitor (winners and losers). I think a winner of Scripps National Spelling Bee is notable, but probably not the typical competitor. --Rob 02:08, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Should we say "sportsfolk who reach the highest levels of competition, and other competitors who win or recieve significant coverage in a notable competition?" Or something similar? --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:10, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I would be ok with that as long as we're careful not suggest people below the threshold must be deleted (as they my qualify under something else). I worry people will see one related criterion, and vote delete based solely on it, ignoring others. Given the way Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Katharine Close is going (towards keep), I don't think a new rule is needed, but I could accept one, personally, if others do. --Rob 06:36, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, we had Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Rageshree_Ramachandran, which was a consensus delete, unfortunately. As the list at Scripps is becoming more wikified since last night, I'd like to nip this in the bud before things get out of hand is all. I certainly don't want to suggest anything, I just want to make sure common sense is explicit - that if you're winning a well-known, national competition, you're meeting basic notability standards. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:45, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Remove the distinction between living people and dead people

The standards should be the same for living and dead people because death is arbitary. The fact that the sports section is under "living people" is being used to argue for deletion of golfer Michael Christie who would indisputably meet the criteria if alive (and he was only born in 1969 so normally he still would be). It is being inferred that the standard for inclusion for dead people is far tougher than for dead people. This is absurd and the strength of feeling against the deletion proposal suggests that it does not reflect consensus. The value in this guideline is in the detail, but the priority given to the question "Has the person made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in the specific field?" allows anyone who wishes to ignore the detail to do so if the subject is dead. I've looked at this page quite a few times and it never crossed my mind that that was what was intended. Besides the sentence I quoted is vague and can be interpreted to exclude the vast majority of people with articles, even people like lesser known dead senators and cabinet ministers. Are we going to start disputing vast numbers of articles just after the subject dies? Let's get rid of this crude section, or at least relegate it to a footnote as an extra consideration that can justify inclusion in unusual cases where none of the specific criteria listed are relevant, but cannot be used to justify exclusion. Golfcam 12:33, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I think, if anything, the original purpose of a distinction is to be tougher on the living, for fear of autobiographical vanity. So, lets just remove any distinction. --Rob 15:29, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Celebrities' infant children

I would like a guideline to be established that young children of celebrities should generally not have articles of their own, and that receiving news coverage for having been born to or adopted by a celebrity is not the kind of news coverage that satisfies WP:BIO for the child. The reason for this is that until the children are able to accomplish things for themselves, all of their biographical information is likely to be included in the article for either or both of their parents anyway. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suri Cruise, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suri Holmes Cruise, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Maddox Jolie-Pitt, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zahara Jolie-Pitt, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt for evidence that a guideline for this kind of situation would be useful. --Metropolitan90 06:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that WP:BIO covers this, and it's consistently being ignored. You want a guideline that codifies the result you already have? --badlydrawnjeff talk 10:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
I mean that it should be specifically stated in WP:BIO. --Metropolitan90 12:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
One day's news event already is deemed insufficient. Also, even if an actor's baby qualifies for inclusion, that doesn't preclude a merge. A number of people pass the BIO test, but lack the content for a good article, and can be merge/redirected to a larger article. Your suggested change would cause us to delete content, which should simply be relocated. This is a non-problem in search of a non-solution. Also, I think your under the common misunderstanding that we award biographies based strictly on personal accomplishmnet. If that was so, direct heirs to thrones wouldn't have articles, which they generally do. --Rob 15:22, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Direct heirs are one thing, but what about prince Snot-Face the Second who is the fourth child of Lady Rawbottom, thus who is 4th in line to inherit the Dreary Moor Estates and 1437th in line for the throne of England? As it stands every whelp that some royal spawns is getting an article. In my opinion, 99% of them are quite a bit less notable than Zahara Jolie-Pitt and even if you want to ignore notability, Zahara Jolie-Pitt makes a much stronger case for meeting WP:BIO than Countess Leonore of Orange-Nassau, Jonkvrouw van Amsberg. Something should be added to WP:BIO, at least under Alternative Tests indicating the suitability or non-suitability of these articles as standalone (and in my opinion suggesting child info be merged to a parent article if the consensus is that child articles are not suitable for standalone articles just on the merit of who their parents are).--Isotope23 17:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
Prince "Snot-Face"? Do you think the rest of your comments are going to be taken seriously? We don't need have special criteria for every conceivable situation. With the current wording (related to independent coverage from multiple sources), we've got a pretty decent guideline, that's working ok. Sure, somebody you don't like (or hate) will get articles, but that's too bad. I oppose adding any new criteria based on personal dislike of a class of people. --Rob 17:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
When exactly did your sense of humor die, Rob? To be honest, I don't know enough nobles to use real names in my example. Seriously though, I don't like/dislike nobles any more than like/dislike celebrities, their children, or puppies. I disagree with you that the guideline is working in relation to these childrens' articles... we have a case of systemic bias here where the children of nobles are see as suitable material for individual articles and the children of celebrities are not when in fact the child of a celebrity probably makes a stronger case towards WP:BIO under "noteworthy" events. I'm not advocating inclusion, deletion, or merging for these articles... I'm advocating tightening up the guidelines so there is consistency. If at the end of the day the consensus is that these children each get their own individual articles, I'm fine with that. As it stands we will continue to go through AfD's on these articles and continue to have inconsistant outcomes.--Isotope23 12:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Criminals

