Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tennis performance timeline comparison (women)

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 content, rename or move could be possible. W.marsh 14:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tennis performance timeline comparison (women)[edit]

An AfD tag was applied here weeks ago by a single-purpose account and the nomination was not carried through. Now, the article is a CSD-A1, lacking any sort of encyclopedic context. But the editor creating it has spent lierally weeks crafting it. I don't wish to see it deleted per se, but I can't, at this moment, see what our customers (the people who read Wikipedia rather than edit it and who thus vastly outnumber the people who make changes) would make of it. So I ask for others to discuss it in a reasonable way and offer no opinion of my own.➨ ЯEDVERS 20:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Delete There's no indication how this huge table is in any way encyclopedic, or even what it represents. What does it all mean? NeoChaosX [talk | contribs] 20:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Weak keep per Tennisexpert's changes. NeoChaosX [talk | contribs] 00:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good ol' slow delete. No need to be hasty, but I agree. This article is impenetrable as it stands. --humblefool ® 21:00, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- There I go jumping to conclusions again. Keep, on the promise that the charts will be made more readable by someone outside the sport. (I can't tell what the colors or abbr. mean, as a member of that group.) Tennis expert seems very dedicated to the idea. --humblefool ® 23:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep. The "customers" for this article are the same as the customers for the hundreds of tennis articles that are scattered throughout Wikipedia. Many of those articles are about past tennis champions. See, for example, Steffi Graf and Stefan Edberg. The practice in those articles is to include "Grand Slam performance timelines" (or something similar), which recounts in a tabular form their career performances in the most important tennis tournaments. This article, which by the way was tagged for AfD by single-pupose "Tennis editor" 5 minutes after that account was created, is a compilation of those tables so that the performances can be readily compared without having to constantly toggle between innumerable browser windows or tabs. The article is by no means complete. But for the hundreds (or thousands) of people who read and edit the Wikipedia tennis articles, its purpose is already readily apparent. Please keep. Tennis expert 22:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Are you offering to provide context for the article? It currently lacks it, which is why this got to AfD. If you, or any other editor, could provide an introduction, a clear explaination of what the colours and the columns mean, and make the page accessible to non-tennis fans (the vast majority of our readers, I'm afraid) then it might be a clear keep. Oh, and for those tempted to add speedy to their opinions: Don't... unless you can point to policy for why it's a speedy (in either direction). Otherwise it's meaningless and isn't helping anyone. This is a discussion, not a shouting match. ➨ ЯEDVERS 22:42, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - Of course I'm going to provide context for the article and a complete explanation of the tables, including the symbols and colors. (Part of that is already done below each table. More will be added there and at the beginning of the article.) That was the intention all along. I've edited, created, and contributed to hundreds of articles and certainly know how important context is. By the way, I'm glad you were able to tell me what the intention of "Tennis editor" was when he or she nominated the article for deletion because that user has provided no reasoning directly to me or publicly, as far as I can determine. Tennis expert 22:57, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - I've added some of the requested context to the article. But I'm open to suggestions. Thanks. Tennis expert 23:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I do understand what this article is trying to do. However, I'm not sure that it makes sense to combine all of the Grand Slam finalists of all time into a table of this sort. By contrast, the information when displayed in each individual player's article is useful (see Chris Evert#Grand Slam singles tournament timeline for a good example). --Metropolitan90 08:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Tables of this sort are a tool that makes it easier for a tennis fan, a sports historian, or just a casual reader to gain a historical perspective about the relative performances of tennis players at Grand Slam events. The tables provide the forest whereas the individual articles are the trees. A person perusing a Wikipedia article about Margaret Osborne duPont probably would have no idea whether she was among the top players of her time because the reader wouldn't know about the results of her contemporaries, namely Pauline Betz Addie, Lousie Brough Clapp, Shirley Fry Irvin, or Doris Hart. But the tables in this article would quickly give the reader results-based information about duPont's contemporaries, enabling the reader to delve further into their careers and the history of tennis by clicking on the links provided. Rankings, head-to-head competition, and relative results are the essence of the sport of tennis. Therefore, these tables are important to people trying to understand the history of tennis and past champions of the sport. Tennis expert 15:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep & rename? Not being at all interested in Tennis, I had to think about this article. My reason for voting to keep is that it is a good starting article from which to find one or other tennis player whom one has forgotten (but there may be better articles which I've not checked). I don't like the name - at first I thought it was some scientific comparison of serve speed! My other concern is that there is too much detail and I'm not sure whether the notation used is at all standard. --Mike 17:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- The notation is the same that is currently being used in over 100 individual tennis player articles in Wikipedia. See, for example, Billie Jean King. Tennis expert 17:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The problem