Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of football referees

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. MBisanz ^talk 01:29, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of football referees[edit]

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Poorly sourced, incomplete list with no clear inclusion criteria. If completed, the list would probably be far to long to be of much practical use. Sir Sputnik (talk) 15:21, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related deletions. Sir Sputnik (talk) 15:22, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - even improving the article with inclusion criteria (i.e. all FIFA international referees) does not inspire confidence - it would still be overly long and of little interest/use. Giant Snowman 15:31, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:43, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

~~Categorize - then later~~ Delete - I agree that this list is overly long, and will never be completed and will get longer in time. However, I have noticed the large numbers of blue linked entries for those football referees who are notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia. If those entries are catagorized properly, then this list is not needed. Because of American football and European based football are totally different, the category should reflect that. I am no expert on categories and some help may be needed. Example: [Category:Football (soccer) referee] and sub-category by country should be included [Category:Football (soccer) referee#Germany]. And this list should be maintained or moved to the editor's sandbox so the editor can work through the list for categorizing. Jrcrin001 (talk) 16:31, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - In looking at this category idea, it appears that some related categories are present. For example: [Category:Algerian football referees] - By having a universal category as mentioned above, most of these other (as example given) could be removed. This is way beyond my pay grade - so to speak. This probably could be done by a bot, but it should be done by an expert. Simple category adding is one thing, but copy and replace boting is another.
And the possible replacement of categories by one universal one should first be posted at: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion
Jrcrin001 (talk) 16:51, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Rename to List of association football referees (it is currently a list of soccer referees only) and delete the redlinks (or non-notable names). Quite a few soccer referees are notable (see WP:NFOOTY for eligibility), and having a list of them is legitimate per WP:L etc. It is totally legitimate to have both a list and a category for referees - see WP:CLN for an explanation why. --Colapeninsula (talk) 17:01, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Rename I agree with Colapeninsula, category differe then article and we can have both, it will be a problem with two similar articles or two similar categories. I agree too with Colapeninsula to rename the article. And finally to Mr. Jrcrin001, u gives exemple of [Category:Algerian football referees], I think most have the same probleme, see [Category:Association football referees by nationality]. Best regards. --Fayçal.09 (talk) 18:38, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Rename blue linked articles - Then delete - Note: I struck out some of my text above because there is a catch all category, as mentioned above. May I suggest the following? Rename blue linked articles within the list with (A.F. referee) after the name. This distinguishes them at a glance. Then in the catch all category, ([Category:Association football referees by nationality]) add the following text: {intitle|A.F. referee} . An example of this working with Carpenter in the title follows and it is an auto-generator that does not need to be maintained.
All pages with titles containing Carpenter

The main problem is that Wikipedia is not an end all of everything. And a list of all Association Football referees - even with red link names removed - is duplicative of categorization and proper naming of articles.

As mentioned before, such list articles need proper references and maintenance. It is a lot of work. And without those references and clear cut inclusion criteria, then this list fails the WP:List criteria.

By using the proper naming criteria of all Association Football referee related articles - then you can auto-create a list whenever it is needed, on the catch all catergory or even on the See also section each related article. This is a win-win and improves the Association Football referee articles. And this list is no longer needed. I am trying ... Jrcrin001 (talk) 00:58, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete wow...This is just a list of "every" referee? Not specially awarded refs or World Cup/Olympic refs, etc... but every ref? That is not close to being notable. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:51, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, rename and clean up. Rename to something like List of international association football referes, restrict list to officials who have appeared on the FIFA International Referees List. Hack (talk) 01:14, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have no objection to a list of FIFA referees, but it should created separately from this article. This article is not only on FIFA refs, nor was intended to be (see the section on England for example). Sir Sputnik (talk) 01:39, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Should this article stay, as is? No. But I definitely think there is mileage in a revised version of it with defined inclusion criteria. It may be that a more precise title is preferable for such a list, but at the very least this would be a plausible redirect, and a move would be better than deletion. As I wrote at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football/Archive_72#Referee_notability, we have a number of articles on marginally notable referees, that would be better served by consolidation into a list. In summary, the article strikes me as more of a candidate for cleanup than deletion, much as Hack suggests. Oldelpaso (talk) 18:15, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~ - Yes. As it is now, we have a list which is a duplicate of Category:Association football referees, and I don't see the point in having such WP:LISTCRUFT. Mentoz86 (talk) 18:30, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Category:Association football referees. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:28, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Hack. The topic is conceptually solid; maintenance needed, not deletion. —chaos5023 (talk) 22:36, 28 November 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, MBisanz ^talk 00:44, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete why on earth would we need this pointless article when we have categories that serve this purpose? Also, the name is ambiguous - one could expect it to serve either American Football or Association Football (and I'm a Brit), so it really needs a rename at the very least. Lukeno94 (talk) 09:59, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - This needs a name change and a refining of inclusion parameters, at a minimum. Carrite (talk) 15:54, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep We do not delete lists to favour categories. See WP:CLN. Warden (talk) 17:29, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Be that as it may, it does not address the fact that the list has next to no encyclopedic value. Sir Sputnik (talk) 17:59, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The topic is notable per WP:LISTN as sources such as The Guinness Football Encyclopedia list notable referees. See also WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC. Warden (talk) 18:10, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have to disagree that WP:LISTN covers this list. At the highest levels, referees are notable, of course, but this is true of almost any group of people sharing a common past time or profession. The term referee includes the likes Howard Webb and Pierluigi Collina just as much as it includes the teachers who officiate the local schoolboys league. While obviously containing some notable sub-groups, referees as a group are not notable. Sir Sputnik (talk) 20:19, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Lists are not required to be exhaustive and there are many such lists in which we just include the more notable cases. See Lists of association football players for examples of lists of people who play football. Warden (talk) 09:52, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Such lists have the default inclusion criterion of notability of the individual entry. A list of notable referees is a perfectly valid article. I don't see any "delete" opinion above that comes anywhere close to having any basis in our policies and guidelines for lists. Of course this can be renamed to "List of association football referees", and if it gets too large it can be split into sublists, but none of that requires deletion. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:45, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep , per Warden and Phil Bridger, perhaps renaming to clarify scope. This is a perfectly sensible list and the subject is obviously notable. Nomination complains of things that can be solved by editing instead of deletion, per deletion policy. Most delete !votes are either variations of WP:IDONTLIKEIT or ignore WP:CLN point 1. --Cyclopia ^talk 16:02, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I've struck my delete vote per WP:CLN, but I've never understood the value of generic lists with no real inclusion criteria. Hack's suggestion to rename this list looks like the best option. Mentoz86 (talk) 07:38, 6 December 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.