Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/B. W. Wijetunge

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. Spartaz ^Humbug! 18:15, 14 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

B. W. Wijetunge

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A WP:BEFORE turns up no reliable independent sources to establish verifiability. Only one source CricketArchive whose own notability is in question. After eight years, we don't even know the cricketer's first name. Rhadow (talk) 22:46, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - "Don't know the individual's first name" isn't really a very logical rationale for deletion... Bobo . 22:57, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Leaving two comments here at the same time because combining them into one comment makes no sense. We need to make a decision about this and then work on applying the solution. If you believe Cricketarchive's notability is "in question", then we need to look at a massive number of cricket articles on here... anyway, main point, if we are still deciding to delete cricket articles willy-nilly, we need to work on a solution, such as completing articles like List of Colts Cricket Club cricketers. These articles are no use with just the articles we've randomly decided to delete willy nilly. Bobo . 22:57, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep - has played first-class cricket. As I've said above, if we need to create a solution like club-by-club lists of players, then this is a job which should be on our priority list before sending to AfD articles which clearly meet guidelines. Bobo . 22:57, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Bibi. Furthermore, I'll add that POINTY, aggressive and destructive nominations like this is one of things that makes me want to stay away from Wikipedia. There's long been consensus that anyone who has played sport at the highest level domestically is notable. Cricket archive is a perfectly respectable reliable source. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 23:10, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There's no point contributing to a project which people are destroying thanks to their own random criteria. Bobo . 23:11, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. ^{Babymissfortune} 23:44, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Cricket-related deletion discussions. ^{Babymissfortune} 23:44, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sri Lanka-related deletion discussions. ^{Babymissfortune} 23:45, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The general notability guidelines trump sport specific guidelines, and those require multiple reliable third party sources. One directory listing just does not cut it.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:37, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Interesting that you have voted delete in 97% of the last 500 AFDs you commented in. Jenks24 (talk) 09:13, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete- Another very poor article based purely on statistical entries inflated into prose. The material is so minimal that it's not even possible to determine the player's first name. The only source has been shown to have non-negligible rates of error, which is problematic for the biography of a (presumably) living person. A better solution would be to merge into a list of players by club, but those seem to be discouraged currently. Reyk _YO! 06:58, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Only because they have consisted of the articles which people have decided, by their random, non-compliance to any kind of guideline, personal opinion as to which articles belong and which don't. If you are prepared to write an article named List of Colts Cricket Club cricketers, containing every first-class/List A player, please do so. Bobo . 09:46, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I asked User:Reyk at a previous debate to justify his assertion that CricketArchive has "non-negligible rates of error" by citing some examples of his own use of the site. I'm happy to state that I've used CricketArchive both here and in outside work over a period of about 12 years virtually every day, and have found it overwhelmingly accurate, and also amenable to correction for the very few errors and omissions. What is your actual experience of using the site, User:Reyk? Johnlp (talk) 10:32, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- I provided a list of errors to you earlier. But I know how this is going to go: I show you two mistakes, you'll want to see five; I show you five, you'll demand 20. Sorry, not playing that game-- there are no goalposts in cricket. The mis-spelling of names and the vagueness regarding similarly-named players that we already know of (and for every demonstrated mistake there's undoubtedly several undetected ones) is enough for me to insist on independent verification beyond a handful of stats that barely amount to a few cells in an Excel spreadsheet. Reyk _YO! 11:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - You provided one instance where what appears to be a spelling mistake is repeated across both CricketArchive and Cricinfo, and another (on a cricketer whose AfD resulted in a "Keep") where CricketArchive was unable to differentiate between cricketers of the same name and was sensibly unwilling to conflate. It's not unreasonable, for those of us who use CricketArchive daily and rely on it, knowing it to be 99.9% accurate and reliable, to ask what depth of usage and knowledge enables you to derive your view that the site has "non-negligible" rates of error. Johnlp (talk) 11:18, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    - And this would result in Wikipedia writing two articles about the same person as though they're two distinct people, or fusing two different players into a single fictional person. That you don't see a problem with writing biographies of living people when you can't even be 100% sure of their identity is very telling. Reyk _YO! 11:25, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      - I don't say that it is satisfactory, and one would always want more detail when it can be found, which is likely to be in Sri Lankan sources. But the AfD in that instance was for "Keep" and the certainty provided by CricketArchive was that a player of that name appeared in that particular notable match, and that was patently enough in that case for the WP community as a whole. Back to this one: why is it that you seem so reluctant to provide us with more evidence of your deep knowledge of the apparently multiple errors in CricketArchive? Do you actually use the site to contribute to WP? I'm trying to AGF on your behalf, but you must give me a bit of help. Johnlp (talk) 11:34, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As a matter of interest, if you wish to contact CA as to the "errors" you have found in their database, I have found them very hospitable to alter their database on the grounds of cited, factually accurate, provable data. Bobo . 