is, whilst I know of Ms King and her works, I know nothing of tennis rankings/results/systems or whatever the article is trying to tell tennis fans. If the article has something important to say, then why, even with the changes, do I not understand it? I'm not thick, I'm not playing stupid, I simply know nothing about whatever these complex coded multicoloured tables are trying to tell me. A need to simplify exists. Without it, CSD applies: no context. If I can comprehend an article like the ones we have on quantum physics (a subject I know even less about than tennis, of which I know almost nothing) thanks to having the issue discussed first, the meta-meaning of the item second and the weird science third, then asking an article about tennis to do the same (what are the championships? How important are they comparitively? How has tennis changed over the period concerned? Who is deciding this? What will I understand if I read the article?) seems plenty reasonable. As I said in my introduction, the time spent crafting this table is noted and appreciated. But now someone needs to make the table meaningful. It isn't there yet. It's still a CSD as it lacks context. If it belongs in an encyclopedia, then it must have context supplied. ➨ ЯEDVERS 20:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Response to Comment What tennis is about, how to play the game, how people are ranked, etc., etc. is already provided in innumerable tennis articles. Are you wanting me to repeat those articles here? Have a look at the tennis articles that provide data without the context you are saying is necessary. For example, look at French Open women's doubles champions. That is not my article, by the way. But it illustrates the data-oriented tennis articles that abound throughout Wikipedia. Should all of those articles be deleted (trust me, there are lots of them)? As for whether I have "something important to say," it would be a violation of Wikipedia's POV doctrine for me to say that so-and-so was a greater player or had a better career than so-and-so. I am presenting a lot of the relevant data so that a reader could draw his or her own conclusions. The tables are very simple. I've changed the article to discuss the color coding. The concept of this article is much simpler than the quantum physics article, which I'd bet, by the way, any reader would have to spend a considerable amount of time trying to understand - much more time than understanding the tables I'm presenting. But if you want to delete the article, so be it. I think you would be holding the article to an unprecedented standard when compared to virtually all the tennis articles that are out there. If the article is deleted, I'll still have it available for my own purposes and will continue working on it. But others will never see it. It's up to you, I assume. I'm done debating the issue and I'm not going to beg for the article to be treated fairly and consistently. Tennis expert 21:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. As stated above, I'm against having this article. However, I don't think it should be considered difficult to understand. The idea is that for every female tennis player who ever won, or came in second, in any of the four major tennis tournaments, her lifetime record in all of those tournaments is shown, from the first time she entered any of them to the last time. And for each such tournament in her career, there is an indication of whether she was the Winner, a Finalist, a Semi Finalist, a Quarter Finalist, or lost in one of the earlier rounds, or didn't compete in that tournament. So if you see some player shown with a lot of Ws, that means she won a lot of major tournaments. I don't find it easy to read or particularly useful, but it's certainly not a candidate for speedy deletion. --Metropolitan90 03:31, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A problem for Wikipedia - There really ought to be a method to discuss and article before an author is encouraged to spend so much time and then see their work thrown away by potentially having it deleted. This is something seriously amiss with wikipedia. In theory, it should be possible to create a stub article and then just put it up for AfD, but too many people don't judge the article, only the contents and so an AfD discussion doesn't work as it should! There needs to be another way to prejudge an article to give a potential author an idea of whether the article as invisaged would be acceptable. --Mike 17:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I appreciate the point, but this is one discussed endlessly all over Wikipedia, and has been for years. An individual AfD is not the place to start yet another new discussion. At the top of the index page for this discussion, you'll find a big big pile of links to places where people are talking themselves into circles about this very point. Hope this helps! ➨ ЯEDVERS 20:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Redvers - positive comments - unfortunately there may be many talking, but is anyone listening? I've pesonally posted on this subject, (I even created a new AfDU) and your's is the first comment I've had! This is a problem of power disparity. Those without power need things to change, but those with the power and influence to make things happen have no need to see any change. I only grumble because it makes me feel better, not because I expect anything to change! --Mike 21:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My honest opinion As a non-expert in tennis, I must say I find a table such as this one rather useful. For better or worse, I find information assembled in a tabular format rather helpful and easier to assimilate. Admittedly, some of the features (colors, symbols) could be simplified but, all in all, I believe this article serves a useful, albeit infrequent, purpose. Carpe diem 11:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Useful for gauging the longevity and relative dominance of top performers. There may be a better way to convey the info (a color scheme similar to gold/silver/bronze like figure skating pages such as Brian Boitano may be more intuitive), but the info itself is encyclopedic, and not all that difficult to understand. Neier 00:00, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Neier. - Nick C 16:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as it is a useful tool in comparing players from a time period of tennis that many know little about--Flute138 05:19, 12 November 2006 (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.