Hello. Has any thought been given to guidelines on the inclusion of criminals in Wikipedia? I suppose they'd fall within the "Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events" criterion, but "newsworthy events" seems nebulous. Cheers, Lbbzman 23:23, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The FBI estimates that there were 1.4 million violent crimes in 2004 (the last year for which final results are available) in the US alone. It's unfortunate but horrific murders and other crimes are normal and not generally particularly notable outside their immediate community. We want articles on Ted Bundy but don't need or want articles on every murderer, rapist or phisher who comes along.
The general standard in my experience has been that the crime and specifically, the criminal, must have received multiple independent and non-trivial coverages over an extended period of time and across a very large area. Lengthy or repeated international coverage is best - national coverage is, I think, a minimum.
It helps if someone has written an actual book on the subject. Articles based solely on newspaper articles have been problematic for us. That can often be a sign that the topic may be more appopriate for WikiNews than for Wikipedia.
Personally, I think this is an area where the 100 year test works well. Would you expect an encyclopedia of 1906 to carry an article about a criminal of similar actions and coverage? Would you expect anyone in 2106 to take the time to research this criminal as an individual (rather than merely as a statistic)?
As a side note, any article on a criminal whether convicted or merely alleged must be particularly careful about complying with the provisions of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, especially the sections on Remove unsourced criticism and Presumption in favor of privacy. Rossami (talk) 00:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

DJs

What exactly are the guidelines for the inclusion of a DJ? I've found several, and don't know what to do about them. Mr. Lefty Talk to me! 19:47, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I used to aggressively edit the disc jockey article to remove vanity listings. There are no hard criteria, but common sense generally prevails, and remember, Wikipedia is a tertiary source: it makes reference to things that have been written about a person or topic; someone's notability relies on the fact that you can cite published sources that don't just mention them, but help confirm their notability. Very few rave/club DJs qualify because very little is written about them, except for the heavyweights of the 1970s and 1980s who were instrumental in the development of certain music genres. Radio DJs that made headlines outside of their market might qualify, but nowadays the publicity stunts of shock jocks are barely newsworthy, which leaves only the pioneering radio DJs of old (like Alan Freed) as notable in that domain. Jamaican sound system DJs who pioneered the techniques of hip hop and dub, and the earliest hip hop DJs are notable. But Joe Shmoe bedroom producer / record collector who has put out a few 12"s on an indie label and gets regular club/party DJ dates and is talked about only on web sites does not qualify. Generally if they are currently active, view them with a huge degree of skepticism. Too many people are desperate for Wikipedia exposure. They gain a lot more credibility when they no longer have anything to gain by being mentioned in Wikipedia.—mjb 20:32, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
So does that mean that DJ articles should be speedily deleted? Mr. Lefty Talk to me! 02:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
If they meet A7, unfortunately, yes, but I encourage you to use WP:PROD. For the record, more DJs may be notable than you think. Use WP:MUSIC as a parameter, especially if they release CDs and tour. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

