Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adalberto Hilário Ferreira Neto

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 keep all per consensus below. I also want to reiterate two points raised in the discussion that I think are very important: Wikipedia is not a battleground, and any discussion about improvements/changes to WP:ATHLETE should be taken up on the relevant talk pages, not here. --jonny-m t 03:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adalberto Hilário Ferreira Neto[edit]

Per WP:BIO, non-notable professional soccer player. There are professional soccer players and then there are notable professional soccer players.

WP:ATHLETE is being used to protect stub articles that have no quality about players that are irrelevant to the world of sports.

There are already over 10,000 articles devoted for soccer players and average of 3 new articles every day. Just on the Category:Brazilian footballers there are 2,313 articles and on the Category:English footballers over 6,500 articles. Wikipedia could become MySpace of Athletes given the great number of "profiles" created.

Please take note that in articles for notable professional soccer players such as Adriano Leite Ribeiro, the article contains real information and a reference section. ⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 13:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also nominated for deletion:

Delete All. Non-notable all. This is like listing every single football player in the NFL and saying they're notable. I Googled each one and all but one (Alex Afonso) appeared as part of roster listing or chatroom discussion only. Afonso had a mention in a couple of newspaper articles as making a goal. Not significant enough for a wiki article.Renee (talk) 17:28, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All; per WP:ATHLETE. We do list every single football player in the NFL, and WP:ATHLETE says they're notable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I object strongly to large group AfDs where the commentators have to separate out the wheat from the chaff; group AfDs are bad at at that. But I will grudgingly state that my Keep vote does not cover any of these that clearly don't pass WP:ATHLETE, some sort of consensus for which may appear below.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep All: If they are all indeed professional soccer players, then they meet the current criteria for inclusion. Being a stub is no reason to delete. DCEdwards ¹⁹⁶⁶ 18:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment It needs to be confirmed whether or not these players have actually played for the first teams - just being on the roster is not enough to be natable - playing in a full time professianal league does.Nigel Ish (talk) 18:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
~~Keep all, except Adalberto Hilário Ferreira Neto~~ - These stubs should be expanded, but all appear to satisfy WP:ATHLETE. Rather than putting them up for mass AfD, I think it's more productive to try to improve the individual stub articles. Jogurney (talk) 19:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete Adalberto Hilário Ferreira Neto - per [1], he has not yet played in a fully professional league. Jogurney (talk) 19:46, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Actually he went back to Brazil in 2007-08 season, but he played 4 games in 2006-07 (actually at second half). Matthew_hk t c 19:58, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I'm withdrawing my votes based on the evidence provided. Jogurney (talk) 20:24, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment This is crazy. We are talking about 19, 21 year old people that couldn't possibly have achieved notability in their field of work because they are too young but yet they qualify for an article in Wikipedia.

