Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tim Sims (gridiron football)

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 no consensus. The arguments to delete are more persuasive but the arguments to keep cannot be discounted entirely, therefore there is no real consensus at this point. Shereth 18:08, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tim Sims (gridiron football)[edit]

Player not of any note, fails WP:ATH. No evidence provided or found of ever having played in a pro game, was not picked in the 2008 draft, no evidence of what he has done until he was signed in 2009 but has only been an off-season and practice roster member only, so he is not yet of any note. He may play pro this coming season, but Wikipedia will still be about then. Trevor Marron (talk) 10:00, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. -- TexasAndroid (talk) 13:06, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Athletes-related deletion discussions. -- TexasAndroid (talk) 13:06, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep (article creator) Passes WP:GNG, with articles on major publications such as Scout, along with mentions by the Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle again, ESPN, San Francisco Chronicle again, and theres probably more out there, even passing mentions in these notable websites/newspapers means he was/is meaningful enough to get mentioned. Keep.--Giants27 (c|s) 15:28, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Week keep There is a fair bit of coverage of him as a college player at Stanford, and at least one in the Montreal Gazette for the Allouettes.--kelapstick (talk) 15:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete He's never played a regular season game as a professional, and doesn't get anything more than local coverage (San Francisco and Sacramento cover Stanford University the same way that the L.A. Times would cover USC and UCLA). Being mentioned in an ESPN account of the UCLA-Stanford game doesn't mean he's individually notable on a national level. Mandsford (talk) 18:13, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I hate to badger but the SF Chronicle is a national newspaper not "local coverage".--Giants27 (c|s) 18:17, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Sorry, no. The San Francisco Chronicle does not publish editions outside of the State of California and it is not a "national newspaper". Certainly, it is a well-known newspaper, but it isn't USA Today or the Wall Street Journal. Stanford Cardinal sports, as with 49ers and Giants games, are part of the Chronicle's scope of coverage. Mandsford (talk) 20:51, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Well still, the SF Chron. isn't exactly your average old local paper so I think that it still counts as "significant coverage" but you're free to think what you want.--Giants27 (c|s) 20:55, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      - The general notability guideline for people -- WP:GNG -- does not require that there be media coverage in a national publication. It says sources should be reliable secondary sources -- the SF Chronicle is pretty clearly the kind of reliable secondary source that satisfies WP:GNG. Cbl62 (talk) 00:05, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Substantial non-trivial coverage in mainstream media in San Francisco and Montreal, including that cited by Giants27 and kelapstick, satisfies general notability standards. Even if he never plays a game in the NFL/CFL, a college player may be included if he meets the general notability standard as evidenced by such non-trivial coverage. Cbl62 (talk) 20:59, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. --Erwin85Bot (talk) 00:00, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep needs editing work, some more sources, etc... but that's not a deletion issue. I'm good with WP:GNG here.--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:44, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I fail to see how a name-drop in a full page story about someone else, or a one line mention in a match report can ever be considered as "significant coverage" (adjective - important; of consequence). If that is the case then just about anyone involved in any sport at any level would meet WP:GNG. None of the links provided above or on the article's page are a substantial artical about the subject. He is an unremarkable person, no different from the other tens of thousands of college football players who did not get picked in the draft. Trevor Marron (talk) 07:53, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further to this I read on the notability guidelines: ""Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail" and "For example, routine news coverage of such things as announcements, sports, and tabloid journalism are not sufficient basis for a topic to have its own standalone article" as the vast majority

of articles on the subject are match reports that don't mention him in any detail then I doubt they count. Trevor Marron (talk) 10:24, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, this level of coverage wouldn't work if it was in the New York Times either -- not a single one of the SF Chronicle or Sacramento Bee newspaper articles is about Tim Sims himself; he got a mention with all of the other Stanford players in a column called "Stanford Notebook". He got a paragraph on a scouting report webpage back in '03. You're just kidding yourselves when you say "substantial non-trivial coverage". Mandsford (talk) 18:28, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually the Scout.com article is all about him but you have to register to see the rest, however the needed info is there.--Giants27 (c|s) 21:08, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I think that you've won this battle, G27; you've persuaded three other people that Tim Sims is notable enough for his own Wikipedia article, and this will either be a "no consensus" or an outright "keep". I've got nothing against Sims-- I hope that he gets to play professionally, whether it's in the CFL or even the NFL. And I appreciate that you've taken the time to source the article and put in content to at least make a case for notability. Bear in mind, however, that the vast majority of college football players don't get, and are not entitled to, their own articles (there's an exception in WP:ATHLETE for players who have played at the highest level of professional sport). In those cases, they can still be written up as part of an article about a team's season (such as 2008 Stanford Cardinal football team). Everything gets published on Wikipedia, but not everything gets to stay. Mandsford (talk) 13:02, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I know that most college players are not notable, however I created this article because he signed with a fully professional team and had been a member of a team. Would I have created the article after this debate? Probably. But in the case of the other one, Kwasi Nkansah, no way because he hasn't played and there are no real sources out there for his notability which although I knew that at the time of creation, I ignored based on it being a guideline. And trust me I know not eveything stays on Wikipedia as a semi-regular AfD nominator and voter, I've seen that and know that.--Giants27 (c|s) 13:26, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I am not convinced, there is no significant coverage to justify his own article and would also point out that Wikipedia is not a democracy Trevor Marron (talk) 13:21, 26 June 2009 (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.