Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ed Carfrey

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 early keep. <addition>Consensus is that the subject </addition> clearly meets the specific notability guidelines, ~~no votes to delete except the nominator~~ (stricken later) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:38, 27 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ed Carfrey

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Played one game. Can't find any sources or mentions, except in statistical databases. Because he played one game in majors, he meets the NSPORTS guideline, but there isn't any evidence he meets WP:GNG; this is a case where presumption of NSPORTS may be wrong. KarlB (talk) 18:31, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep.. Played in the Majors and its long been established that Major League players should have articles on wikipedia. Also nominator seems to be shopping for articles to prove a point he is trying to make. Spanneraol (talk) 18:57, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy close as part of forum shopping from current NSPORT discussion, no prejudice against a more proper AFD outside of that discussion. --MASEM (t) 19:15, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep and a trout slap for nominator The Henry Oxley discussion isn't enough to convince you that project consensus is to keep? – Muboshgu (talk) 19:23, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy close as a pointy nomination. I would have done so myself but I am in a discussion surrounding this topic so probably involved. Either way it is a clear case of a keep as there is no way that any major leaguer would not have sources. One of the main purposes of NSPORTS is to stop over zealous deleters from deleting athletes in the 1800's where it is next to impossible to find online sources. This nominator has just given the perfect example of why it is extremely important to have NSPORTS as it stands. -DJSasso (talk) 19:37, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep Disruptive AFD.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:59, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I don't see how a nomination of an apparently non-notable person qualifies as disruptive behavior or editing to make a point. Sure, there's an ongoing conversation regarding the massive quantity of sports people articles that fail notability guidelines, but that doesn't make a proper nomination any less proper. If there were concrete action in process toward addressing this problem outside of deletion venues, then I could see how mass nominations would be improper. Considering the lack of action to address the ongoing problem, and the fact that this is a single nomination and not some fait accompli in action, I think the above accusations are completely baseless. Gigs (talk) 20:11, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Baseball-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 20:14, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 20:14, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Pennsylvania-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 20:14, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

comment wait, Wikipedia:FORUMSHOP#FORUMSHOP means something else. What exactly did I violate by nominating this example? I've not nominated 200 articles, I nominated one. Why the anger? --KarlB (talk) 21:01, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep wether he made 1 apperance or over 100 apperances in the majors it doesn't matter, still notable according to WP:NSPORTS Seasider91 (talk) 21:33, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why disruptive because of the following:

This nomination is in the face of obvious consensus as set up in Wikipedia:Notability (sports). Both editors User:KarlB and User:Gigs are involved in discussions there, as well as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Henry Oxley. Both of these discussions (and many others) show a history of obvious consensus swing toward supporting WP:WPBB/N as a standard for notability, of which both editors are well aware of. When discussions have failed to go "their way" on either of these pages, KarlB has gone out to make another AfD that clearly meets the Wikipedia community standards but not his/her own in an attempt to make a point. Gigs has done the same thing with other professional athletes.
KarlB could have taken several courses of action on this article: WP:AFD, WP:PROD, tagging the article as possibly lacking notability, etc. Knowing that the consensus is to support WP:WPBB/N, the editor chose the harshest and most disruptive path--AFD. This is disruptive because it is in the face of known consensus on the topic and goes outside the discussion of the topic into the encyclopedia itself, where readers not involved in this discussion become involved.
WP:FORUMSHOP contains no reference to any minimum number of "attempts" but states instead, "Raising essentially the same issue on multiple noticeboards, or to multiple administrators, is unhelpful." Editor KarlB has done that here. Hence, the accusation of "Forum Shopping" has come up.
I have no doubt that both users in question believe that this subject is not notable and unworthy for inclusion in Wikipedia. However, that discussion should be held at the established location of WP:WPBB/N rather than going out and picking an article to have the discussion there. Wikipedia is not a battleground.

While both editors have certainly been civil and polite, that does not mean that these actions are not disruptive. I believe they are, and it appears that several others do as well. Therefore, I believe that the accusations above (including the one I made about this being disruptive) are valid accusations. Becase this subject clearly meets the community standards for notability and this AFD is an obvious bad faith nomination, I believe it should be closed immediately.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:38, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since when is a good-faith AfD nomination disruptive? Paul I appreciate your efforts to improve the encyclopedia, but attacking me for a single AfD is not helpful. This is also not about the discussions on the sports page; as you know my proposal is to have a very different process for these; forum shopping would have been bringing the same exact proposal to the Village Pump or ANI or anywhere else to try to get a different audience. This is not forum shopping, this is a tangential nom. I came across this article, did some searching for sources, read through google books references, was surprised to find that this guy literally played 1 game, and based on comments I've seen in NSPORTS, that if GNG is not met these can still be deleted by consensus, I decided to try a nomination here. There are also other editors, besides myself and Gigs, involved - majority rule != consensus, Paul.