The WP:Athlete criteria serves only to satisfy NFL and MLB fans and this is the consequence. Out of fairness we should have WP:Soldier, I mean the guy is a professional soldier that participated in a major league war.⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 19:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Notability for notability guidance for football - Wikipedia:Athlete#Sportspeople fully applies "Competitors and coaches who have competed in a high-level, fully professional league" - it doesn't just apply to baseball and American Football!Nigel Ish (talk) 19:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some of these articles are about youth players (especially Adalberto) and do not pass the notability standard, but many of them cover older players that have played in professional leagues in Brazil and Europe. Jogurney (talk) 19:46, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notability is a combination of two things: have reliable sources written about the subject, and are people going to look for the article. Perhaps WP:Athlete is too extensive, but WP:Soldier is stupid, given that there's a few thousand athletes covered under WP:Athlete and a few million soldiers, most of whom are completely undocumented in public sources. Age is also irrelevant; 20-year-old Évariste Galois is plenty notable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:47, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how WP:ATHLETE can be seen as a valid way of determining notability, it was just invented one day in 2005, by an editor that retired over a year ago, see his talkpage, this question sums it up, but unfortunately the oracle of sports notability has retired. E P 19:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Every page on Wikipedia was just invented someday. WP:ATHLETE continues to be cited and agreed with on AfD, and no one has created a consensus to overturn it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's clear by English peasant's comment that the WP:Athlete policy was simply invented, it was not a product of a thorough debate as it should have been. Also WP:Athlete is policy so it's enforced that means it can't be agreed or disagreed with.⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 00:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're currently disagreeing with it on Wikipedia talk:Notability (person), so how on Earth can you claim that it can't be disagreed with?--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have to disagree here, many pages on Wikipedia policy were created through discussion debate and consensus, rather than dreamt up by one individual and held as a rigidly enforceable law from then on. E P 22:16, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's no one rigidly enforcing WP:ATHLETE, and the page is not even semi-protected. There's just ordinary editors who choose to follow an ordinary guideline. You're free to change WP:ATHLETE, but that's requires more discussion on WP:ATHLETE, not disparaging it here.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:55, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Come on, you will have to agree that the WP:Athlete policy is being rigidly enforced at this AfD debate.⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 00:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If it was, you'd be blocked, and this AfD would have been speedy closed. But hey, it's always fun to whine about how unfair things are, isn't it?--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see that you are making personal attacks probably out of desperation, that's bad.

Everybody is claiming WP:Athlete without displaying ANY reservation about that policy, or common sense about the notability criteria (WP:BIO). But you are right all I can do is whine about how unfair things are, because I can't stop WP:Athlete from being enforced.

If the WP:Athlete weren't being strictly enforced, those article would have gotten deleted per WP:BIO a long time ago, am I wrong?⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 16:27, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can't stop WP:Athlete from being enforced, because consensus is against you. How like Wikipedia.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some of these players are more notable than others, but because of the large group being nominated for AfD at once, it is nearly impossible to discuss here. There are certainly some that only pass WP:ATHLETE because of 3 or 4 top-level matches, but others have played 4 or more seasons in top flight leagues. Why don't you close this and re-nominate the player or two that only have a few top-flight matches and then we could consider the wisdom of a "bright-line" 1 match rule? Jogurney (talk) 13:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep these They all playing/played in professional league

ALL PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLER ARE NOTABLE. If they were over the age of a youth player, and as unused member of a very notable professional team may also notable.

Weak Delete these, because no source these youth player have made their professional debut:

Matthew_hk t c 19:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Ademar Dos Santos Batista - According to Futpedia, Ademar dos Santos Batista played one league game in 2004, where Botafogo lost 3-1 to Figueirense.Bettia ^(talk) 15:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The not the point of professional. After the game, he never played in fully professional league again. Matthew_hk t c 22:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The sheer number of similarly empty football articles created by this user is staggering, Mario1987 has barely corrected, improved or even updated a single one of his hundreds of articles since their creation. He just creates more and more of these shells expecting anyone else to fix them up to stub class. The fact that Jogurney has done great work trying to improve them to a reasonable standard probably just encourages Mario1987 to create even more. The fact remains that many of these articles are dismally uninformative and often inaccurate. I just hope that some of the people voting keep will do some work to improve them, but judging by previous attempts to get rid of articles as poor as Amiraslanov it is not going to happen. E P 19:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football related deletions. Matthew_hk t c 20:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "CBF Brasileiro Série A 2008 record, Santos 4-0 Ipatinga, the no.17".
^ "CBF Brasileiro Série A 2008 record, Goiás 1-1 Ipatinga, the no.18".
^ "CBF Brasileiro Série A 2008 record, the no.5".

