Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of baseball nicknames

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus John Reaves (talk) 21:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of baseball nicknames, List of sportspeople by nickname, List of hockey nicknames. List of basketball nicknames, List of baseball nicknames

List of baseball nicknames (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Original research with no references or citations to verify any of the nicknames mentioned in the list. Also, it doesn't clarify how often a nickname has to be used in order for it to be considered an official nickname. TBCΦtalk? 00:55, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. I'm also nominating the following:
  • List of sportspeople by nickname
  • List of hockey nicknames
  • List of basketball nicknames
  • List of baseball nicknames--TBCΦtalk? 01:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete OR, NN, and really just plain NOT belonging here. Alex43223 ^{T | C | E} 00:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete and Merge verified nicknames into the respective team articles, if not already done so. UnfriendlyFire 01:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep not inherently original research, I've certainly seen/read a lot of these nicknames used in legitimate publications. There's no requirement that every claim on Wikipedia be backed up with an inline citation or we delete the article... some of these are just obvious, like "The Tribe" for Cleveland Indians "The Bronx Bombers" for the Yankees. Useful and interesting lists for sports fans. If some of the nicknames are original research, that's a reason to improve the articles, not delete them. --W.marsh 01:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, there is a requirement on Wikipedia for citations. See WP:ATT. Also, I strongly disagree that "sports fans might like it" is a reason for keeping these articles.--TBCΦtalk? 01:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
    • There is not a requirement that every line in an article have an inline citation this very minute. Never has been, never will be. It needs to be reasonably shown that sources do exist, that's the thing. If you think the Cleveland Indians have never been called "The Tribe" in print, for example, you obviously know very little about baseball [1] --W.marsh 01:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
      • There is a requirement for citations if the content might be considered dubious. Regardless, the article also has numerous POV issues, as it doesn't clarify how much a nickname has to be used in order for its inclusion into the list.--TBCΦtalk? 03:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
        • Luckily, there's an easy solution for that, we can just say "notable nicknames" and then follow the guidelines per WP:NOTABLE on any that are controversial. That takes care of any theoretical POV issues. --JayHenry 04:37, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete The List of baseball nicknames, much of it seems to fail WP:ATT and WP:MADEUP. "The Tribe" sure, but stuff like "Sox Suxs" "Asstros" "Pond Scum" "Filthy Rich Dankees"? Do you think this stuff would appear in a reputable source? Neutral on the others, if they could have references added, they could be pretty good articles Citicat 01:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • So remove the ones that are inaccurate? What is it with people wanting to delete an entire list lately just because a few items are incorrect... it's not much different than deleting articles because a few claims have {{fact}} tags next to them. --W.marsh 01:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Because I don't think there would be enough left over to make a worthwhile article. While might be a good article would be a list of major league baseball franchises, that could list prior team names and cities as well as nicknames. Citicat 18:43, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Kntrabssi 01:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Yeah that could be used as justification to delete absolutely anything though... Bill Clinton, Outer space, Russia... those are pretty random topics! We can't collect them indiscriminately, can we? Is there any specific problem with this information other than the fact that you apparently don't like it? --W.marsh 01:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep all per WP:AFD-IS-NOT_WP:CLEANUP. Remove the inaccurate or controversial names; build a better encyclopedia instead of eradicating the less-than-perfect articles. - Neier 03:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • 'The article also has numerous POV issues, not just clean up ones. For example, how many times does a nickname have to be used in order for it to be considered an official nickname? Five times? A hundred? A thousand? --TBCΦtalk? 03:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
    • POV issues aern't a reason to delete, either. If you can turn on the radio/TV coverage of a baseball game and the announcers are using the nicknames without need for explanation (Big Red Machine, Tribe, Bronx Bombers, etc.) that's a pretty established nickname. There's no reason to suspect the article couldn't cover such information reliably. --W.marsh 03:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Though I admit that not all POV issues are a reason to delete, inherently POV issues—such as in this case—are. Also, the article doesn't establish how many times must a nickname be used by TV/radio announcers in order for it to be considered an official nickname. After all, there are countless people in mainstream media who have made up neologisms to describe teams, and Wikipedia is certaintly not the place to indiscriminately record all of them. --TBCΦtalk? 03:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I'm just talking about turning on a random radio/tv broadcast. There are certain nicknames recognizable to baseball fans. Maybe this is something you actually have to follow sports to understand, I dunno. But there's a difference between established nicknames and the silly stuff sports columnists make up as filler and is forgotten quickly. It's not really an inherent POV issue, it just involves needing to improve the article. Everything you've said boils down to a need to improve the article, not a reason to delete it. --W.marsh 03:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
          • But the thing is, since it's entirely subjective, there's no way for us to determine how popular a neologism needs to be in order for it to be considered an actual nickname instead of, as you put it, "silly stuff sports columnists make up". As such, by all means these lists are inherently POV.--TBCΦtalk? 04:08, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

