Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of retired professional American football runningbacks

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 Delete seems to have the consensus. Fram (talk) 11:29, 6 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of retired professional American football runningbacks

Listcruft and indiscriminate information. Ksy92003 (talk) 00:53, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination of remaining articles comes after the final decision of List of retired professional American football quarterbacks (AfD discussion linked). Ksy92003 (talk) 01:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am also nominating the following related pages for the same reason:

Comment – It looks like the compiler of these lists gave up working on them, leaving them in mixed degrees of completeness. A couple of them are pretty far along, whereas others are barely started. I can see an argument that there's no point in keeping lists that are so incomplete and that no one is working on, but the nominator's rationale doesn't fly. These lists are not indiscriminate information. BRMo (talk) 01:16, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a bit more to my nomination rationale that I left out during the nomination. Ksy92003 (talk) 01:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is an example of what I hate about Wikipedia's AfD process. The list of quarterbacks never should have been nominated for deletion without also considering the lists for the other positions. Poorly designed processes lead to poor decisions.

Going back to my earlier point, indiscriminate information is not a valid argument for deletion. These lists could present information that a category couldn't (especially red links for players without articles, but potentially other information as well). The deletion of the quarterback list is certainly important information, but it isn't clear to me that the appropriate decision was made in that case. BRMo (talk) 01:33, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - In time, every player will fall in one of these lists when they retire. Might as well be a list of all players in all positions. Difficult to manage. ----Ðysepsion † ^{Speak your mind} 02:31, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's the purpose of these lists. Wouldn't it be useful to have a list of all players in all positions? I agree that it's difficult to manage, but not impossible if an editor or group of editors completed and maintained them. BRMo (talk) 02:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's really that useful for a list of all players in each different position; that's why I didn't nominate List of American football players. There isn't anything really important about the different positions they play. It's not always helpful to break things down to the simplest level there is. This is one instance where I don't even think that a category would really help. Ksy92003 (talk) 02:59, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ksy92003, your comment astonishes me—an American football player's position is the most important defining characteristic of his role in the game. And just because you don't find a list of players by position useful, why assume that others don't find it useful? It seems to me that if the lists were complete and well maintained, they could be useful for all sorts of research purposes. BRMo (talk) 06:03, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, let me rephrase that. I believe that positions are a great defining quality between players and their importance on a team. I don't believe, however, that position (or anything else) should be used to split up other lists. Every player ever to have played that position (be it running back, wide receiver, etc.) is going to retire eventually. It's inevitable. It's a list that's going to expand and expand every season because every player (even Brett Favre at some point) is going to retire at the end of his career. Therefore, I don't think that "retired" status is a good differentiation because it happens to everybody, not just running backs, not just wide receivers, not just centers. Ksy92003 (talk) 14:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but I'm still finding it difficult to follow your rationale for deleting these lists. Yes, of course every player is eventually going to retire. But active players already have a list that hasn't been nominated for deletion. Retired versus active status is certainly a defining characteristic of an athlete; it's usually mentioned in the first sentence of any athlete's article. For most potential uses of these lists, I think I'd want to have a split between the active and retired players. Furthermore, I'd think that maintenance of the lists might be improved by limiting them to retired players, because when they move off the active list they could be moved onto the retired lists. I'm not seeing how this is a valid argument for deletion. BRMo (talk) 23:42, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The current players aren't always going to be active. They're all going to eventually retire. They are currently active, but in 20, 30 years, they won't be. It's inevitable for them. In almost 99% of all cases, once a player retires, he's done for good. He usually doesn't go back and play again. For those many, it's an irreversible process to go from active to retired. Once players are retired, they're retired for good. That list will continue to grow infinitely. The list you're talking about is going to stay at a near constant quantity; there is a limit to how many active players there can be. The same cannot be said for retired players. Ksy92003 (talk) 00:05, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I understand that current players will retire and the lists will grow. Lots of lists grow over time. But the lists could be improved and maintained. If they eventually get too big, they could be split. I still don't understand why this is an argument for deletion. BRMo (talk) 00:09, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, because all players inevitably retire, there's nothing "special" about retired players because they're retired. Something like "List of Hall of Fame American football running backs" would be a different situation because Hall of Fame is a notable, distinguishing characteristic. Retired status isn't. Ksy92003 (talk) 07:40, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Retirement may not be "special," but it's certainly a defining characteristic of a player. If active and retired players were consolidated in one list, I'd still want it to separately identify the active players from those who are retired. For most uses of such a list, you'd need to know which players are retired and which are active. I really don't understand a case why listing the retired players separately from the active players (who have their own list) makes the list useless. I'm not seeing that the deletion arguments are addressing the potential usefulness of the lists. All I'm hearing is IDONTLIKEIT. BRMo (talk) 17:01, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oy, this AfD is giving me a headache. I don't think retirement is as much of a "defining characteristic" of a player as you think it is. As I've said earlier, there is a difference between a list of current players and a list of retired players. There isn't any special significance about retired players for being retired because it's something that happens to every single player, inevitably. Therefore, I don't think there's any real reason why you'd need a list of retired players. Retired status just doesn't seem to be a special characteristic of a player in this capacity. Ksy92003 (talk) 17:30, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, Ksys92003; I know I've been pushy and a bit cantankerous. I've been finding myself increasingly dissatisfied with how the AfD process works for lists (and to a lesser extent, for categories). For regular articles, the issues are almost always objective--are there sources available to satisfy the notability criteria? is the article a POV fork? etc. The criteria are well understand, and although there will always be a few articles that lie on the boundary, in 95 percent of the cases, the criteria clearly define the outcome. But for lists, the criteria seem to be much more "fuzzy" and subjective. The reason I've been pushing you is that I wanted to see a clearer explanation of why you think these lists ought to be deleted.