Keep Having these articles improves our coverage of Brazilian footballers. We do not work to a deadline and good faith contributions should not be denigrated due to concerns that can be summed up as WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Notability concerns are a red herring , many of the subjects of these articles meet the existing notability guidelines for footballers. Catchpole (talk) 21:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all players appear to meet notability requirements. Giant Snowman 22:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Football-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep Notability is satisfied by playing professionally: if these men have played professionally, they are notable, and therefore should be kept. If these articles are deleted, what reason is there to keep plenty of NFL players? Nyttend (talk) 22:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete There is no field of human activity where all the professionals in it are notable. Not politicians, not professors, not porn actors, not football players. In those sports where full professionals are a truly elite echelon, then they are probably are notable. We need some way of distinguishing, and I leave it to those who know the sport and country to separate out the top professional level--or possibly levels. Common sense is the basis for editing, and for policy and guidelines. If a small group want to propose their own more expansive standards, they are welcome to suggest them, but this is not their own private encyclopedia, and the rest of us have to accept them. I'd like to see a demonstration of true non-local notability even in their own country. Consensus may have been to tolerate this, but consensus can change, and its time it did. "having these articles improves our coverage of Brazilian footballers" -- having every professional wrestler would improve our coverage of professional wrestling, in breadth were all we cared about. We're an encyclopedia, not a player list. In US football, the NFL is the top level of its particular sport--are all of these playing at the top national level in theirs? DGG (talk) 02:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you 100%. But common sense here is nonexistent, the only argument is WP:ATHLETE.

The distorted WP:ATHLETE guideline sets the standards so low that basically every single professional soccer player from Brazil can satisfy that guideline, even athletes at the very beggining of their careers.

Another thing, English peasant points out that the WP:ATHLETE guideline was invented, it was not a product of careful debate.

Only 5 of the nominated players play for top national leagues, but were nominated based on the fact that they've had non remarkable or notable careers.⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 04:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gee, because claiming everyone else lacks common sense doesn't violate WP:DICK...--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all in Matthew_hk's keeplist above - We have brought most of those articles up to stub class by adding references, links, infoboxes and career histories. Every one of the players have played in a "NFL-equivalent" professional association football league (Matthew_hk has listed them above - although Alex Afonso has actually played in the Brasileiro A and Portuguese Liga). I agree to deletion of the other two (Ademar & Adonis) since we have no evidence that they have played at this level. Jogurney (talk) 02:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

how many top leagues are there, andare some at a higher level than others? DGG (talk) 02:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are fully professional leagues in many countries (and some countries have more than one professional league). Among those mentioned above, the Brasileiro A, Portuguese Liga, Ukrainian Premier League, and J-League (Japan) are without question fully professional. The Liga de Honra (Portuguese 2nd division), Swiss Challenge League (2nd division), Brasileiro B (2nd division) and Chinese Super League (1st division) are most likely fully professional, but I'm not certain. Jogurney (talk) 02:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DGG, you must realize that there are far more notable teams in world football than there are in most other sports (especially the ones dominated by one country, such as American football). For instance, any team that has reached the final of the UEFA Champions League, or UEFA Cup is undoubtedly notable. Well, that includes teams from... *breath* England, Scotland, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia (back then), Greece, Belgium, Russia, Turkey, and Austria. *breath* So there are, as you might imagine, quite a few competitive fully professional leagues in Europe (and quite a few more in the rest of the world) - which is why you have all these "obscure" professional football players - after all, if we say anyone who plays 1 minute in an NFL game is notable, then so is anyone who plays 1 minute in a Belgian Jupiler League match... etc. ugen64 (talk) 03:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And as for your question, are some leagues better than others? Well certainly, yes - here is an example ranking. (but it's more subtle than that - for instance, England's 2nd tier league, the English Championship, ranked 6th in a recent ranking of "richest leagues in the world" - above many competitive top-level leagues! ugen64 (talk) 03:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder what that list of league rankings was based on. I find it hard to believe that Major League Soccer in the United States ranks only 67th, behind such other countries as Zimbabwe (at 64th). Maybe if David Beckham leaves the Los Angeles Galaxy to join a club in Zimbabwe, I might find it credible. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 19:06, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - The soccer in Brazil have some peculiarities.