People paying for bios

I wonder what the story is behind this Craigslist posting:

Looking for a writer that is familiar with posting and writing rules on Wikipedia to edit a page with correct information, using links, quotes, life story information, etc. for notable person. Must have sense of humor, and have a rate of $50-$150 for complete work. Must be able to make everything sound exciting![1]

It sounds like it's some crappy writer who is probably not notable but desperately wants Wikipedia exposure is now resorting to paying people to write a bio for him. And somebody will probably take him up on it. Why is it that people cannot grasp the fact that if they are relying on Wikipedia for exposure, then it underscores the point that they are not notable?—mjb 20:17, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Minor league baseball players

The guideline says, Sportspeople/athletes who have played in a fully professional league. Can we change this, in the case of baseball players who have never played in the Major Leagues? There have been hundreds of thousands of minor league baseball players who have never made it to the Majors, and have no notability as a result. There may be a minor league player or two who are notable for their contributions to minor league baseball, but just having played shouldn't qualify them for an article. I would not include Negro League players in this category, as they would, in all likelihood, have had Major League careers if they had had the opportunity. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. On one hand, it *is* a professional league. On the other, no one is advocating allowing, say, Can-Am League players to be entered in. With that said, where does the line sit? plenty of minor leaguers are very notable before reaching the big leagues - Jon Lester and Jonathan Papelbon certainly were - and others that are certainly notable for the teams they play for. We'd have to draw a line somewhere, and "major leagues" doesn't cut it at all. Anyone above AA i would fight for, and even some AA ones would be notable enough. Why does it hurt Wikipedia to have a comprehensive article base of people who have played professional baseball? --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:34, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kinston Indians. User:Zoe|(talk) 22:37, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
see Kinston Indians. Most of the players are redlinked. I can't even get all the players on the Boston Red Sox affiliate Portland Sea Dogs, and us Red Sox fans are insane. So I do repeat - why does it hurt Wikipedia to have a comprehensive article base of people who have played professional baseball? --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:45, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
This isn't Baseball America. A guy who played one game for some D Level team in 1927 doesn't merit an article, period. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:02, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
But why don't they merit an article? Our not being Baseball America isn't exactly an answer. They play professional ball, have thousands of fans, and often effect things in levels above and below them. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Lack of real-world impact, lack of non-trivial media coverage, lack of sources, undue weight of coverage for members of the profession (i.e.; baseball players), and other complete failures of Wp:BIO, not mention the pure impracticality of filling in a ludicrously large and practically uncompletable list. [O]ften effect things in levels above and below them ain't good enough: actually effecting things in levels above and below them would be the minimum, it seems to me, this not being a faith-based encyclopedia -- and I mean something beyond the baseball version of the butterfly effect. As for thousands of fans -- please. --Calton | Talk 07:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
That's false on many counts. For one, let's take the Worcester Tornadoes. They have an FM radio contract, they have their games covered in one of the top 100 newspapers in the United States, they regularly sell 2500 tickets a game, etc. A newpaper with that sort of reach wouldn't be "trivial," and there's certainly no lack of sources, any minor league player can have plenty of sources about them. Undue weight isn't an issue here, either - professional is professional. Also, lists are absolutely completable if people choose to make them. Your assertions are without merit in this case. --badlydrawnjeff talk 10:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I think this issue shows the dangers of making blanket statements on WP:BIO. On one hand, the kind of Kinston Indians players listed on AfD merit articles. On the other hand, we recently had a keep vote for a double-A player: a top prospect with a mid-90s fastball who had recently been in the news for being arrested for some crime. I think these should be handled on a case-by-case basis. The problem is that if we change "professional league" to "major league" on the project page, we'll get calls to delete even the most-talked-about prospects because they "fail WP:BIO." -- Mwalcoff 23:34, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