I've spent enough time working on categories and lists to know that sometimes a great deal of time and effort goes into creating them. Unfortunately, most of the time the arguments for (and against) deletion seem to be talking past each other, each editor making assumptions that other participants may not share. We hear comments like "list is too broad," "list is too narrow," "list ought to be a category," "category ought to be a list," "needs more information," "too cluttered with irrelevant information," or worst of all, "listcruft." The only way I can interpret these kind of comments is as ILIKEIT or IDONTLIKEIT.

After considerable pushing, I think I finally understand that your assumption is that lists should be restricted to groups with "special significance," such as members of the Hall of Fame. I guess I approached this with different assumptions. Because I sometimes do statistical analysis of sports, I think it's great when you can get a comprehensive list that covers the entire population. Also, my interests tend to lie more with the players who weren't stars, but nevertheless led interesting lives. (For example, probably my favorite article to edit was Connie Marrero, a baseball pitcher whose 39-40 major league career record doesn't begin to tell the story of his entire career.) A list of retired players would allow me to look for the good players who aren't in the Hall of Fame, or to look for redlinks where I might be able to start an article.

For AfD discussions of lists to work better, I think we all need to do a better job of articulating our assumptions about what Wikipedia lists should be and why the list being considered does or doesn't meet that criteria. For me, the big problem with this set of lists is that they are quite incomplete (which makes them much less useful) and there don't seem to be any editors taking an active interest in improving them. Therefore, although I'd find these lists to be very useful if they could be completed, I'm ambivalent about them as they stand now. BRMo (talk) 23:46, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Retired vs. active status is not a useful classification to make in a list. The lists are poorly constructed anyway, since I would expect such lists to contain useful annotation for the entries such as teams played for and years of activity. At the very least the lists should include retirement dates. Quale (talk) 05:51, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all The lists are obviously not indiscriminate information and serve a useful navigation purpose. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:12, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all Since all athletes will eventually retire or die, the qualifier is a pointless one. Edison (talk) 16:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, of course all athletes will retire or die. Why does it make the qualifier pointless? BRMo (talk) 23:43, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all per the above and the earlier referenced AfD discussion. Eusebeus (talk) 17:27, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The lists as they stand are of no value. They are incomplete, are categories masquerading as lists, and the status of being retired is non-defining. If there is no desire to improve them, they should be deleted. However, if the NFL project is willing to "tackle" these lists, and bring them to something more, there is no reason why they can't be kept, renamed to remove the retired qualifier and expanded. This is something the Hockey project is doing with many similar lists. see: List of Calgary Flames players, List of NHL players: Z for examples. Reso lute 18:01, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all, way too broad scope. Punkmorten (talk) 19:34, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
delete all would make a better category. Charles Stewart (talk) 21:56, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all as per the discussions on the quarterback AfD. (Note that I was the nominator for that one). Corvus cornix_talk 23:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep football is too importantCholga^talK! 01:16, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Football is not up for deletion. Resolute 06:18, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Cholga is an indef banned sockpuppet. Jfire (talk) 17:06, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all and make into a category for easy navigation of retired coaches, players, etc. — Save_Us † 08:57, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The categories do not have all of the players whoever played in those positions and there are articles that are not made of former football players.