The players almost never are known by their full names (Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Adriano, Romário, Roberto Carlos, Zé Roberto), sometimes they are known by a nickname without any connection with their names (Pelé-Edson, Zico-Arthur, Dunga-Carlos, Tostão-Eduardo, Garrincha-Manoel). In a Google search, "Adeílson Pereira de Mello" returns 97 results [2] while Adeílson Ipatinga returns 5.940 results [3] and, as I could see, most of them refering to him.
The players change clubs sometimes 3 times a year, it's not difficult to find a player with 10 or more clubs in his curriculum; a lot of non notable players plays in a top division club along the career. In european soccer or in american professional sports leagues, it's normal a player stay for years in the same club.
There are a lot of fully professinal high-level leagues, Brasileiro A and B, and also some state leagues 1, 2, 3, 4.

The analysis of Matthew_hk is perfect according to WP:ATHLETE, Competitors and coaches who have competed in a high-level, fully professional league. But I have to agree with EconomistBR; using WP:ATHLETE criteria, maybe we have more then 10.000 encyclopedic players only in Brazil. It seems that the criteria for notability of soccer players must be reviewed or we have to be more condescending with athletes of other sports. (Caiaffa (talk) 05:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC))[reply]

yes, I realised the popularity of football in Brazil! I am not blind altogether :). I would suggest changing "high" to "highest", but that is probably too restrictive. Any ideas for some wording in the middle? Does "very high" actually mean anything more than "high" ? I think that might satisfy people. But given what you say about non notable people playing for very high level leagues, then the league criteria used elsewhere may not work here. Suggestions are up to you experts. DGG (talk) 17:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Actually the guideline is the argumanet on professional and notable. English footballers had been created to level 4, the League Two, so making the scope of "notable" two large. Matthew_hk t c 19:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I notice that Jogurney and Matthewhk are the only keep !voters to actually make any effort to improve the articles. I accept that most of these articles meet the specifications of WP:ATHLETE, but reject the legitimacy of WP:ATHLETE. I do however support the consensus based football specific criteria which can be found at WP:FOOTYN which most of these footballers would pass. My only concern here is the improvement of stub/sub-stub class articles, which would be a positive outcome to this AfD if the people voting keep tried to ensure that the content is of a suitable standard for an encyclopaedia rather than simply voting keep because it meets criteria dreamt up by one guy years ago. E P 22:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No offense but WP:FOOTYN is WP:ATHLETE with different wording so much so that WP:FOOTYN is not more restrictive than WP:ATHLETE. WP:FOOTYN's standards are so low and easy to satisfy that every single player of Brazil that played just a single match of either Copa do Brasil, Campeonato Brasileiro Série A and Campeonato Brasileiro Série B can have an article at Wikipedia.

That's over 67 soccer teams X 15 players (conservatly) per team = 1005 players elligible for a STUB Wiki article every year for Brazil alone. I don't know the turn over rate but it could be quite high.

The only thing stopping those STUB articles from being created is just laziness because they do satisfy both WP:ATHLETE and WP:FOOTYN.

⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 04:53, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Look, Brazil has a population of 187 million people and are widely regarded as the best footballing nation in the world. It can't be justifiable to delete players from the 2nd tier of professional football in Brazil if we compare with say Scotland, population 5.1 million (and to be fair no comparible record of success) where because they are an English speaking nation with many Scottish football fans contributing to English Wikipedia their lower division players from teams such as St Johnstone (2nd tier) and East Fife (3rd tier) have articles. We should be supporting efforts to improve coverage of the international game to avoid the impression that football is centred around England, Scotland, USA, Australia and the other English speaking countries. My only concerns are whether the articles are of sufficient quality as to not have a detrimental effect on Wikipedia's football coverage, and whether the articles will ever be maintained, especially if the players in question drop into obscurity. In my opinion both of these things are likely in cases of mass indescriminate stub creation. The fact that the majority of editors seem unwilling or unable to improve or update articles on obscure foreign footballers that they have never even seen in action, means that the burden of maintenence is on the creator, who in this case just doesn't maintain his own work, (too busy churning out dozens of new footballer stubs) or on one or two dedicated international football article improvers. E P 22:59, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that Wikipedia's coverage of football is wanting in countries where English is not the primary language. I also share your concern that some users are creating many stub or sub-stub class articles for players in these regions that they do not intend to update or maintain. However, it is my experience that new users that follow football in these regions often come in later and upgrade the articles. I created several stub class articles about Bolivian footballers based on some reliable sources I found, and I've noticed two new users that apparently speak Spanish and follow Bolivian football have gone and improved those articles. I think these stubs can serve as an invitation to other users to expand the article, but ideally the creator will need to dedicate some effort to maintaining and expanding the articles he/she creates. Jogurney (talk) 17:39, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - WP:ATHLETE is built around the notion that in well-developed countries, information about people playing at the top professional level is available from multiple secondary sources. Scanning ESPN or Yahoo Sports for any bench-warming MLB player establishes that fairly clearly. It is not unrealistic to think that someone in Brazil would look to Wikipedia for information on any player on the field of a particular match. Especially, if they read his name in an article on FIFA's CONMEBOL page, or any number of other sources that document the games. Neier (talk) 13:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It has generally been held that RSs for notability must be non-local, but at least at a regional. Ever town newspaper anywhere has sources about its purely local figures. Is this the case here? DGG (talk) 02:34, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The case here is worse. All articles nominated don't have ANY information, they simply list player transfers so the issue of WP:Reliable sources doesn't even come up.

Now, since these players have no notability not even local sources write something about them so the issue of WP:Reliable sources may never come up.

Those article are doomed to be STUB articles with no information about players nobody hears about, but WP:ATHLETE doesn't allow them to get deleted.⇨ EconomistBR ⇦&;nbsp;Talk 03:03, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe one or two of this players have real notability, but according to WP:ATHLETE and the even more comprehensive WP:FOOTYN (Have played for a fully professional club at a national level of the league structure) that doesn't restrict the league level, they are all encyplopedic!?!. The criteria must be reviwed or the AfD discussions will be problematic as rules and common sense are in opposite sides. Caiaffa (talk) 03:32, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep All except Adonis Italo de Sá Barreto Feliciano, Clearly these athletes pass WP:ATHLETE, so they should be kept. If people believe that WP:ATHLETE is wrong then a better place to discuss that might be Wikipedia talk:Notability (people) or work on Wikipedia:Notability (sports) to get consensus on that failed proposal. Discussing these 12 athletes here in an AfD will not do much to change the underlying notability standard in WP:ATHLETE, personally I think that Wikipedia:Notability (sports) would be a very useful standard if it could gain consensus. --Captain-tucker (talk) 13:21, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all except Adonis Italo de Sá Barreto Feliciano as they are verifiable with sources now and meet WP:ATHLETE.(which I agree with) Delete Adonis Italo de Sá Barreto Feliciano unless sources can be found to show he meets WP:ATHLETE. Davewild (talk) 13:25, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

comment-WP:ATHLETE is like a malignant tumor that metastasizes by producing hundreds and hundreds of stub articles that don't satisfy even the lowest standards of quality and represent everything WP:BIO tries to avoid.⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 19:12, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Spare us the hyperbole. Stubs are an acceptable part of the encyclopedia. Catchpole (talk) 19:59, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all - per current policy. Articles being "doomed" to be stubs is hardly a good reason to delete them. Stubs do their job. If they can be expanded, fantastic, if not, they quickly mention the basic information about a player (or other subject, depending on what it is). matt91486 (talk) 03:21, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

comment Just to show how WP:ATHLETE is going to ruin Wikipedia I am going to create 4 low quality articles for 4 actual professional soccer players, and have WP:ATHLETE protect them.

