Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Patrick Nyarko

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. Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP!☺} 07:20, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Patrick Nyarko[edit]

Contested PROD. Has not made an appearance in a fully professional league so fails WP:ATHLETE. robwingfield ^«T•C» 20:19, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football related deletions. robwingfield ^«T•C» 20:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, obviously. The general notability criterion - non-trivial coverage in multiple media sources - supersedes project guidelines. Nyarko was the subject of at least three biographical articles external to Virginia Tech and his pro team - [1] , [2], [3]. This was discussed ad nauseam at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roger Espinoza. WP:BIO says, "A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject." All three of these articles obviously meet those requirements. The fact that he hasn't played in a professional league changes nothing. We have a gracious plenty articles on college football and college basketball players and there's no logical reason to invent new standards for college soccer players. By the way, it's not a contested prod - it's an INVALID prod - the article has already survived an AFD and thus a prod is invalid. --B (talk) 21:49, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Fails WP:BIO#Athletes. The article can easily be restored if he ever plays professionally. пﮟოьεԻ 57 22:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Would you like to delete all of these too? WP:BIO#Athletes says that "Competitors and coaches who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports (who meet the general criteria of secondary sources published about them)" are notable. Patrick Nyarko has competed in division I college soccer. He was not paid for his time at Virginia Tech. --B (talk) 23:11, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Football is not an amateur sport. And if you claim that we should have articles on players who play at the highest amateur level within professional sports, we would end up articles on complete unknowns such as players in county leagues in England as I'm sure people would be able to provide references from coverage in local papers. пﮟოьεԻ 57 23:16, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - We're not talking about complete unknowns in county leagues. We're talking about players who were drafted in the first round of the MLS draft. In the case of Patrick Nyarko, not only has he been drafted overall number 7 by an MLS team, but he is the subject of a biographical article in the Washington Post, the 6th largest newspaper in the country. He's even worth more than a mention in the New York Times [4] (although I don't know that they are a reliable source nowadays). When someone receives national coverage, their notability usually isn't questioned. --B (talk) 23:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Athletes-related deletion discussions. —Pixelface (talk) 23:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per significant arguments made in the last AfD, which is inexplicably not linked to here. matt91486 (talk) 23:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per sourcing argument made by B and also on the grounds that this was nominated for AFD and survived (albeit with no consensus) only about 6 weeks ago. Articles can't be repeatedly nominated in such a short period of time until a desired outcome is found. 23skidoo (talk) 23:48, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Football is an amateur sport when it's played at the amateur level. You can't define an entire sport as either amateur or professional - almost all sports are competed at both levels. Again, I have the weirdest sense of deja vu ... Does not fail WP:ATHLETE, as he's competed at the highest level in amateur sports and has valid secondary sources published about him. If the references already included - including the Washington Post article - aren't enough, the USA Today piece just added as a reference to the Pat Phelan article could also be added here. If all those references, plus his being a Hermann Trophy finalist and being a top selection in the draft don't add up to notability, well, I just don't get it.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Mlaffs (talk • contribs) 05:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - no, football is a professional sport. Some countries may not be able to fund it professionally, in which case such leagues are not notable. The US has one professional league, the Major League, and it is only that league in which appearances confer notability. As I said on Pat Phelan's AfD, you've misread WP:ATHLETE. It says either "Competitors and coaches who have competed in a fully professional league, or a competition of equivalent standing in a non-league sport such as swimming, golf or tennis", which Nyarko fails, or "Competitors and coaches who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports (who meet the general criteria of secondary sources published about them)" for which Nyarko is inelligible as football is a professional sport. robwingfield ^«T•C» 08:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment - First of all, there are three fully professional leagues in the US. The first is not "the" Major League -- it's Major League Soccer. There also exists USL-1 and USL-2. Secondly, you are forgetting about WP:BIO, which trumps WP:ATHLETE. Since Nyarko has received significant press coverage, he's notable regardless of what WP:ATHLETE says. This is just case #34431413 in the long list of misunderstandings of the way American sport works. Since the "academy system" is only in its infancy in the US, the notability rules laid out by WikiProject Football don't function very well for US players. --Balerion (talk) 08:19, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment, and definitely my final one, because my head hurts. It's simply not logical to define a sport as being professional or amateur. A specific sporting league or competition can be either professional or amateur. An individual participating in a given league or competition can be either professional or amateur. The sport itself is modified by those distinctions, not defined by it. Let me just throw out a 'what if', not because OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, but just to get you thinking. Would you consider a figure skater - let's take Sasha Cohen as an example - who competes in the Olympics or in the World Championships, which is the highest amateur level of that sport, and who has secondary sources published about them, notable or not? Think about this carefully. Following the logic you're outlining above, the fact that figure skating is competed at the professional level defines it as a professional sport. As a result, Sasha Cohen would automatically not be notable, despite the fact that she's competed at the highest amateur level of her sport and regardless of having significant secondary coverage. That's an awfully tough standard, and it seems that the Football project is the only one grappling with this - I don't see similar arguments from the other sports projects. Mlaffs (talk) 13:23, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep WP:ATHLETE is irrelevant; subject specific guidelines are inclusive, not exclusive. The question is whether the sources B has offered meet the general criterion of significant coverage in independent reliable sources; my answer to that is yes. Iain99^{Balderdash and piffle} 08:16, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete he definitely fails WP:ATHLETE. Of the given sources, two of them cannot be considered as valid, since they do not cover the subject in detail, but are merely a commentary about football events, and the other two have a debatable reliability. In addition, guidelines are considered as being both inclusive and exclusive, --Angelo (talk) 08:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- And our argument has nothing to do with WP:ATHLETE, since it is a SECONDARY requirement. He fulfills the PRIMARY one. matt91486 (talk) 12:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - However there's no substantial coverage about the subject, and no enough reliability for the given valid sources which cover the subject in detail. And therefore the subject fails WP:BIO's basic criteria. Let me also remind you being featured in the news is not a proof of notability in itself. --Angelo (talk) 14:00, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - Being covered in multiple news outlets over an extended period of time is almost always a proof of notability. matt91486 (talk) 16:03, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - I don't understand what you are trying to say. I linked three newspaper articles above that published biographical articles about Nyarko - none of them were merely recapping individual games or anything like that and all of them were external to Virginia Tech. What is unreliable about the Roanoke Times, Richmond Times-Dispatch, or Washington Post? We probably need to go ahead and rewrite some of our articles if those are not reliable sources. --B (talk) 16:47, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Many articles containing non-trivial coverage of Nyarko in reputable sources. While WP:ATHLETE is often cited as an exclusive reason for deletion, reading the section heading at Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Additional criteria is instructional. quote Failure to meet these criteria is not conclusive proof that a subject should not be included. Waving around WP:ATHLETE criteria as if notability established in normal ways (non-trivial coverage in multiple reputable sources) can be ignored is simply bad for the project. Neier (talk) 22:29, 13 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.