What I've done at AfD is the same thing done every day - nominate an article that I think does not meet the presumed guidelines of notability conferred by WP:WPBB/N - such nominations if made in good faith (which this one was, esp provided I already spent time doing research) are not disruptive, and I find it unfair that I'm being attacked accordingly. In the same post in which I shared this nomination, I provided a great source of old newspapers that can be used to defend old baseball players (and find new content), and I also linked to a massive wiki of baseball profiles (with 10x the number of people as wikipedia), and am currently proposing additional ways to save information from deleted baseball articles, so your accusations of bad faith here are wide of the mark.

And finally, I'm not proposing (through this nomination, or through discussions on talk page) to change the NSPORTS notability guideline; I just think it is, as it says it is, a presumed notability, that can be and is regularly challenged at AfD, and this is proper and acceptable. If this was someone who was pitcher of the year in 1870 and had played for 4 teams over 10 years, yes that would be a silly nom; but this was a guy who played 1 game, and I couldn't find *anything* about him. I just find this whole thing rather crazy; take a look at AfD for minor league players, guys who have played for years, have long records, many articles about them, well sourced;etc, they are often deleted, but a major league player with zero data and 1 game to his name - where we don't even know how he ended up in the majors in the first place - just gets a free pass? I'm sorry, but the language at the top of NSPORTS is clear - please read it. Nowhere does it say if the subject passes WP:WPBB/N, it is disruptive to nominate them.--KarlB (talk) 22:15, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, we don't create "disruptive clauses" for every guideline.--Paul McDonald (talk) 22:22, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps we can look at what is *does* say: "Please note that the failure to meet these criteria does not mean an article must be deleted; conversely, the meeting of any of these criteria does not mean that an article must be kept. These are merely rules of thumb which some editors choose to keep in mind when deciding whether or not to keep an article that is on articles for deletion, along with relevant guidelines such as Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources." Seriously Paul, feel free to vote to keep, but there's nothing improper or disruptive about this nomination. --KarlB (talk) 22:23, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