Done!! Nobody in Brazil knows them because they are just starting their careers, but for Wikipedia they are notable. They might as well create their own profiles since Wikipedia is becoming the MySpace of athletes.⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 18:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think your approach is constructive, but I'll mention that nethier Luiz Henrique nor Schmöller appear to meet WP:ATHLETE. They have only played a few matches in the Parana state championship and no one has shown that the Parana state competition is a fully professional league. Unless you have support for it being fully professional, I'd support an AfD on both articles. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 21:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, they meet WP:ATHLETE, they play for Figueirense, that plays in Brasileiro serie A (higuest level) and played in Santa Catarina state championship. By the way, all states championships in Brazil are fully professional and, in some states like São Paulo, even the 3rd level division is fully profissional. Only in Brazil, with ex-players, there are maybe 50.000 ore more soccer players meeting WP:FOOTYN Caiaffa (talk) 21:53, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I just noticed they played in the Santa Catarina state championship (not Parana). If they play in Brasileiro Serie A, there is no doubt that they are notable (it is one of the top 10 or so leagues in the world). I'm not sure the Santa Catarina championship is so notable, but if it's fully professional, there must be significant crowds that pay to watch the matches. If these players have appeared before such crowds, they probably are notable. I tried looking up matchreports for the Santa Catarina state championship and only found one for the final and it didn't show the attendance. Jogurney (talk) 22:37, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's OK, Paraná and Santa Catarina are very similar states. Almost every city in Brazil has one or more football team and hundreds (maybe thousands) of them are professional. The major part of the players earns less then $5.000/year, but they are professionals. About the attendance, here is a list of major stadium and there are hundreds of +/- 5.000 capacity stadiums. I wrote above about some peculiarities of football in Brazil and maybe other non 1st world countries. If we have a criteria that playing a match in a high level competition gives notability, we'll have a lot of non notable encyclopedic players. About the references for the Santa Catarina championship, I found those [4][5]. Caiaffa (talk) 23:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the information. I did find both of those websites, but unfortunately neither provides a matchreport with the playing squad or the attendance. I wouldn't assume that a team which plays in a 20,000 capacity stadium like Figueirense actually draws that many for the local state competition (but it's possible). However, if the Santa Caterina championship matches have paid attendance of several thousands, I have to believe the players are notable. How many athletes have 10,000 or 20,000 people pay to watch them play and yet are not notable? Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 01:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you! Players in the Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A are notable, of course. I was talking about the criterion "fully professional league" in WP:ATHLETE or "fully professional club at a national level" in WP:FOOTYN and the fact that just one game is enough to frame the player. Believe me, Brazil have hundreds of clubs meeting those criterions and some players do not come to be known either in Brazil. About the matchreports, I'm trying... Best Regards Caiaffa (talk) 01:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:FOOTYN's discussion of fully professional clubs at a national level is meant to address clubs like Standard Liege (a very notable club in Belgium) which play in top-flight leagues with some semi-pro clubs. The Brazilian state championships would not meet that standard, only the Brasileiro Serie A through C (at most). Jogurney (talk) 02:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are right, there are tens of thousands of players in Brazil, only laziness stop those articles from being created.I created 4 articles and is getting easier and easier. I can create low quality articles like sausages thanks to WP:ATHLETE!!! ⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 22:08, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a violation of WP:POINT. I'm tempted to ask for a block, since you don't seem to have any sense of proportion here; even two articles wasn't enough for you.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are wrong, all articles created are in accordance to WP:ATHLETE, I included 1 source to show that I am not making that stuff up.⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 22:13, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The selection of Everaldo to make your point is very strange. He has played a full season in the 2. Bundesliga (fully professional) and a minimum of 2 seasons in the Brasileiro Serie A (fully professional). I've cleaned up the sub-stub you created (most players do not begin their professional career at age 32!), so hopefully its now clear this player is indeed notable. Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 01:15, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all, notable. Everyking (talk) 21:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to current teams or default to keep. Ani Mate 01:47, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment We are on our way to becoming the MySpace of Athletes!!! I was able to create 3 more "profiles" in just 30 minutes. A determined editor can easily create a hundred every month. This should raise alarm bells because Brazil has a huge backlog of retired athletes.