As to how many times something has to be used. It has to be used by multiple, verifible, reliable sources. If that critereon can be met for some of this set, I see no reason to delete this, only to clean it up. Wintermut3 18:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• • • • • • • I'm not following the reasoning that suggests it's entirely or inherently subjective. Some nicknames are adopted by the teams (see http://cincinnati.reds.mlb.com/cin/history/timeline3.jsp for one use of "Big Red Machine" on the team's home page), and the existence of just one such case should be enough to show that it is not a 100% subjective argument. Neier 04:37, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Strong Keep big difference between unverified and unverifiable. These lists need to be tagged for needing references, and from there a little clean-up and attention will do the trick. --JayHenry 04:32, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• delete as unencyclopaedic/trivial information. incorporate into each article, create a template entry for nickname. /Blaxthos 09:37, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • It looks like you are advocating the incorporation of "unencyclopaedic/trivial information" in articles? Doesn't that seem hypocritical? Neier 12:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I was unclear. Having an article of a list of nicknames is unencyclopaedic and trivial. Incorporating those nicknames into articles is useful (when referenced) -- we just don't need a indiscriminant and unverified list. /Blaxthos 18:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

As seen below, parts of the lists are already verified. As for indiscriminant, is there some other way that you would classify or list baseball teams besides the 32 MLB teams which would make it more discriminant? It seems that indiscriminant is too often used as anything that I think is useless in AFD discussions. Neier 23:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 18:37, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete The article is failing WP:NOT#IINFO as its just totally irrelevant information.Tellyaddict 19:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually, it's very relevant information. Sports journalists constantly refer to teams and players by their nicknames. Also, for people who keep saying "indiscriminate" I gently encourage you to actually look up the meaning of the word "indiscriminate" in a dictionary. These lists are not it. These lists pass WP:LIST, for 1) information and 2) navigation. The lists are easily verifiable and also notable as these nicknames are in constant use in sports journalism. If you want to redefine Wikipedia's policy on lists, AFD is not the place for it. --JayHenry 19:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
  • These articles are a lyrics database? They're travel guides? That's the only kind of things the page you've mentioned says are not to be included... and the articles in question clearly aren't any of those 8 things. People should really read these things before citing them. --W.marsh 20:08, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I've been going through the baseball article and adding references. There are about 20 now. I have to get back to real life, but I want to say, these nicknames are incredibly common. It's almost hard to find references because, for example, "Los Angeles" "Halos" returns over 1,000,000 hits on google, almost all of which are about the baseball team. Some of these nicknames even have books written about them -- about the actual nickname. There's an entire book about why the Dodgers are called the Boys of Summer. Also, I'm finding tons of non-trivial references such as "ESPN's List of Best Baseball Nicknames of All Time." As I do further research in this topic -- I'm not even interested in sports -- it's instantly obvious that sports nicknames are an integral part of sports culture and I'm changing my original vote to strong keep, and if not for the handful of delete votes, I'd change to speedy. These are blatantly valid lists. --JayHenry 20:36, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• • Here's an academic paper on Baseball nicknames: Gmelch, George, "What's in a Baseball Nickname", NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture Volume 14, Number 2, Spring 2006, pp. 129-132. [2]
  • Baseball almanac's list of hall of famers and their nicknames: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hof/hofnick.shtml
  • Baseball Nicknames: A Dictionary of Origins and Meanings (Hardcover), by James K. Skipper, [3]
  • Historical paper on Baseball nicknames: Nicknames of Baseball Clubs, Joseph Curtin Gephart, American Speech, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Apr., 1941), pp. 100-103 [4]
  • And honestly, I'll add these as I have the time. --JayHenry 20:44, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete The nicknames should be only found in the articles that's it. --JForget 00:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Valuable indexes to information on Wikipedia. Fg2 00:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep weed out OR ones - valualbe index Mayumashu 02:50, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Very valuable information. Nevertheless, we could add a requirement for references, a la List of entertainers by nickname. Mrbluesky 03:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep Very valuable information, esp for people who know the nickname but not the real name. Otherwise, delete all lists of nicknames, pseudonyms, & the like (which I strong oppose, btw...). Trekphiler 09:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Get rid of the unproven nicknames, but keep the rest. Captain panda In vino veritas 01:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. This is not original research, but rather an issue of missing sources. The addition of multiple sources here shows this to be the case. -- Black Falcon 19:54, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.