Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chris Lee (referee)

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 redirect to List of NHL on-ice officials. Redirect and salt origional ·Add§hore· ^{Talk To Me!} 00:19, 11 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Chris Lee (referee)

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Non-notable person NE Ent 18:22, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Notability beyond "he's a referee" not established. Gamaliel (talk) 18:28, 4 February 2013 (UTC) Edit: Not opposed to redirect. Gamaliel (talk) 19:14, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to List of NHL on-ice officials - I'm not aware of any guideline for referees (perhaps there should be one?), and this one doesn't appear to pass WP:GNG, and is also a vandalism magnet to boot. Lukeno94 (talk) 18:49, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to List of NHL on-ice officials. Regardless of outcome - keep, delete or redirect - I would also suggest edit protection be added. Reso lute 19:12, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ice hockey-related deletion discussions. Reso lute 19:31, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Officials in major professional sports have generally been considered notable. WP:NHOCKEY substitutes the word coaches for players. I would assume the same for officials. -DJSasso (talk) 19:39, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~Redirect to List of NHL on-ice officials - Fails WP:NHOCKEY. It does substitute "coached"/"managed" for "players" for coach/manager notability, but it does not mention referees or officials at all - quite likely deliberately. NHL referees simply don't rise to the level of recognition of a MLB ump or a NFL ref; aside from the WP:BLP1E cases of "The Ref is Blind", they're pretty much invisible, and this is a clear WP:GNG failure as well. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 21:00, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment If referee/official is not substituted for player it would appear to be an oversight more than deliberate. If you look at the other sports, association football, rugby union and rugby league all specifically mention referees, while baseball and cricket use umpire and American football uses the term figure. At the Wikiproject rugby we assume that any referee that has reffed a professional game is notable (and don't have too much trouble finding sources to back it up). If nothing else the wording of WP:NHOCKEY should probably be changed. AIRcorn (talk) 23:07, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This gets back into the "presumed notable" aspect of SNGs. And the problem here is that I can't find any in-depth coverage of Lee. Most on-ice officials similarly lack coverage. It is far easier to assume coverage for a player than it is an official. On that basis, I wouldn't necessarily support the argument that the SNG should treat officials equal to players. Reso lute 23:40, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As I mentioned above, NHL officials are not equivalent to baseball umpires or football/soccer/football/rugby/football officials. The zebras on the ice are essentially anonymous. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:52, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My take on SNG is that it is a aid for those of us that don't know enough about a subject. For example if I come across a ice hockey player with poor sourcing, but see that he has played for a professional team I would know that sources do probably exist and not bother nominating it for deletion (not that I do that much anyway). However once a debate is started I do think that GNG should be satisfied exclusive of the SNG. That was partly why I just marked my above comment as a comment.

A google news search brings up lots of small mentions.[1] Maybe not enough to completely satisfy GNG, but still more than a lot of other debates I have seen here (the earliest ones go back ten years so he has obviously been around a while). There are probably reliable non-news ice hockey sites that mention him too (sorry not my sport so I don't know where to look, plus its not helped as there is a player with the same name). Also looking at the List of NHL on-ice officials most officials have an article so a positive WP:otherstuffexists argument could apply. Either way I am not saying this should be kept, it just doesn't seem like an obvious delete.

I am curious as to why there is so little coverage of ice hockey referees and why they are deemed less notable than football, cricket and baseball. Judging by the previous version of the current article they still make controversial calls so must have an impact on the game. AIRcorn (talk) 01:02, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In a lot of ways, I would say it is NHL league policy to try and make its on ice officials "invisible". That is, in fact, a specific reason why the league removed each official's name bar and replaced it with a uniform number about 10-12 years ago. There are certainly some very notable referees, such as Kerry Fraser, but for the most part, I think the default position in the NHL is that if you don't know who the referee is, he's doing a good job. That tends to mean that officials only really make the press when they err. The end result for us is a bunch of potential WP:COATRACKs. That, incidentally, is why we are at this AFD. Reso lute 01:18, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In that case maybe a note should be applied to WP:NHOCKEY saying that referees have to satisfy the GNG. Probably the wrong place to be discussing it here anyway, it was just a discrepancy I noticed with the other sports and obviously something other hockey editors thought too (pretty sure DJSasso is a big hockey editor). FWIW I am fine with a redirect if no sources are presented that show significant coverage. AIRcorn (talk) 01:49, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Aircon & DJSasso little green rosetta(talk)
central scrutinizer 02:15, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete — Preceding unsigned comment added by Strangesad (talk • contribs) 03:11, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: I don't think NHOCKEY needs to be changed at all; it'd beg the question as to how far we needed to go in addressing notability criteria for everyone connected with the sport. Front office executives? Journalists? No, I'm comfortable with on-ice officials relying on the GNG. The John D'Amicos, Don Koharskis and Kerry Frasers of the world would pass, and the rest wouldn't ... much the same as in any other sport, where a handful of officials gain notoriety, and the rest are invisible.
In any event, though, that's a discussion for other venues, not for here. Since NHOCKEY doesn't address on-ice officials, there can be no question about "passing" or "failing" it. I don't see that the subject passes the GNG. Ravenswing 04:05, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to List of NHL on-ice officials and salt the original. KillerChihuahua 18:40, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Capital idea - changing my !vote above accordingly. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:46, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Doesn't salting prevent creation? Or does it mean full protection in this context? NE Ent 03:10, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I changed my vote as well. And I was under that impression about SALT as well. Lukeno94 (talk) 08:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - While NHL players get a free pass in terms of notability, under our standing special guidelines officials do not. This is a clear GNG fail beyond that. Carrite (talk) 01:08, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:47, 10 February 2013 (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.