comment see the following two noms, which are similar, and which were deleted - again with no accusations or attacks on the nom. Instead, the useful word common sense was applied. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marios Antoniades; Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2011_December_19#Cosmos_Munegabe. --KarlB (talk) 22:49, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: This appears to be a disruptive attempt to prove a point about notability on Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports). He passes the the sport guidelines, which the nominator acknowledges. The nominator makes the keep argument effectively by saying he meets the criteria for an article. --LauraHale (talk) 22:58, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
comment as an example of how the notability tag works (one of Paul's suggestions above), here is another player who played one game: Joe_Adams --> [1]; a year after the notability tag was placed, there are no improvements to the article. The bottom line is, if the notability of bios cannot be challenged without accusations of disruption, a major change to NSPORTS is in order. I think from the editors responding here, it is quite clear they feel presumed notability is the same thing as iron-clad notability never to be challenged.--KarlB (talk) 23:07, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Karl: This is an AfD for Carfey. The notability of Joe Adams is not the issue here, nor is this the place to argue for systematic changes. I think you made the best arguement for keeping the article by acknowledge that Carfey satisfies the notability requirements. --LauraHale (talk) 23:12, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm arguing, on this one, for common sense. Joe Adams is just an example b/c Paul suggested I tag for notability; I'm pointing out that that often doesn't do much good. Also please read the other two examples I linked to, which were deleted. Consensus can go many ways. Barely meeting a notability guideline is a perfectly reasonsable excuse for AfD nomination - in fact, thousands of AfDs every year are someone who barely meets the guideline. Your accusations of disruption do not assume good faith and are insulting to me.--KarlB (talk) 23:23, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I find your comment that he meets notability guidelines very compelling. I think it is an excellent reason to keep. I agree with you that he meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines and that he should be included. I apologise for the lack of good faith in accusing you of disruption, but I do wish to thank you for posting a compelling reason he should be kept as part of your AfD. I hope that the closing admin takes your statement of his notability and passing Wikipedia's consensus derived guidelines about baseball notability into account. --LauraHale (talk) 23:37, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for apologizing, but the rest seems a bit snide. The reason I made this nomination is that I felt the presumed notability was up for debate; as is clear from NSPORTS, these are only guidelines, and should be taken into account at the AfD. Thus far, no-one has made any argument that this guy passes WP:GNG, so I hope the closing admin and other eds weighing in will take that into account also - the question is, do we think we can make this more than a stub? Is there anything about this guy's baseball career that makes him notable?--KarlB (talk) 23:59, 25 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Karl, I dont think the comparison to the other deleted articles is valid, because the notability guidelines for soccer players are not quite as clear as those for baseball players.Spanneraol (talk) 00:26, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My point was not about the notability of those soccer players - it was about the discussion - do you notice how no-one is accusing the nominator of disrupting wikipedia? The noms are the same principle - barely meeting NSPORTS, no sources found, thus AfD. As I said before, feel free to vote, but I'd ask anyone who trouted me to strike/apologize/AGF.--KarlB (talk) 00:36, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, because the fact that you posted this AFD during a contentious discussion about notability AND linked to it on the NSports page as an example of what you were trying to accomplish tends to add credence to the views that this afd is part of you attempting to prove something. Spanneraol (talk) 00:50, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is obviously not productive to argue with an editor who refuses to assume good faith. Apparently, notifying NSPORTS was a *bad* idea in your opinion? And, you obviously didn't read my proposal at NSPORTS; if you had, you would realize that the process I proposed was quite different than what transpired here. In any case, here's a nice wet trout for you for not assuming good faith. Thwop. --KarlB (talk) 04:13, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The problem isn't that you notified NSPORTS, its that you nominated the article during a contentious discussion which is usually considered a very bad thing to do as its considered a bad faith nomination and usually called pointy. -DJSasso (talk) 11:57, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Let's apply some common sense here (similar to the concensus at the Cosmos Munegabe and Marios Antoniades AfDs mentioned above) - this article doesn't satisfy the GNG and I've been unable to find sources that suggest it could. Playing in a single regular season game is simply not enough to be notable without significant coverage. Jogurney (talk) 02:04, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Appears to satisfy WP:GNG as a professional baseball player with a 15-plus year career. I'm finding quite a lot of information on Carfrey. He did not just play one game. He had a career in professional baseball that appears to have run from 1882 through at least 1897. He also played in an 1891 game that attempted, unsuccessfully, to introduce the sport of indoor, winter baseball. Most of his career was in the minor leagues, but he does seem to have received a good deal of coverage over the years. Of course, on-line information is quite limited for 19th Century baseball players, but I'm adding some of what I've found. Cbl62 (talk) 03:42, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Cb162; your article rescue skills are impressive. And this is not to denigrate the quality of your work, but I simply ask this - if this same player had done everything he did, but didn't play that one majors game, would we be having this discussion, framed in this way? I've seen minor league baseball AfDs - they are pretty harsh and set a pretty high bar. The sources you found, while impressive in their scope, only mention Carfrey in passing (literally - his first name is often not mentioned at all). And I grant that he didn't just play one game - I shouldn't have suggested that (I meant only 1 majors game); in any case the world is full of people about whom we could write similar articles to this one, but we don't... --KarlB (talk) 04:01, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That is the point of NSPORTS, by the time they have met NSPORTS they have likely already met GNG while still being a minor league player. People always try to attack the one game players in the majors without considering the fact that most minor league players get significant coverage as well, especially the ones who have made it to the major league. Thus why the notability is drawn at playing a game in the majors. Because they usually have long since passed the GNG line as an amateur or minor leaguer by time they hit the majors. -DJSasso (talk) 11:46, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a reflection on Cb162's impressive research, but I could write an article about my grandmother, based on published newspaper mentions in society pages, award dinners, charity events, weddings, funerals, and dozens of other mentions that would have just as much, if not more, biographical detail - but that still doesn't make her notable. Remember, Wikipedia:NOT#NEWS and Wikipedia:LOTSOFSOURCES#Lots_of_sources - a dozen trivial mentions is still a dozen trivial mentions; I don't have access to the offline sources, but all of the online sources that were added I looked at, none of them did much more than mention Carfrey's name. That's the problem with sports in general - sports coverage will naturally describe or list the members of the team (e.g. Carfrey played second base today) - but if they mention that he played second base whether in high school or little league or the majors, the level of coverage is still the same - routine, trivial, every-day coverage - that does not meet GNG. You should talk to this guy, he may have some thoughts for you DJ - he has the same name as you: [[2]] "Meeting or failing to meet any of the NSPORTS criteria is not in and of itself a reason to keep or not keep and that in the end you still have prove they meet GNG." NSPORTS is not under dispute here, GNG is. For another example, see: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Cody_Martin_(baseball) - look at this query: 81 GNEWs hits - but this guy was still voted non-notable enough to be merged to an article of his own.--KarlB (talk) 13:22, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Turning this AFD into yet another place to argue your personal disdain for the level of sports notability is not helping your cause with respect to accusations of forum shopping and WP:POINT. Especially when you begin building strawmen centred around hypothetical scenarios that are not relevant to this article. Reso lute 16:28, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