And to change to "major leagues" eliminates obviously notable minor league players. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
we'll get calls to delete even the most-talked-about prospects Which is pretty much the way it should be, if it's just talk. Wikipedia is NOT a crystal ball, remember, and that someone MIGHT become hot stuff someday falls squarely within the no-no list, same as would be for that hot new actor just starting with the North Crawford Mask and Wig Club. If there's something more concrete about a player than hot air around the Hot Stove League, then he'll probably qualify under WP:BIO. Hoping he'll be a star? Not so much. --Calton | Talk 07:06, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, but you might want to reread the crystal ballism part of WP:NOT again. The most talked about prospects get that way through even more substantial sports news coverage. At the moment, they still qualify under WP:BIO. --badlydrawnjeff talk 10:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Then WP:BIO needs revision. As currently worded, the tens of thousands of minor league players, from rookie league on up, and also including various Latin American leagues, would qualify, and that's just not right. If someone has a lot of press (Minor League Player of the Year-type players) they could merit an article, but merely being on the roster of the Jupiter Hammerheads or the Phoenix Athletics should not be sufficient. Fan1967 18:19, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Why is it "not right?" How does it hurt the encyclopedia? --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
For the same reason we don't include every member of the town council of Podunk, Michigan, who easily can claim to be as notable as any random member of the Hammerheads. Because thousands of articles on people you've never heard of clutters it up with fluff. Fan1967 18:46, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't even know if that's the case. To bust your analogy, people know of minor league players all over the nation, even if they play for a Class-A affiliate for a team on the opposite coast. There will always be a significant number of people who have no clue who's on their own town council. Besides, "Town Council" is the equivalent of Knights of Columbus baseball the thirtysomethings play on the weekends, a better analogy would be individual state Senate/House members, which can be viewed as the "minor leagues" of national politics and would easily be kept. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
No. State legislators would be AAA. Town council is single-A. Ward committeeman would be rookie-league. Fan1967 18:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
people know of minor league players all over the nation, even if they play for a Class-A affiliate for a team on the opposite coast? I doubt that seriously. I am a baseball fan, and don't even know the Class-A team members for local teams or for the teams I am a fan of. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:13, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Rotisserie fans are CRAZY. I wonder if anyone would be up for rotisserie town councils... --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:50, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, enough with the extended metaphor, already. I think this issue shows the problem with using "notability" to determine who should have an article. It's so fuzzy. You can say, for example, that NBA basketball players are notable and high-school athletes aren't. But in his senior year of high school, LeBron James was a national celebrity on magazine covers and SportsCenter, while no one cared about an NBA bench-warmer like Tierre Brown. Whatever policy we have should be flexible enough to allow for articles on people like LeBron or Koby Clemens. -- Mwalcoff 23:01, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

