Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Simon Thomas (footballer)

This discussion was subject to a deletion review on 2008 July 29.
For an explanation of the process, see Wikipedia:Deletion review.

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 delete, allowing recreation if the subject achieves notability per WP:ATHLETE. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:56, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Simon Thomas (footballer)[edit]

Although this player currently plays at a notable level, he has not made any senior appearances for Crystal Palace, and his former club did not play at a notable level. – Pee Jay 19:33, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football related deletions. – Pee Jay 19:37, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete player fails WP:ATHLETE having never played in a fully-pro league/tournament. --Jimbo^[online] 19:39, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Why on earth was this deprodded??? пﮟოьεԻ 5 7 21:53, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:ATHLETE. --Angelo (talk) 10:49, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - if it is to be deleted then whoever deletes it shall put it back when he makes his Palace debut in a couple of weeks.Londo 06 12:34, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. Londo06 - who's to say his Palace debut will be next month? He may get injured or fall out of favour...WP:CRYSTAL to say he'll be notable soon, I'm afraid. Giant Snowman 16:21, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I did think about that, but thought against adding to my statement at the time. Not saying keep it, just saying that there is a likelihood that the article will return with no issues when he has played. Were it to be a full article than I would implore someone to sandbox the article, however in its limited state it shouldn't take more than a few minutes to create the article, were he to make a first team appearance.Londo 06 16:28, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I will never understand our obsession with following policies to the letter - oh, wait, sorry, I meant guidelines to the letter. It's true, one can point at him and say "well, he has only played for Boreham Wood, a non-league side; therefore, he is not notable according to WP:ATHLETE". That statement is, of course, factually true. But what are the circumstances? This player, who is 24 years old, was signed and given a squad number on a Championship team. Is this a vanity article? No. Is this an article about some footballer nobody has ever heard of, except the other members on his pub team? No. Is this some youngster who is going to make 10 appearances for the academy team and then disappear into oblivion, never to be seen again? Well, 24 might be young to many of you but the answer is again no. So this player is not completely non-notable. But really, why should we keep this article? What is the point? It's quite easy to robotically cite WP:ATHLETE and prod this article, then express dismay when someone should dare to delete the prod notice (do any of you remember the long, drawn-out debates about whether some process like this should ever be implemented? whether it was too easy to abuse? there is a reason why it's so easy to contest a prod you know). Who cares about "circumstances" and "common sense" when we have rules to enforce? If we allow this article to exist, then people will create millions of articles about non-notable footballers due to our unwisely set precedent. We are doing this for the good of Wikipedia!

But seriously, where is our common sense? I think we all know the presence of this article does not harm Wikipedia in any way. It's easy to find enough information (birth date, position, previous clubs + appearances, birth place) to make a stub with verifiable content. The whole idea behind notability guidelines is that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information (sorry if I got the phrase a bit wrong, I'm going off memory here) but we also have to remember that Wikipedia is not paper. It's true, we can delete all these articles about footballers who have squad numbers on notable clubs but haven't made first team appearances for them yet, but what is the point? Wikipedia has nearly 2.5 million articles (maybe we've passed that number since the last time I checked, a few days ago). Don't we strive for completeness? Crystal Palace are not some trivial club that barely satisfies the notability guidelines. In fact they were in the Premier League about 5 years ago or so (when Andrew Johnson scored over 20 goals but came in 2nd to Thierry Henry on the goal charts). It's like this - consider Crystal Palace as the legislative body for some middling country (say, Slovenia). This is like deleting an article for a politician who has been newly elected to the Slovenian national legislature, on the grounds that "well, what if he suffers a heart attack and dies before entering office? he isn't notable yet you know... WP:CRYSTAL".

And yet, for all these words, everyone will look at them and say "what is this guy going on about?", and look at the policy, and vote "delete" because of it. You know, I really couldn't care less about whether or not these footballers have articles or not. I'm not on a crusade to keep as many articles about professional footballers on Wikipedia as I can. The crusade, rather, is about the principle of it. Wikipedia is trying to bring knowledge to people. What's the point of deleting this article, and the hundreds of others like it? What harm does it do? None. What benefit does it bring? Well, as I will readily admit, not that much, but at least it's not "none". There is a reason why I rarely vote on these AfDs - because usually, I actually agree with you guys - if we wrote articles about every academy and reserve team player for every professional club in the world, it would certainly get out of hand. But 24 year old Crystal Palace first-teamers - a different story. According to policy, there is no difference between Simon Thomas and a 17 year old Huddersfield Town academy player, but that's what the point of common sense is - if every single Wikipedian had to follow all the policies and guidelines to the letter, this site would become very worthless indeed. ugen64 (talk) 18:21, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Someone who has achieved nothing noteworthy as a player. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 18:13, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I wish you lot would spend half as much time referencing articles to get them past BIO as you do wittering on about WP:ATHLETE. Whether or not he's played a professional game, he's had a few news stories written about him (as a quick google shows) which whacks him straight past "has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject". 86.21.74.40 (talk) 00:06, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I really don't see the point of deleting articles of players who are clearly part of the first team of Championship level teams a fortnight before the season starts. We'll simply be doing a DRV on it in a fortnight. It's a waste of resources for everyone to expend this energy on this, rather than spending the next couple of weeks cleaning up articles, and then tackling the removal of articles that shouldn't have been created. Nfitz (talk) 08:06, 29 July 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.