11:23, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. First-class cricketer playing cricket at the highest domestic level in a country that plays Test cricket: therefore passes WP:CRIN, which is the longer, more explanatory form of WP:NCRIC which is itself the sector notability guideline that links into and informs WP:GNG. Johnlp (talk) 10:36, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I can't decide whether this destructive apparent campaign to have first-class cricketers from non-English speaking countries deleted from Wikipedia will end up at WP:LAME or WP:ARBCOM. Either way, it's distasteful, POINTy and contrary to our values. This first-class cricketer is verifiable despite the paucity of English-language sources. The lack of first name doesn't change that. His existence is demonstrably encyclopedic and the exceptionally tenuous attack on the highly-regarded source, used widely by cricket experts willing to shell out to get through the paywall (and sorely missed by those who can't afford to) brings even further discredit to the cause. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:57, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Neither of the above, sadly. Our database is being destroyed by people who don't care for the sport nor for basic, consistent, NPOV guidelines. Has every major cricketer from a first-class English county team now been covered? Sadly this will probably mean that every major cricketer from a country other than England is now under threat, and there is no point submitting articles because in eight years time someone will come along and delete them... Bobo . 12:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I will say up front that I think this article should be deleted according to current WP:GNG definitions. Based on the subject's cricket activity, there is no way it will ever be anything more than a micro stub. It will never be a core in-dpeth article based on cricket activity. It is merely a replication of very basic and limited sports statistics. Where is the consistency in notabiity. If this was about an academic I suggest it would be hyper speedy deleted. If it was about a female football player it would be argued about but I suggest pretty solidly deleted. There are hundreds if not thousands of articles like this one. I note comments about building the [cricket] database. As far as I am aware this is not what Wikipedia is about. It is, amongst other things, about intrinsic demonstrable independent reliable sourceable notability. The subject does not deserve an article in its own right. However, the content is perhaps arguably encyclopedic. Accordingly, I suggest, if it is kept at all, the current article should be reduced to a redirect to an entry in a list table of this subject's cricket statistics, for the one club they played for once (a single event?) at top level. I have deliberately not !voted. Aoziwe (talk) 14:53, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy keep. BW Wijetunge is a first-class cricketer and according to guidelines of WikiProject Cricket, first-class cricketers are noteworthy. Now I have added the Cricinfo profile of this particular first-class cricketer into the article. So it should not be deleted. Abishe (talk) 07:37, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Couple of misconceptions here. Firstly, this is not a speedy keep criterion. Secondly, the cricket wikiproject's rules are not guidelines, are strongly disputed, and are not accepted by the community outside the wikiproject. See, for instance, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/D._Kodikara, among many others. Thirdly, CricInfo and CricketArchive are not independent sources in the sense that one copies extensively from the other (or maybe the copying goes in both directions, I'm not sure), and this includes the copying of errors (see, eg, the "Brainder Sran" bungling pointed out here). It's not possible to regard these identical stats listings as two independent sources for our purposes. Reyk _YO! 09:33, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Badgering much? The odd article being deleted doesn't make us lose hope, and shouldn't make you start jumping up and down like an excited teenager just because you're getting your way. The fact that you seem more busy to push your agenda makes Wikipedia sad. The fact that people can't maintain simple guidelines is another issue entirely and frankly would see almost any other user dealing with any other sports biographical topic being topic-banned. As per the usual, the delete arguments are based on WP:ONESOURCE (which is fixable as soon as you point it out to someone), and WP:DONTKNOWHISFIRSTNAME, which seems to be a new guideline which I'm not aware of. Bobo . 09:42, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There are red herrings here. The overwhelming consensus of just about everyone who knows a jot about cricket is that Cricket Archive and Cricinfo are both reliable sources. There's no such thing as a source entirely devoid of errors. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:11, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In fairness, if we only restricted cricket AfDs to people who knew about cricket or cared about Wikipedia, these debates would not be necessary. Bobo . 11:41, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We already discussed putting the single-appearance players into articles like Panadura Sports Club single-appearance players. It was rejected. WP has policies about BLP that require coverage beyond an entry in a stats database. As to corrections to CricketArchive, that's great. Show us please a source you would use to correct B. W. Wijetunge, perhaps even her first name. Rhadow (talk) 12:01, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It was rejected because people included only the articles which, against basic logical Wikipedia guidelines, had been deleted. If people had been willing to make lists with every first-class cricketer for a team, this would not have be a problem. Mind you, if everyone had stuck to the same basic guidelines, this problem wouldn't have had to have been created, either... Bobo . 12:04, 8 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Does not come close to meeting GNG. Per this RfC and recent AfDs, it is clear that SSGs do not supersede the GNG; therefore all keep votes above based on the subject meeting WP:CRIN are invalid. Dee 03 08:07, 9 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just because you disagree with someone's opinion doesn't make it "invalid". I could just as easily point out that the two main notability "guidelines" completely contradict each other and therefore make each other completely worthless, proving that brightline criteria are the only sensible arbiter. Bobo . 11:05, 9 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - I can find nothing to show notability for this person beyond their one appearance in a cricket match. The sources provided are database entires rather than substantive sources and tell us that a match that he played in took place, his surname and initials. We don't have a forename, date of birth or even which hand he batted with for example - in those circumstances I don't believe that we'll be in a position to verify anything about the person beyond what we currently have at any point in the foreseeable future. If we can't add substantive sources then there's a clear failure of the GNG and several RfC (such as this one) have made it clear that sports notability criteria only provide a presumption of notability if there is a hope that the GNG will ever be met. The close of the recent Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/D. Kodikara certainly seems to support such a position as well. In addition this is (probably) a BLP. In this circumstances I'm even more wary about keeping the article without sourcing beyond minimally detailed database entires - the profile tab of the one inline source in the article says it all: "Oops! We do not seem to have enough information about this player. Please check again later."