If you're featured in hundreds of newspaper articles, as LeBron was, you're clearly notable, even before being drafted. That argument can also, maybe, be used to justify the Koby article, though personally I object to articles about notable people's relatives. But if you're just another kid playing for the Hammerheads, hoping to someday move up, and the only press you ever get is the local Jupiter paper, no, you don't merit an article. Fan1967 23:33, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I AFD a couple of articles on minor-league players before, and they got deleted even though I tried AFDing a article on a player who only played one game in 1903 and it was kept, I agree with Zoe it should be rewarded, my cousin played pro ball for two years in the low level minors and does he deserve a article, no as he is currently working in a mall, very nn. Current top prospects I see the case for a article but minor league players who played in a couple of games in a certain year, and became unknown afterwards. No point in having one if it won't be expanded, same goes with college players Jaranda wat's sup 06:44, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Yuck, that criteria is poorly worded. "Fully professional" - what does the word "fully" add? Using a strict constructionist reading, it would mean that we throw out leagues in which some players are pros and some are not. I think that wording needs to be tightened. I would even go so far as to tighten it all the way to "top professional league in a country". If someone is truly notable, they'll pass one of these tests: "Widely recognized entertainment personalities", "Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events", or "The person has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent". Farm team players that never make it to the big leagues are the run of the mill person for their profession, and not inherently noteworthy. GRBerry 16:29, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'll toss the question out there again: where do we draw the line? "Major leagues" is too restrictive, as it would squeeze out prospects who recieve significant coverage based on their talent and projections. If "professional" is, god forbid, too inclusive, then how are we going to handle otherwise notable minor leaguers objectively? --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:33, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
That's easy. "Significant coverage" trumps anything else, like current playing level. LeBron James was clearly notable as a high school player because he had significant coverage from major new sources. Major league (or highest professional level in any sport) automatically entitles anyone to an article. Anyone at a lower level should only be included if they have significant coverage, meaning coverage beyond outlets like a local paper, or comprehensive websites that list everybody. Fan1967 17:59, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
So when we have major book publications that cover, say, the top 50 prospects, or major rotiserie league reports, do they qualify then? Would Kevin Youkilis have made your cut thanks to Moneyball in 2003? Jon Lester was involved in a number of national trade rumors two months ago, yet didn't make his first major league start until a couple weekends ago. Would he? Hanley Ramirez was rated a top 10 prospect all over the place for years, and he made his first major league starts this season, how about him? The line is awfully blurry in your scenario, as no one is going to agree on what "significant coverage" is, while everyone can agree what a professional baseball player is, and it doesn't hurt us to include them. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:13, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
I would say those people would probably make the cut. Obviously individual cases are up for discussion, but clearly those players are at the opposite end of the minor-league spectrum from the Kinston Indian players just deleted. Fan1967 18:18, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for proving my point. The Kinston Indians players certainly meet the examples I laid out, specifically the rotisserie reports, which was my point in highlighting that. But one could apply the other issues to that: there were a lot of players who got significant mention in Moneyball, ESPN has a habit of reporting trade rumors as well as players traded in the minors, and many baseball publications (like, for instance, Baseball Weekly) do "top XX prospects" lists yearly. That's over 300 minor league players right there alone. You're unnecessarily blurring the line in an attempt to be less inclusive, when including professional baseball players hurts nothing. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
You mention "300 minor league players" covered in major publications. That's basically 1% of minor leaguers. Of the other 99%, some may become notable later, but the vast majority will disappear, leaving nothing but a few stats. Fan1967 18:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
And I'll ask again: how does including that other 99% hurt anything? --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Ah, yes, the question asked by every teenager about his Myspace band article. The answer is (a) it loads Wikipedia down with fluff, and practically empty stubs; and (b) we can't anyway. There will never be more than a small percentage of the tens of thousands of minor league players, selected randomly. Most will have very little information anyway. If people want information on minor league players, they should be encouraged to go to sites that actually do a good job of maintaining information on minor league players. Fan1967 20:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

All of this gets at something that goes well beyond baseball players. The key should not be notability; it should be verifiability and public interest in the topic. Notability is important only in that subjects that are notable are bound to have more independent, verifiable information about them out there. Notability should not be the end-all. A notability guideline may help people determine what subjects are more likely to have verifiable information available. But if verifiable information is available about something for another reason, and people are interested in the subject, people should not be discouraged from writing an article on the subject. -- Mwalcoff 22:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

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