Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/T. Wilson (Middlesex cricketer)

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. (non-admin closure) ミラ P 22:50, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

T. Wilson (Middlesex cricketer)[edit]

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Fails WP:GNG, and by extension WP:N, and the coverage is routine statistical listings. Subject made one first-class appearance, and is long since retired. Technically, the subject meets WP:CRIN, but this forms a part of WP:NSPORT, which clearly states that "the meeting of any of these criteria does not mean that an article must be kept". Per this discussion, community consensus is that "subject-specific notability guidelines do not supersede the general notability guideline, except in clear cases where GNG does not apply." In this case, coverage is so meagre that we do not even have the players full name. Harrias ^talk 10:52, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. Harrias ^talk 10:52, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Cricket-related deletion discussions. Harrias ^talk 10:52, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Harrias ^talk 10:52, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - is it Middlesex cricketers which were the ones so massively worked on in the early days - especially those from the early eras? I forget. Anyway, hopefully one day new information will come to light regarding this and other players' details. As for "in clear cases where GNG does not apply", I still have no idea what that means. Clear cases? Like where WP:N says "or"? That seems "clear" to me. Anyway. That's by the by these days. Apparently. I'm still frustrated that this is the case in spite of the fact this is explicitly contradicted on WP:N. And "does not mean an article must be kept"? No idea what that means either. Once again, an excuse to flout notability criteria. No worries. I'm not searching for an argument, just frustrated at the contradiction which is clearly present between N and GNG. I wonder if there are any more in Middlesex cricketers which need looking at. Bobo . 11:02, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - please forgive me for a second comment. Sometimes these have been merged these days into List of X cricketers. Is this an acceptable alternative solution? Bobo . 11:18, 24 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. There are newspaper reports of the single first-class match in which Wilson appeared in which his bowling is mentioned: essentially, wickets fell after Wilson was taken off, so it's likely he wasn't deemed a success (though he was bowling at the three Grace brothers). He is described as a right-arm fast bowler with "a square action" in other reports of the time and as part of the Middlesex Colts team his bowling success in minor games, which led to his selection for the full county side, was also noted. Cricketarchive has first-class bowling figures for him; these, rather strangely, were removed from the article entirely earlier this year (they needed correcting, not removal). Cricinfo has not just the bowling figures, but also a forename, Thomas. I haven't looked to see if his (non-first-class) Hertfordshire cricket career might produce other references. Johnlp (talk) 11:38, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

On the basis that the qualification for sending things to AfD is "doesn't have a forename present", as is so often the case, as long as we can validate that these individuals are definitely the same then this AfD is meaningless. Hopefully one day we will uncover biographical details for Ranji Trophy players and others whose details are currently unknown. One obvious example is RADW Mayantha, who made his debut last season but still does not have forenames listed. (Now that I've searched deeper he appears to be this player - Waruna Mayantha, who previously played for Antonians U23). This is why I ask to make sure that the articles I created ten years ago are looked at before being sent to AfD. The fact that none of the prose text in so many of these articles has been altered in ten years makes me ask, where have all the bored exclusionists been all these years? If these conversations had taken place 10 years ago, this problem wouldn't exist. Bobo . 15:01, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And if ONESOURCE is still a problem after all this time, dare I say that it's fairly obvious to everyone involved in the cricket project where a second reference can be found. Bobo . 15:04, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