If we had a forename, date of birth etc... and the player could be shown to have played in other cricket matches (i.e. of a non-first-class status) then I could be persuaded that there is a reasonable probability that sources might exist. I would have no prejudice against the re-establishment of the article if such sources can be shown to exist. Blue Square Thing (talk) 18:45, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For what it is worth, I strongly suspect this was Bernard Wijetunge, who captained St Peter's College, Colombo in the Battle of the Saints in 1975 (the Sri Lanka equivalent of Eton v Harrow), and won the Saints Quadrangular with OPs in 1990 (for example, this); his father, also Bernard, played for St Peter's in the 1940s, and his son Sheehan in the 2000s. The point of a presumption of notability is that there are almost certainly offline print sources in Sri Lanka - probably including sources in languages than English - to establish his notability, in the 1970s or the 1990s or later. All we need is someone with the time and inclination to search through old newspaper archives in Colombo. Absent that, systemic bias (against things that happened in a foreign country far away, in another language, before the dawn of the internet) will see this article deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.74.175.21 (talk) 23:08, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bernard Wijetunge Jr is possibly the B Wijetunge who played club cricket for Nomads in the 1980s.[1] Hack (talk) 00:36, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Intriguing detective-work, cheers. Given that the main deletion rationale (as always) is "don't know the individual's first name", this fairly invalidates the initial rationale for deletion. Bobo . 18:23, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A blog entry by Dion Walles is not a reliable source that fairly invalidates anything. Insufficient to support a (presumably) BLP. Wijetunge is not an uncommon name in cricket or Sri Lanka. Piyal Wijetunge was the subject's contemporary (with a single cricket reference). Dingiri Banda Wijetunga was the prime minister of Sri Lanka in 1990. Rhadow (talk) 19:04, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Which would be fair enough if this individual's name was DB Wijetunga. But it's not even spelt that way. Bobo . 19:10, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As a point of information, The Sunday Leader is not a blog. Nor is The Island. But I am impressed by your evident knowledge of frequency statistics of surnames in Sri Lanka. You have found our two articles. How many other people with that surname do you think there are? It is not like Smith or Jones, certainly. Or Wickramasinghe or Dissanayake or Jayawardene. I've also seen the Singhalese transliterated as Wijethunga. Another of the difficulties of dealing with events twenty and more years ago, far away in a foreign language. But the similarity of a relatively unusual surname with a couple of other clearly-notable people with articles is somewhat beside the point, although I would not be at all surprised to find they are all reasonably closely related. There are actually two existing sources for our article on the One Test Wonder Piyal Wijetunge (one in the infobox, and another to ESPNcricinfo; no doubt one could be added to CricketArchive without any trouble; as a Test cricketer who has also coached the Sri Lanka national team, he is also mentioned in many easily available newspaper reports). If I am right about this being Bernard Wijetunga Jr, he is actually from the previous generation (around 18 in 1975; Piyal was born in 1971). Bernard appears to be a prominent member of the Sri Lanka business community now, involved in tourism. If only there was an editor in Sri Lanka who could do the research using offline sources, rather than pontificating from afar using the paltry gleanings of Google.

In other words WP:VERIFY is totally failed on a BLP? It might be Bernard. The other one might be Bernard. They both might be Bernard (wouldn't be the first time the databases have got things wrong). Or neither may be Bernard - we simply don't know. If VERIFY is failed on a BLP then we have to seriously question if the article is one that should be kept - it makes the case for delete stronger, not weaker. It can always be re-created when the necessary clarification is gleaned from somewhere or other. Blue Square Thing (talk) 06:22, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - I spend a lot of time voting on corporate AfDs and expect there to be some reliable coverage to substantiate notability. It's hard to argue that a player who appeared once is notable, while the match he appeared in doesn't even warrant coverage anywhere on Wikipedia. The most logical (but not easiest) solution is to put this player on a list of players for the club, but certainly not to devote an entire article to him. TimTempleton ^(talk) ^(cont) 17:25, 14 December 2017 (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.