The other 4 articles created.

Well, I won't be creating anymore articles, but the 7 WP:ATHLETE compliant articles I created just today must convince Wikipedia Administrators that tougher guidelines and quality standards are urgently needed.

Wikipedians are currently creating 3 new articles for soccer players every day with the total already at over 10,000.⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 05:21, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your behavior in this discussion has not been constructive. As I pointed out yesterday, you are creating sub-stub articles (which if done repeatedly after warnings has resulted in other users getting blocked). If you wanted to create a number of new articles about Brazilian footballers who have played in fully professional leagues, I will support you. However, it appears that you have not made an attempt to create informative or accurate articles (at a minimum please include a career history that begins before 2007 for players that have been playing for many years). Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 13:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

- ATHLETES is not policy but a guideline, and can be interpreted flexibly. It is not up to the people working there to decide how it should be applied, but to all wikipedians. If we think it does not match common sense, and there is a consensus about that, we can indicate so here at AfD. That';s what generally happens to guidelines that are not accepted by the community. The supporters of using it in its literal sense then have to convince the rest of us. DGG (talk) 18:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you but I don't think they have to convince anybody all they have to do is push WP:ATHLETE until every discussion is driven to no-consensus. That's what they have done here.⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 23:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

- - WP:PROF is just a guideline. As long as the people who care about the subject believe in it, and most everyone else doesn't care, it will stand.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just because there are potentially a lot of articles that could be created does not necessaraly mean that ATHLETE and FOOTYN should be discounted so long as adequate reliable sources can be found (and that may be the fundamental issue with many of these articles). We should not be afraid of stubs. Some of these players do seem to be enjoying significant careers at top flight clubs - Gílson Domingos Rezende Agostinho appears to have played 75 times in the Chinese Super League, the highest league in China, while Alan da Silva Souza appears to have played 16 times for clubs in the top leagues in Bulgaria and Ukraine for example. We should not discount them just because systemic bias means that there isn't a lot written about them in English, or because the articles are poor.Nigel Ish (talk) 19:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There over 3,000 sub stub articles related to soccer players, out of them I nominated 12 sub stub articles for Afd and got defeated. However when I decide to create 7 sub stub articles just to show how flawed WP:ATHLETE is, Jogurney reprimands me.

Having an article for such players as Gílson Domingos Rezende Agostinho is madness, he is just a successful soccer player, that doesn't mean he is notable. Also his article pure GARBAGE, no quality. Wikipedia is not a sports fan site or MySpace of Athletes. ⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 23:16, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The usual process when an editor is creating lots of substandard articles, is to give them hints and tips on how to improve their writing style. If this does not work then a bit of pressure needs to be applied. There isn't a procedure for people who make inaccurate and incomplete articles on purpose to prove a point. Explaining to you how to write a good article would serve no purpose, because you admit to writing rubbish articles on purpose, Jogurney was right to skip straight to admonishment. You have made your point now, several times. The more times you compare Wikipedia to MySpace the less likely it is that you will get any support if you ever get around to proposing an alternative to WP:ATHLETE or WP:FOOTYN rather than constantly sniping and deliberately creating substandard articles. E P 23:41, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong. The articles I created are WP:ATHLETE protected, are accurate and as complete as a 2 sentence stub article can be. You can't expect a 2 sentence long article to be complete. They show how flawed the WP:ATHLETE is since it doesn't set any quality standards.

