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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CIF California State Meet alumni

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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 no consensus. Spartaz Humbug! 08:53, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

CIF California State Meet alumni

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CIF California State Meet alumni (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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WP:NOTDIR – All this list does is list people who have once upon a time participated in a high school track meet. None of these athletes are connected in any other way other than having participated in the same track meet at different times (i.e. "Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics"). This list has no notable criteria for inclusion. Also, don't let the "known for" column confuse you – what they're known for has nothing to do with the justification of why this list should even exist. Jrcla2 (talk) 12:59, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 13:39, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 13:40, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment As far as I can see, the criteria for inclusion appears to be participation in the meeting followed by later, notable success in athletics. The known for column outlines this later achievement (typically Olympic or world participation, or similar high level achievement), thus the reason for their inclusion. In a way, the list forms the contribution of the state of California to the sport of athletics. SFB 20:49, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply. Not true about the notable success in athletics. Most of these "alumni" became notable track athletes, but there are many listed who are known for other things (being an NFL player, being the father of Barry Bonds, a Heisman Trophy winner, an NBA player, etc). Hence, this whole list is just cruft for a high school track event that happened to have many notable persons participate in it, largely in part because California is a big state and has the ability to claim such athletes (of every meaning of the word, not just track/field). This list just puts together a loosely associated group of people. Please tell me how participation in a high school track and field event is a significant, important-to-their-interconnectedness point of relation among these athletes. Jrcla2 (talk) 20:11, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Although "participants" might be a better choice than "alumni", I agree with SFB that the criteria for inclusion are relatively well defined and that the article does help highlight California's contribution to athletics (sport). Obviously California track & field will have more notable individuals than other sports in other states (e.g. volleyball in Rhode Island), but I do have concerns for the precedent that this might set: 50 states X ~20 sports with high school championship meets or tournaments = 1,000 articles. I'm wondering if there might be a better way to present this information within the parent article... maybe a subsection for various decades. Location (talk) 21:23, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Defined as "list of the notable people", but includes some that may not be notable (at least WP:WTAF/redlink test fails). If it's designed to be "notable people", this list could be a category. tedder (talk) 20:22, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. As the creator of this article, that should be expected. I've obviously put a lot of work into this. I'm not set on the title, that followed from the section heading I put the original article CIF California State Meet. This list of notable people originally appeared in that section until it was wiped out by the nominator. As a response, I created this more explanatory article, which clearly shows well over 100 notable individuals who have participated in this meet. As this meet is the culmination of the NFHS official high school season, at this point in time this was the culmination of each of these individuals' high school careers. It takes almost a month long qualification process just to reach this meet. It certainly can't be categorized as merely "a" high school track meet as the nominator has tried to belittle the meet in several comments through this process. I'll note the nominator has attacked the core article, not through WP:AfD but by placing several, I'll call them defamatory, tags at the head.

Certainly there are a lot of top level Olympians in this list. I took interest in the subject by noting how many people had come through this event, who had achieved fame through other activities. To be specific, there is a famous baseball player, a basketball player, Olympic volleyball player, the World's Strongest Man, a WWF wrestler, an actor who achieved fame unrelated to his sports activities (plus several who did become entertainers or politicians after being athletes), numerous NFL players, 3 with Super Bowl rings and Hall of Fame credentials. There is nothing random about the selection of these individuals in this list. They had a common experience of being high school track stars, who managed to get to this highest meet of their high school season. I also found it interesting and informative that not all were predestined as super-stars. The fastest woman in the world, Florence Griffith-Joyner only finished 6th. World record holder in the long 400 Intermediate Hurdles Kevin Young was only 3rd in the short High Hurdles event, javelin world record setter (and equipment manufacturer) Bud Held was a pole vaulter. It may be trivial, but I think it ties a lot of information about the development of these athletes. Information that would not be commonly noted by merely scanning the results of this meet. As with any alumni list on WP, there is no claim that these individuals achieved their fame because of their participation in this meet, merely that they were part of (in this case) the event. However, some of them achieved their claim to notably status by records they set at this meet.

The same nominator called this WP:OR, true it is my own work to tie the information from sources together, because no other single source has done that previously. All the research is documented. As with the expectations of any encyclopedic WP article, this is an accumulation of information from numerous sources. The primary source is the most complete set of results of this meet available here. We could waste a lot of space putting in hundreds of references in to show that each of these individuals is who they say they are, with this element in their history. I do not see the nominator or any other individual challenging any of the facts here. Most of the individual specific sourcing is more appropriate in their individual articles than to clutter the references here. As a list, this serves better as a redirect to encourage people to learn more at each wikilinked article. That is what a wikipedia list is supposed to do.

