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. Seems like we have some unrefuted claims of notability. Personal attacks and the like would be a topic for WP:HAPPYPLACE Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:38, 8 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Robert Mason (cricketer)[edit]

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Only one "source" that's just an entry in a database for a BLP. Does not seem to meet WP:ATHLETE requirements for cricketers at all. (Apologies if this is a mistagged AfD - I wasn't sure if it should be "Games or sports" or "Biographical".) Nerd1a4i (talk) 17:00, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - okay, so this WP:ONESOURCE thing is becoming an issue all of a sudden. All you need to do is request that another source be added and that will do fine. If I do that now, does that negate the need for this AfD? Bobo . 17:08, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - a second link has been added, rendering the justification for sending this article to AfD meaningless. Bobo . 17:10, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Cricket-related deletion discussions. Mark the train^Discuss 17:26, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. Mark the train^Discuss 17:26, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. Mark the train^Discuss 17:26, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – This is a tricky one. Every Gnews search I do comes up with stuff about other people. Despite (from my understanding) failing WP:NCRIC, it seems to be status quo to have articles about these players (see this list), and he played in two List A matches, which is more than some other people on that list. Does anyone here stand in this field of expertise? J 947^{^{^{(c) (m)}}} 18:22, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How do you read NCRIC such that you believe this individual doesn't meet NCRIC? One appearance in a major cricket match. This individual meets that criterion. Bobo . 18:42, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Read criterion 1 wrong. Still neutral though, as a balance between the result of this RfC and the fact that it would be unfair to delete just this one while leaving all the others intact. J 947^{^{^{(c) (m)}}} 19:02, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep – Meets GNG as shown by sources found. J 947^{^{^{(c) (m)}}} 20:08, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

More time - more time needs to be provided to search for reliable, in-depth sources about this chap. It appears he played for Cleator CC and probably continues to play for Cumberland by the sounds of articles such as this and this. I would query whether that is necessarily in-depth, but my thinking is that there is likely to be more coverage in the regional press which has a chance of establishing notability (certainly for players in my part of the world I would consider this likely). It is reasonable to allow more time to be provided to search for sources where a sportsman meets the sports notability guidelines - in order to show that they meet the GNG. It is a shame that the article creator did not consider searching for news sources and has instead relied upon merely statistical sources which show that the chap existed and little else. Given that it took me less than five minutes to find those above it seems odd that an article creator couldn't be bothered to do so. Perhaps that would have avoided this going to AfD entirely. Blue Square Thing (talk) 19:28, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Apart from meeting WP:NCRIC by playing two List A matches, there's coverage in various local press [1], [2], [3], including this which mentions he was the Under-21 player of the year. Tons more like this by searching for his name in quotes and add the words Cumberland + cricket with that. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 19:29, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. It's no good having the sources in an External Links section. They MUST be inline citations. This is where we go wrong and why so many of these AfDs appear, per the Sri Lankan one earlier. I'm not fixing this one. Jack | ^{talk page} 21:44, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please forgive me, Jack. To what level do we add inline citations? Just match details? Bobo . 22:20, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's a difficult one to answer, Bobo. I would say we need something at the end of the opening sentence because it's here that we are confirming the player's status at top-level. If it's feasible to include a citation after a match summary then, yes, go for that too (I did that for Dinaparna as we have the full scorecard). Nothing to forgive, btw. All the best. Jack | ^{talk page} 12:28, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

See I would have thought that the only reference needed would be the fact that this individual is a top level player. Which is what we already do by providing the external link. If we would rather this external link be a reference, so we kill two birds with one stone, that is fine. Bobo . 12:33, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

H'mmm, no. Per WP:EL and WP:CITE, information in the narrative must be verified by an inline citation while links within the EL section are actually "additional reading" only. The EL is not a citation. It's exactly like citing inline a page in Wisden for a specific piece of information and then putting the same year's Playfair annual, which doesn't say anything about the player, into EL as further reading about the season. Jack | ^{talk page} 13:51, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I understand. All it is, is just another easily fixable problem which is better sorted by cleanup tags than sending things willy-nilly to AfD just to adhere to WP:POINT. Bobo . 15:58, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I absolutely agree. I tag things all the time and I hold the world record for application of ((refimprove)). The problem is disruptive individuals (many of them) who cannot think in terms of "improvement needed here" and just do a knee-jerk towards AfD by default. Jack | ^{talk page} 18:57, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not strictly speaking. You're blaming Frankenstein's monster. Not Frankenstein himself. The fact that these people don't even consider fixing the problems themselves proves that they have no interest in attempting to improve the encyclopedia. But I see what you mean. Bobo . 19:05, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Meets WP:NCRIC. Now reffed. Though more could be done. Johnlp (talk) 09:44, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is the fourth time (I think) that an article I created has gone to AfD recently where the prose content of the article has not changed in the eight years since I created the article. Not a criticism, John, just a frustration. I added as much prose content then as I could, and nobody has added to it since. Once again this is proof that it's not us as WP:CRIC members who are at fault for this, but those who randomly turn up eight years later and declare WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Couldn't these people have done so eight years ago?! Would have avoided this mess and the others...

I would say that if an article has survived eight years without being criticized by way of an AfD, then it's probably fine as it is... (with reference to its presence on WP, not necessarily its prose content). Bobo . 11:46, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry. Meant no criticism of you (or anyone else in this). Just saying that I've now put in the very basic refs and that the earlier contributions above indicate there are at least local newspaper references that could flesh this out further. Johnlp (talk) 09:17, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I misphrased, I didn't take it that way at all. My criticism certainly wasn't directed towards you - more that I was tickled at the fact that the article has been in the same state for the last eight years and suddenly someone has rocked up and decided they don't like it. The fact that their opinion goes against basic guidelines is frankly disruptive. Bobo . 10:10, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - worth noting that this discussion is being accompanied by significant veiled personal attacks - not all directed towards me, but towards unnamed uninvolved parties - by a certain user on WT:CRIC, which are completely independent of either this article or this AfD debate. I refuse to be provoked by his behaviour, as I have been before out of my own frustration. I have learned from my mistakes. Telling me to "go jump in a lake" is frankly beyond the pale. Spike 'em claims that I am instructing him "which articles to edit" and that I am taking this "far too personally", both of which are outright lies.

Once again these complaints go beyond the sole concern pointed out on this AfD, which has no relation to either WP:GNG or WP:CRIN but WP:ONESOURCE, are therefore irrelevant to this conversation, and unprovoked by myself or @BlackJack:. Bobo . 02:25, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Meets SNG, so we presume sources exist. For me, one of two things should happen for SNG to carry - non-English subject (really non-Latin language subject) or historical subject (to me, five years; but others have said ten years or pre-Internet (about 1997)). Here we have the second. Websites don't keep content up forever. Searching for older subjects can be challenging through the Internet. Had someone raised this back in 2009, we maybe could have found the sources. Now, they are going to be very hard to find in view of the prime of 2002-3. So the presumption carries weight and we should keep. RonSigPi (talk) 00:38, 6 October 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.