Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charles Butler (umpire)

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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 Major League Baseball umpires. — CactusWriter (talk) 19:50, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Charles Butler (umpire)[edit]

Charles Butler (umpire) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Although the single source of that article makes him meet one of the criteria for Wikipedia:Notability_(sports)#Baseball, other than this one little source, which comes from an unreliable website to begin with (retrosheet is run by a university professor who gets his information from various volunteer contributors, similar to Wikipedia, some of who may not be baseball historians or experts), there is no proof at all that this "Charles Butler" even existed. Other baseball history related websites like Baseball-Reference, Baseball-Almanac, or even MLB history have absolutely no information about this guy, no bio, no statistics, nothing. Searching the term "Charles Butler (umpire)" on any search engine site yields no pictures or information from reliable websites, just sites that copy information from Wikipedia. If this "Charles Butler" really existed, the fact that he only umpired for one game should be more than enough evidence that he was not a major contributor to baseball. It is quite possible that he hated the job so much, he quit after just one game or was actually a spectator who volunteered to be an umpire for whatever reason (I doubt baseball rules were as strict and complicated back then as they are today). The creator of the article has a history of creating articles for other sports players that very few people know about and very few websites have information on. If we are to keep this article, we definitely need more sources confirming the existence of this "Charles Butler." The Legendary Ranger (talk) 14:04, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete per nom. As stated, the single source is not a reliable third party source, and no other information can be found. Either the individual did not exist, or is extremely unnotable. Rorshacma (talk) 17:13, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Baseball-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:54, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:54, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Passes WP:BASE/N. Retrosheet is one of the most reliable sources for baseball information in the world. Major news and media sources use it. Alex (talk) 04:25, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Until more information about him becomes available, I have no objection to redirecting per BRMo. But given an appropriate redirect target there is even less basis for deleting. Rlendog (talk) 20:47, 25 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect to List of Major League Baseball umpires. First, I have to disagree with the nominator about the reliability of Retrosheet. While it's true that it's a volunteer project, I don't think it can be equated to Wikipedia or similar sources—its contributors are not anonymous and it validates and checks the data that enter its databases. The Retrosheet data are licensed to major websites like Baseball-Reference.com and are widely used by researchers and other experts. I'm not aware of any complaints about the accuracy of the Retrosheet data. However, turning to Charles Butler, while I don't doubt that he umpired one game in 1889 and thus technically meets the minimum requirements of WP:BASE/N, I think here WP:GNG has to take precedence. It simply doesn't make sense to me to have an article when there isn't enough reliable information available to write an article. If the only information we know about him is that he umpired a game, it seems sufficient to redirect to the list of umpires. BRMo (talk) 04:47, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, —Tom Morris (talk) 15:04, 29 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The source is reliable, as shown by the information presented here (it might help further discussions to write an article about it). He therefore meets the standard guideline. I, personally, think that guideline over-inclusive in this respect, but we have been consistently following it, and should not deviate for one particular article. DGG ( talk ) 03:58, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • We constantly use it for Major League baseball player, not umpires. Secret account 05:57, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't know that player vs. umpire makes a difference per se. But there is a practical difference, in that for a player who played a single MLB game there is a record of how he performed in that game, which provides something to write about. There is often a minor league record to write about. There is likely a birth and death date to provide. Here we just have the date he performed, which will be included in the list regardless without any indications of his performance (was there an important close call? was there an argument? did he eject anyone?), and the birth date and place. Since I don't think too many readers would be interested in the latter for someone who umpired one game I don't think there is any real loss to redirecting to the list in this case . That said, if more reliably sourced information about him or his performance becomes available, then the redirect should be undone so that information can be provided in an article. Rlendog (talk) 20:48, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I support a redirect to List of Major League Baseball umpires since no other information about this "Charles Butler" exists. We cannot have a single-sentence article like this forever and standard guidlines for notability are not everything, especially if it only meets minimum requirements. All we have to do is add the one source on this article to the List of umpires article, which already has an entry for this "Charles Butler." Also, we already have an article about retrosheet, but it lacks citations and sources, so its reliablility is questionable. The Legendary Ranger (talk) 14:08, 8 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • You are incorrect. Just because an article lacks citations and sources doesn't mean it's not a reliable website. Retrosheet is the biggest and most extensive game boxscore source anywhere. It was created by an notable statistician using information from the Baseball Hall of Fame and it is used by almost every major baseball historian nowadays. Almost every major baseball history or biography book uses this source in their historiography/bibliography page for the past 15 or so years. For the subject of this article, BRMo is right, there is no point in this article if the only source available is a boxscore. No evidence of meeting WP:GNG, or even WP:V in this case. So Redirect to List of Major League Baseball umpires. Secret account 05:57, 10 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 21:42, 11 March 2012 (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.
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