The subject of conferred notability has been raised by this nominator. I have followed what are the standard practices regarding alumni; that they have achieved notability to WP standards. Most institutions that list their alumni categorize them because most are scattered over diverse fields, obviously most on this list are Olympians primarily, so that categorization wouldn't work. The decades idea might, but it will be lopsided towards more recent individuals because there is better documentation on notability for more contemporary individuals, thus more articles. The WP notability standards are a pretty good guide here in both directions. First of all, the criteria for being included on the list is for someone to have achieve the standard of WP notability. The handful of RED links are all individuals who have achieved the notability standard, even if the article for that individual has not yet been created. And the reason they have attained that status is included in the right hand column. I'm leaving space for articles I may have to write in the future. If I need to clip those to save the article as a whole, that is doable and they will be reinserted. Frankly I don't like to create stub, placeholder articles when more can be written.

Drifting further, in WP:NTRACK, one of the means of determining the notability of track and road racing events are deemed notable is by who has competed there . . . that it is a meeting of notable athletes. No other editor has challenged the notability of the event, though with the hostility of this one editor has shown and noting his aggressive repetitive responses here, that is not beyond imagination. By the way, Bobby Bonds was a significant baseball player in his own right, but it would take some knowledge of history to know this--something this editor apparently does not possess. I'd even ask, why is a future major league baseball star, long jumping in a championship track meet during the high school baseball season? It must be important. Without a list like this, it might be unnoticed. Linking this number of notable alumni certainly confirms the significance of the meet.

Regarding Tedder's comment that it should be a category, you and I both know that there is no isolation or selection between the two. Both are acceptable means of linking information here on Wikipedia. They can be used together, interchangeably or singularly depending on who chooses to do the volume of work. Trackinfo (talk) 23:16, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If categories and articles are the same to you, use a category. Categories stay up-to-date and don't become coatracks for inclusion issues. Otherwise, "I worked on it a long time" is a poor argument; a category can be linked from a summary style section of the CIF California State Meet article, which sounds entirely appropriate. tedder (talk) 23:33, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply. If you're going to accuse me placing "defamatory" tags on the article, which is in itself slander against me as an editor, you better provide diffs and explain how they were defamatory. Otherwise, remove the comment, as it adds nothing as to why this article should be kept, which is the issue raised. Jrcla2 (talk) 02:02, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, here's you saying that his writing was factually misleading, biased and unverifiable, when common sense would suggest that the information was none of those things. An audience of 16,000 is significant if you know the sport (Hayward Field, one of world's top track venues, does not even have that capacity). I'll let you off on the "best" thing – I imagine you didn't know that many groups make comprehensive statistical analyses of track meets to compare performance quality (see this for example). I think adding that tag was an editorial misjudgement on your part, as the difference between what is biased and what is unsourced material is quite clear. However, I do agree that this misjudgement has no bearing on discussion here. SFB 21:13, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I'm just coming back to cleaning up California high school pages. Each of these has alumni sections showing where people from the schools have gone in life. The quality of these alumni sections may vary. This one is exemplary as to what to do for alumni. It clearly shows the linkage to, in this case a major high school event, as opposed to just a specific school or category of schools. There are 5 red links I'd remove on principle as is done on most alumni sections. Or offer the original editor an opportunity to change those red links to blue, which he claims he could do. As with larger University alumni sections, many are on separate lists like this. I think that is a completely appropriate means to display this number of named individuals. If the word alumni bothers you, I'll throw out List of notable participants at the CIF California State Meet. Deleting an informative article like this should be out of the question. Sarcasto (talk) 20:18, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A note, I have already created a couple of articles to relieve the red links. I'll also point out as a precedent that when the list of alumni is exceptionally long, it has gone to a separate article, rather than cluttering the main article as in: List of alumni of University High School (Los Angeles, California). However I would be happy to retain the information presented here as a merge to the original article--as it had been before the previously noted editor removed it. And regarding the slippery slope posed by Location; I guess it is possible for someone to create that mass of articles he suggested, but it would be hard to justify an article based on a few individuals who qualify for such a list. While the main article does list several other California athletes who did not appear at this meet, language that does fill that role, this article specifically covers notable individuals (not necessarily limited to those with athletic success) who have participated in this one meet, rather than that slippery slope of sports specific by state categorization. But then, my opinion is, if there is sufficient content to merit such a list, per state, per sport, if some editor wants to put in the work, it deserves an article. I was thinking of say NFL Footballl players from Pennyslvania and look what I found Lehigh Valley Conference#Current NFL players. In short, which I rarely am, this is a common type of list here on WP. Trackinfo (talk) 21:23, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz Humbug! 05:41, 1 July 2011 (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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