~~Probable Redirect to List of Middlesex County Cricket Club players~~ See below. From CricInfo we have a little more information - a first name and information that we was on the MCC staff. So we're not quite in clear redirect territory as we might be in a case such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/J. James (1814 cricketer). On the whole, though, I rather think that if we have so little to go on that we're unlikely to be able to build anything beyond what CricInfo tells us so a redirect would, probably, be preferable. If anything more detailed could be added from his matches for Herefordshire then the article can be replaced and we'd have something worth keeping hold of. Blue Square Thing (talk) 01:17, 26 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Same as the previous one in this list. Nowhere near enough for GNG even if it does meet the SNG. You can't build an article on a statistical record. No Great Shaker (talk) 13:45, 29 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I've now added as much material as I can easily find: perhaps those who have already commented might care to revisit. My view is that there is now as much, perhaps more, information on Wilson as there is on, say, R. E. Hillebrand, who is the sportsman (from a different sport) I always use as a yardstick by which to judge these things (and which was a snow-keep when challenged). Johnlp (talk) 23:33, 30 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, there is no ability to re-assess AfD decisions mid-discussion, which is sad for a case which passes a brightline notability guideline. But sadly this is the way Wikipedia is run these days. No respect for guidelines which are insultingly easy to understand and follow. As noted above, the sole reason Harrias is sending this for deletion is that a first name is not present. Yeah - I know. Perhaps based on this information and others there is alternative recourse that can be taken in time. Note that G4 for "prevoiusly created articles" refers only to "sufficiently identical copies". Once we've pointed out that the article as it stands is nowhere near an "identical copy" of the article which was originally sent to AfD, we can continue our case against rabid exclusionism for the sake of boredom. Bobo . 00:29, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The coverage seems a bit WP:ROUTINE (and really more about the matches he played it) and I have significant doubts over the actual notability of both Wilson and Hillebrand, but the article is better than we have on many individuals so I doubt it'll be deleted as it stands. The work done by Johnlp is excellent to get it to this stage. Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:54, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Once again, I don't see what we can write in cricketing biography articles other than what happened during players' careers. Apart from his shoe size, his favourite band, and his preference for species of cat. Anything else is just superfluous waffle. Since WP:ROUTINE doesn't talk about what doesn't count as routine, it seems to attempt to qualify half its point while failing to qualify the rest. Bobo . 15:43, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yeah, and keep. With the information we now have present, nobody would take this article to AfD. In fact, this entire conversation is null and void given the fact that every issue as displayed in the AfD nomination is now sorted and/or proven false. Deletion via "GNG" is now meaningless and pointless, as this man's identity and contextual impact has been shown. "Routine statistical listings" is now false and has been brought to attention. "So meagre we don't have a full name" is false. "Nowhere near GNG" is false, let alone meaningless, "Can't build an article on statistics alone" is clearly false. Thank you as always Johnlp for going above and beyond what others have bothered to manage. It's easy to sit around and critique others' work based on meaningless criteria without being willing to do something about it. It's quite different to be able to find, source, and add all the information that was sadly not available to myself at the time. Notably, Johnlp's edits are the only edits which have been made since this article was taken to AfD.

Can people please find alternative ways of bringing articles to others' attention in future rather than hauling them through AfDs? Our project has become meaningless because of it. Bobo . 09:47, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz ^Humbug! 08:42, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Keep Literally nothing in nom is accurate anymore, as others have pointed out. Not really sure why this was even relisted, but fine, let's waste another week on this. Smartyllama (talk) 19:40, 2 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This article now has three contemporary sources and two modern ones, with useful information about the player's cricket career. Like Bobo, I would point to the word "or" at WP:N. The nom is correct that the subject is long since retired - since he played in the 1880s, I am glad to hear it - but that is not a valid reason for deletion. RebeccaGreen (talk) 14:04, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I only noted that he was long since retired as clarity that he would not play again and therefore have a chance to become more notable; I am well aware that it is not itself a reason for deletion. Being non-notable is. Harrias ^talk 15:20, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment although some sterling work has been done to improve this article, and as noted, much of what I said in the nomination is no longer applicable, the coverage given appears to be very WP:ROUTINE. Indeed, if anything, the fact that this is all that can be found supports the nomination. WP:GNG requires "significant coverage", defined as coverage which "addresses the topic directly and in detail" None of the sources provided do that: CricketArchive provides nothing more than a statistical overview. ESPNcricinfo provides a statistical overview and a two-line biography. The following three sources are all match reports in which Wilson is mentioned briefly; clearly none of them address Wilson in detail. WP:N does indeed say "or". So in place of GNG, we can use WP:NSPORT. NSPORT however, requires that GNG is met, so either way, GNG applies. Harrias ^talk 15:20, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I stand by what I've said over and over. What other information do you expect rather than factual information? And where do you wish for me to cite this information from? You might as well take down 80 percent of my article creations in that case. I'm not going to start mentioning his shoe size or what colour shirt he's wearing. There's a fine balance here between factual information and just writing out a load of unnecessarily padded material. As for "more notable", thankfully there is no such thing. Okay, let's introduce the term "more notable". Say that we have to increase the criteria to five first-class games. You are then completely destroying the point of any clearly definable guidelines. The existence of the word "or" at N means we can work either easily to brightline criteria, or just start deleting everything willy nilly because WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I will point out again - although I wish I had saved the links - that there are some of my own article creations which have been deleted on en.wiki which are still present on southern Indian language Wikipedias. Bobo . 17:08, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Does NSPORT override N? Absolutely not - it implies so in "basic criteria", even though it does the worst job in the world in doing so. We might as well destroy almost every competitive team sporting project in that case. As for the word "should" in "applicable policies and guidelines", that immediately nullifies the whole argument. Yes it "should". Of course it does. If it doesn't, then we have about ten thousand cricketing articles which need fixing, let alone the Test cricketers who, in fifteen years, still have zero sources mentioned. I'm surprised these are being picked out at random over trying to improve those. Bobo . 17:16, 9 January 2020 (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.