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. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 17:42, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Jemal Thompson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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This may be the most non-notable football player we have on WP! Never played in the CFL, never even drafted. Newspapers.com brings up absolutely nothing. ProQuest: Nothing. Google search: Nothing (besides a bunch of "wikis"). I can't even verify that he was ever even on the Argos. The OVFL database source listed as the first ref and a passing mention in Bleacher Report ([1]) are the only things I could find on him. Fails GNG. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:42, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Sportspeople and American football. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:42, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, per nom. Definitely not notable. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:08, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, per nom Andre🚐 18:14, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. I put the notability tag on a few weeks ago but wanted to wait for someone who knows more about gridiron than I do before nominating. It's clear that this person isn't notable and we also can't verify he was even on the books at the Argonauts. MarchOfTheGreyhounds (talk) 18:35, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nom. Cbl62 (talk) 19:01, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 19:44, 26 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nomination. He's not listed on the 2009 roster for the Virginia State Trojans either. The lack of verifiable information makes this a borderline hoax. Mackensen (talk) 12:23, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  No presence or mentions on social media. No mentions in coverage of CJFL teams and games. In fact, one of the CJFL teams he's said to have played for, the Brampton Bears, don't appear to exist. Many of the citations added over the years make no reference to the alleged subject. I'm actually starting to think there's no such person as Jemal Thompson. MarchOfTheGreyhounds (talk) 13:24, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm at the point where I think any source that does claim Thompson played in the CFL should be preemptively blacklisted as a source, because they obviously got it from us, without attribution. Mackensen (talk) 14:37, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Just about all of the "sources" that claim he played in the CFL are unreliable "wikis" such as "ItsBiography.com" or "PeoplePill.com." The only source that mentions him in the CFL that may be considered reliable is this article from Narcity ("His first cousin, Jemal Thompson, is also from Toronto and is an athlete in a slightly different area. In 2011, he played defensive lineman for the Toronto Argonauts. But he retired his time in the Canadian Football League"). BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:54, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'd be interested to hear if anyone can verify that he existed at all. Can someone with better knowledge pull up anything about his alleged time in the CJFL?

  If this was confirmed as a hoax and added to WP:HOAXLIST, it would be the second longest surviving entry on the list. MarchOfTheGreyhounds (talk) 17:21, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I have done so many different search combinations ("Jemal Thompson Brampton Bears" "Jemal Thompson Toronto" "Jemal Thompson Tristan Thompson" "Jemal Thompson CFL" "Jemal Thompson Argonauts" "Jemal Thompson CJFL" "Jemal Thompson Virginia State" "Jemal Thompson Birchmount Park" and "Jemal Thompson Burlington Braves" to name a few) and I can't really find anything on him. This may actually be a hoax. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:27, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The Brampton Bears do appear to have existed; see [2]. Mackensen (talk) 21:52, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete, per all above. Ejgreen77 (talk) 14:46, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, lacks significant coverage and not verifiable. --Mvqr (talk) 12:51, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, per above. Sportsfangnome (talk) 17:36, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - Kpddg ^(talk) 14:58, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - I am not finding evidence that he played in the CFL. Rlendog (talk) 14:14, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Making a separate section for this. I found two Virginia State football media guides:

• 2010
• 2011

Neither mention a Jemal Thompson. No one with a name like that is on the roster. Through archive.org I looked at the old version of the VSU website and found rosters for 2009-2011:

• 2009
• 2010
• 2011

I don't see a Jemal Thompson there either. These aren't infallible sources, but if he really were a "standout" as the Bleacher Report article claims you'd expect him to be there. I'm concerned about the Bleacher Report article. It's dated June 15, 2011. The first archive.org snapshot is from 2013. I have no reason to doubt the date; it would have been published before the 2011 NBA Draft. That does mean that if this is a hoax, it didn't start on Wikipedia.

Now, the article is created in August 2011, ostensibly when he's signed to the Argonauts. Roster pages from around then:

• August 6, 2011
• August 30, 2011
• September 28, 2011

He's not shown on any roster. Was there a Jemal Thompson who had a cup of coffee with the Toronto Thunder? Maybe! I feel pretty confident asserting that he didn't play football at Virginia State and wasn't signed by the Toronto Argonauts in 2011. Mackensen (talk) 22:33, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I've worked back further on this. The article on Tristan Thompson, notionally Jemal's cousin, was created by the same editor on November 25, 2010: [3]. From the outset, it included the claim about Jemal Thompson: He is also the cousin of fellow NCAA athlete and current Virginia State University Trojan football standout Jemal Thompson. This is sourced to Tristan's profile on the Texas Longhorns website. A November 2010 snapshot of the website does not include anything about a cousin. That clears up the Bleacher Report question; they would have found it on the Tristan Thompson article. It's practically word-for-word. I feel comfortable calling it a hoax, though I'm at a loss to explain why, and R.Chauter (talk · contribs) is long gone. Mackensen (talk) 22:48, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing: the 2011 transactions page for the Argonauts doesn't list Jemal Thompson. R.Chauter adds Thompson on July 24. No player was added on that date. The transactions page does list practice squad players, which is what Thompson ostensibly was. Mackensen (talk) 13:50, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Walks and quacks like a hoax. Cbl62 (talk) 13:51, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I know it can't be used as proof, but one IP editor certainly seemed to doubt the claims in the article way back in 2018. MarchOfTheGreyhounds (talk) 13:58, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Fwiw, nothing in newspapers.com Ovinus (talk) 04:58, 2 September 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.