Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Newman (ice hockey)

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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. This is a great example of WP:HEY, as the last few !voters indicated. Props to User:Cbl62 for improving the article, which looked like this when it was nominated. (non-admin closure) Rollidan (talk) 21:24, 2 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

John Newman (ice hockey)

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John Newman (ice hockey) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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This article is based only on sports databases, not on any examples of significant coverage. An attempt to find significant coverage found no examples of such. All sports SNGs were determined by RfC to be under the guideline that articles must meet GNG as well, and this article does not in any way meet GNG. John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:20, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep, played nine games in the National Hockey League, and thus meets NHOCKEY, which states: Ice hockey players are presumed notable if they: Played one or more games in the National Hockey League... And NSPORT also says in bold: The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below. That's an or. I also believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that we have never deleted a player in the NHL (neither have we ever deleted a multi-game player in the NFL, MLB, or NBA, either). BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:24, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I also found that Newman played for several other teams between 1929 and 1940, in addition to his time in the NHL. See [1]. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:39, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • So you found another stats page that references him. You present 0 sources that show significant coverage and entirely ignore my nomination. The sports SNGs explictly require we have significant coverage, but you choose to ignore that requirement and incorrectly claim that article passes the relevant SNGs when in fact without significant coverage it does not pass SNGs at all. There was a 2017 RfC that very clearly specified that sports SNGs do not allow us to ignore GNG when deciding to keep articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:53, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I personally think that getting rid of an article on someone who played nine games in the NHL (and eleven seasons in other leagues) is the opposite of improving WP, and so I also base my "keep" position on WP:IAR, which states: If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:43, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If we will delete articles that pass NSPORT then what do we have it for? BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:55, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
NSPORT was intended to provide reasonable assurances to editors that subjects are highly likely to pass WP:GNG. However, NSPORT is not a foolproof guarantee that everyone who passes it will also pass GNG. In cases where no GNG-level coverage can be found, the possibility exists that the subject may still be deleted. Unless some coverage is found (so far, we have found none), Newman appears to be such a case. Cbl62 (talk) 04:50, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If we, an encyclopedia, delete articles that pass a guideline when that guideline states: The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below and that players are presumed notable if they have played in the National Hockey League, then that SNG is completely worthless and should be marked as "historical" in my opinion. Also, considering we already have an article for all NHL players, why would we want to shrink down, rather than be complete in that area? BeanieFan11 (talk) 19:29, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@GoldMiner24: @Spiderone: With the expansion now underway, would you take a second look? Cbl62 (talk) 12:59, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Wow ok, the article has been significantly improved along with some good references, nice HEY. I now believe he passes GNG, changing my !vote.@Cbl62: GoldMiner24 Talk 14:34, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment To preface this, I am on the deletionist side of things. But I think BeanieFan11 needs to realize that just meeting an SNG does not mean that this person is automatically notable. From NSPORT: Please note that the failure to meet these criteria does not mean an article must be deleted; conversely, meeting 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 policies and guidelines such as Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources.
Also, from Q2 of the same page: Q2: If a sports figure meets the criteria specified in a sports-specific notability guideline, does this mean they do not have to meet the general notability guideline?
A2: No, the article must still eventually provide sources indicating that the subject meets the general notability guideline. Although the criteria for a given sport should be chosen to be a very reliable predictor of the availability of appropriate secondary coverage from reliable sources, there can be exceptions. For contemporary persons, given a reasonable amount of time to locate appropriate sources, the general notability guideline should be met in order for an article to meet Wikipedia's standards for inclusion. (For subjects in the past where it is more difficult to locate sources, it may be necessary to evaluate the subject's likely notability based on other persons of the same time period with similar characteristics.)
I understand that BeanieFan11 wants every sports player who has played in the NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, to get an article on Wikipedia (per their talk page My main goals are to have every NFL player with an article,), but if there are no good sources for lesser known players from the 1930s or 1940s, then we can't do that. Natg 19 (talk) 22:39, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That Q2 feels misguided as it is at odds with the very nature of SNGs - an alternative to GNG as specified at WP:N. BeanieFan11 raises a good point that NSPORTS is a waste of time if articles have to meet GNG anyway. NemesisAT (talk) 23:36, 23 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Back up to WP:NSPORTS#Q1:

They are intended only to stop an article from being quickly deleted when there is very strong reason to believe that significant, independent, non-routine, non-promotional secondary coverage from multiple reliable sources is available, given sufficient time to locate it

—Bagumba (talk) 04:28, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@GPL93: Jackpot! Lots of hits in the Detroit Free Press for hockey player "Johnny Newman". My prior searches were for "John". Cbl62 (talk) 02:53, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've found some further hits as well. This quick writeup from the Winnipeg Free Press about his callup to the NHL is not in-depth, but does categorize him as a "star" for the Detroit Olympics and I feel like that does lend towards Newman being notable. Best, GPL93 (talk) 03:00, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There are about 400 results for "Johnny Newman" and "hockey" in Canadian papers on Newspapers.com from 1929 to 1940 and more than 150 in Michigan papers from the same time period. Only went through the first few years and picked these out, but perhaps there is some significant coverage among the large amount of passing mentions in these results. Penale52 (talk) 03:34, 25 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Meets the presumption of notability under WP:NHOCKEY. Sources from almost 100 years ago may be difficult and take a long time to find - even newspapers.com is far from complete - and so the SNG presumption is particularly important and useful for such subjects. There is no time limit as to when additional sources need to be added. If the nominator does not like the presumption under the SNG he should start a RfC to get consensus to revise it. And if the SNG is not good enough, then IAR is reason enough to keep, per BeanieFan11. Rlendog (talk) 20:25, 24 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Meets NHOCKEY and appears to meet GNG as well per the sources in archive databases. The article needs expansion, not deletion. ~EDDY (talk/contribs)~ 01:31, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • In which case, why haven't you or anyone else expanded it already? An article can only be retained on the sources that actually exist, not on the ones which people speculate might exist. Ravenswing 06:40, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect: per Spiderone. So ... is there any worthwhile content from all these hits that anyone cares to add into the article? Because as of right now, none has been. And if the links posted above are indicative of the quality and depth of the coverage, the subject still fails the GNG with drooping colors: 0+0+0+0+0+0 still equals zero. IAR isn't some sort of trump card that supersedes all other notability criteria, and it would be fatuous to claim that retaining intact a two-sentence substub that hasn't been materially improved in thirteen years is necessary to the encyclopedia. Ravenswing 06:28, 26 February 2022 (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.
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