How are the articles I created any worse than these?

Jeferson Douglas dos Santos Batista
Matheus Leite Nascimento
Wellington Pereira Rodrigues
José Eduardo de Araújo -Only 16 years old, we are the MySpace of Athletes!!!
Odacir Pereira da Silva
Pedro Paulo da Silva
Sérgio Rodrigo Penteado Dias
Fábio de Jesus Oliveira
...

Also the 7 stub articles I created are just as bad as the 12 stub ones I nominated for deletion but you and the other sports fanatics don't complain about those for some reason. You and others are just defending your interests, you don't care about Wikipedia. ⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 12:48, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gee, WP:AGF much? I've never watched a game of soccer in my life, and I can count the number of games of baseball and American football I've watched all of on both hands. I don't see any reason for anyone to be happy about people who create articles just to gripe about them. It's not a process that has much hopes for making good articles. Araújo may only be 16 years old, but who cares? LeAnn Rimes would have had an article when she was 14, and Évariste Galois has an article as a mathematician even though he died at 20. Age matters about as much as race and gender.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:00, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Supposed "over-population" of articles is not something specific to football/soccer, a quick count suggests there are well over 10,000 articles on players of American football, a sport played in a much smaller part of the planet than football/soccer...... ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:24, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Ronaldo started his professional career at aged 17 or 16, so age is a minor problem. A teenager made his debut at young age, usually because of the talent, not the league not "professional" enough. Matthew_hk t c 17:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations - Congratulations sports fans!! After 7 days you managed to drive this honest discussion to at least no-consensus just by repeating WP:ATHLETE over and over.

What an amazing feat, you saved from deletion 12 really low quality irrelevant articles just by saying WP:ATHLETE.

This AfD debate should close any moment now so good job guys!! You won!!

Wikipedia is turning into a MySpace of Athletes but why care, right? ⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 21:55, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An AfD is not a matter of winning or losing, but of trying to reach concensus. Rather than whining and carrying on, other editors took the opportunity to improve the articles you questioned (even the purposely poor articles you created during the AfD simply to prove a point). Best regards. Jogurney (talk) 03:33, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

EconomistBR, AFD isn't a battleground and one's pride should never be considered at stake. Wikipedia has always been a magnet for game cruft, television cruft, bleakness cruft - you name it. But these are people, whose notability (i.e. appearances in professional, senior leagues) is demonstrative. A player could compete in Mongolia and it would still be a more than adequate assertion of notability should the aforementioned criterion be satisfied.

You've seemingly rejected the notability of some footballers on the basis that you're unfamiliar with them and/or the league itself. That's inherently subjective and an invalid argument. Yes, this is the English wiki', but the language of the project does not confine its scope to such that anything outside of the Anglosphere which encroaches into the dubious realm of "obscure" should be deleted. That our coverage of non-English topics is lacking, especially in its verification, does not rationalise the indiscriminate deletion of articles; it actually provides further reason for contributors to address the age-old "systemic bias" that has existed since day one. Advocating a scorched earth policy just because you disagree with established consensus is absurd.

Most of us haven't participated in the formulation of policy and guidelines; that does not make them invalid or irrelevant to us. Until you effect change through discussion and consensus, you should respect the status quo and continue building the encyclopedia. Indeed, you should not deride the opinions of others because you disagree with them. Trying to devalue the position of others, indeed to cast aspersions on the motives of fellow editors, is obviously going to engender hostility. Cut it out. Regards (end of rant, likely containing sp errors), SoLando (Talk) 22:25, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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.

[1] "CBF Brasileiro Série A 2008 record, Santos 4-0 Ipatinga, the no.17".

[2] "CBF Brasileiro Série A 2008 record, Goiás 1-1 Ipatinga, the no.18".

[3] "CBF Brasileiro Série A 2008 record, the no.5".

[1]

[2]

[3]