Want a cookie? Thanks --Phbasketball6 (talk) 21:11, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your attempt at personal attack has been removed and is noted. Corvus cornix_talk 06:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Several things for the record, Corvus. First, I made the comment small because the way that Phbasketball wrote that comment looked horrible and I wanted to make sure that the closing admin wouldn't think of it as a double-vote. Second, I wasn't in no way condoning the attack. I wasn't even sure what to make of it and thought better to not remove it or say anything about it. It was such a weak attempt at a personal attack, in my opinion, that I couldn't even make the call as to whether it was one or not.

So my <small>-ing of the text was simply to protect you from a "double vote" (which you could've easily defended yourself from, anyway) and wasn't condoning the actual comment. Thought you should know that. Ksy92003 (talk) 14:04, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to make a short list of football players with red links in your userspace, then do so. But because the article for them doesn't exist isn't exactly a valid reason to keep. — Save_Us † 21:41, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it is, Wikipedia is suppose to give out as much infomation of famous people, events, places, or other things and they are a lot of red links that were famous players in college and/or the professional level. --Phbasketball6 (talk) 23:01, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, Wikipedia is not here for adding an all inclusive list of red-links of players. Wikipedia is WP:NOT an indescriminate list of information. — Save_Us † 11:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The guidance given at Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists)#Lists of people says, "Selected lists of people should be selected for importance/notability in that category and should have Wikipedia articles (or the reasonable expectation of an article in the future)." Since all retired NFL players satisfy WP:ATHLETE, they all satisfy the notability criteria for the category and if an article doesn't exist, they could be eligible for one in the future. Thus, this list is not indiscriminate information. BRMo (talk) 12:36, 5 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding of "indiscriminate information" of lists isn't whether the notability of the players on the list is in question, rather if the qualifier makes it indiscriminate. Ksy92003 (talk) 14:15, 5 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The word "indiscriminate" is being used, shall we say, somewhat indiscriminately.:-) Indiscriminate is not a synonym for "ordinary." According to Wiktionary, it means "without care or making distinctions, thoughtless." Yahoo reference gives the following definitions: 1) Not making or based on careful distinctions; unselective. 2) Random; haphazard. 3) Confused; chaotic. 4) Unrestrained or wanton; profligate. The guidance given by Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists)#Appropriate topics for lists emphasizes the usefulness or value of the lists as well as the notability of the subjects. A list like List of American football players with three-syllable given names would be indiscriminate because the categorization is confused or seemingly random and it is hard to imagine how it could be useful. On the other hand, playing position and status as retired or active, although perhaps ordinary, are defining characteristics of a player, usually mentioned in the first paragraph of each player's article. Furthermore, as I've now said repeatedly, complete lists of retired professional American football by position would have many potential uses. I think describing these lists as "indiscriminate information" is a misuse of the term; the lists are appropriate subjects for Wikipedia stand-alone lists. BRMo (talk) 00:21, 6 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all for the same reasons I made in the quarterbacks discussion. All NFL players at every position will eventually retire, so these kinds of lists would just be redundant to the main lists of players for each position. NeoChaosX (talk, walk) 00:53, 3 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Redundant to what main lists? There's a list of active players, but I'm not aware of any other lists that cover retired players. BRMo (talk) 02:17, 3 March 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.