None of what I said in the two comments are mutually exclusive. The guidelines are written to make it an almost 100% guarantee that sources can be found. There are exceptions, but the exceptions are usually not the ones that were major league players. The exceptions are usually minor league players in other sports. Routine and trivial refer to boxscores and passing mentions. But the minute the article is an indepth article about the player and not just some puff piece like high school player of the week. Then they have received enough coverage to be on the wiki. If your grandmother has had articles talking about her in such a manor and not just a passing mention then yes she would qualify for an article as long as it happened in more than one source and for more than one event. As for your baseball example, ironically you are attacking one of the most strict of the sports guidelines, frankly their over zealous merging of minor leaguers is going to far in my opinion. But its been slow work convincing them to even have lists of minor leaguers. -DJSasso (talk) 19:17, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your nomination stated "Can't find any sources or mentions" (assumingly online). As for the offline sources that Cbl62 has added, you also stated "I don't have access to the offline sources." Are you assuming that the offline sources are also trivial in your continued opposition?—Bagumba (talk) 19:41, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure the offline sources are what he says they are (I WP:AGF), but the question is, are any of them significant? I don't think anyone needs me to change my vote, but I would be happy to if Cb162 pasted several examples of significant coverage from these offline sources. In spite of the number of sources, none of the online sources that I've read confer notability IMHO; and the titles of the offline articles don't suggest much more. DJSasso says above "indepth article about the player" - I haven't seen one of those yet. per: WP:GNG "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, so no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material" Adding up many different trivial mentions does not equal significant coverage. --KarlB (talk) 20:04, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am sure you have a policy that backs that up right? Because so far all you linked to was lots of sources which is an essay, not policy. -DJSasso (talk) 20:06, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The newspaper articles I've cited are all available on-line either through newspaperarchive.com or la84foundation.com, both of which are excellent resources. Newspaperarchive.com can be accessed on an unlimited basis for a modest fee. The newspaper articles are not feature stories about Carfrey, nor are they simply box scores with his name. They deal with him in varying levels of detail. Cbl62 (talk) 21:09, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, I linked to WP:GNG and Wikipedia:NOT#NEWS. Those *are* policies. The article is full of fascinating historical trivia about a minor-league player and which base he played and whether he got a black eye or not. Having read the article now several times, I'm still wondering what is notable about him? Why is he in this encyclopedia? Again, all props to Cb162, but I'm still not seeing GNG.--KarlB (talk) 20:26, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the past I sometimes argued a player being WP:ROTM or lacking WP:IMPACT, but it has rarely gained consensus. Also, I haven't seen how a higher standard of accomplishments could objectively be applied, not to mention justifying a higher standard than GNG for sports.—Bagumba (talk) 20:51, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Actually, WP:GNG is a "guideline" and not a "policy" -- hence the name "General Notability Guideline" --Paul McDonald (talk) 22:20, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have to echo Paul here, GNG is a guideline as well. NOT#NEWS refers to having articles that are simply telling the news which this is clearly not doing so isn't really applicable. I think you seem to be confusing fame and notability. You can be of note without being famous. -DJSasso (talk) 12:11, 27 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Based on presumption of WP:BASEBALL/N, but especially in light of the offline sources found and added to the article since the AfD nomination. Appears promising that the threshold set forth in the SNG warranted the presumption that it meets GNG. I don't have access to the offline sources, so will assume good faith on their addition.—Bagumba (talk) 06:07, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Simply, passes notability guidlines, apparently, some users use the rules and no ways other to help unless brown nose their way to the main founder, User JB.--GoShow (...............) 03:30, 27 June 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.