Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tasha Pointer/College Statistical Totals

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. There is a clear consensus that these subpages are not appropriate, as per current policy on subpages. Whether or how to include the information contained therein is an editorial decision beyond the scope of AfD. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:52, 3 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Tasha Pointer/College Statistical Totals

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Tasha Pointer/College Statistical Totals (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Despite the lengthy introduction to this page, it is a subpage, which isn't allowed on enwiki. It should be changed to a template, or directly incorporated in the main article. Fram (talk) 15:25, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions. Fram (talk) 15:25, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also nominated:

  • Tasha Pointer/College Statistical Ratios
  • Linda Miles/College Statistical Totals
  • Linda Miles/College Statistical Ratios
  • Arella Guirantes/College Statistical Totals
  • Arella Guirantes/College Statistical Ratios
  • Artemis Spanou/College Statistical Totals
  • Artemis Spanou/College Statistical Ratios
  • Marla Brumfield/College Statistical Totals
  • Marla Brumfield/College Statistical Ratios
  • Tayra Meléndez/College Statistical Totals
  • Tayra Meléndez/College Statistical Ratios
  • Kristen Dowling/College Statistical Totals
  • Kristen Dowling/College Statistical Ratios
  • Katy Digovich/College Statistical Totals
  • Katy Digovich/College Statistical Ratios
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 15:43, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would much prefer that the data be totally contained within the article, rather than transclude it from sub pages. If someone can tell me how to do it in a way that will preserve the ability to use visual editor on the tables, I will do it myself. I've tried and failed to find a way to do it successfully.

If I could show both tables simultaneously, there would be no need for the Switcher template. However, some participants at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Basketball#Proposal_for_player_stats are opposed to the presentation of season totals, despite the fact that virtually all places housing player stats include such information. My use of the switcher template was an attempt to accommodate that curious position, so that they would not have to shield their eyes from the totals table, and would only see it if they chose it. If someone could help me persuade them that presenting seasoning career totals isn't so horrible, there would be no need to resort to my approach.

I investigated whether I could enclose the data the code to make it hidden, and then show only the selected data via transclusion, but that attempt failed miserably.

I did find a way to do it without the use of sub pages — see User:Sphilbrick/Stats example, but the resulting table does not appear to be editable by as a table by visual edit.

If someone can show me a way to make the two tables editable as tables by visual edit, I can easily (okay not easily but I'll do it) transition over.

I'm not wedded to the sub page option. I don't even like it. But I would like to present a more robust list of relevant statistics in tables that can be edited, so if anyone has any thoughts on how to do that without using sub pages, please let me know.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:28, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment As an aside, it's not quite correct to assertCuriously, Wikipedia:Subpages assertswhich is demonstrably false. The guideline goes on to explain nine examples of allowed uses and follows that with four examples of disallowed uses, then goes on to explain at length how to create, use, and find them. I did not miss the item 3 in the disallowed list. While I am a fan of WP:IAR when appropriate, that wasn't my rationale for taking this approach. While I concede it's a close call, it is my contention that I am not using a sub page 4for permanent content meant to be part of the encyclopedia — I interpret that restriction is not wanting readers to ever have to navigate to a sub page — I felt that the permanent content is translude it to the main page so I viewed this as complying with the rules. I concede it's a close call and I would prefer an alternative solution. I hope those contributing to this discussion can provide a better option.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:41, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'm struggling even to understand what's happening (!), but as I've come across a few of these in the uncategorised feed, I can't help wondering... is AfD the appropriate forum for discussing what seems like a potentially heavy-duty policy question? Or is this indeed how 'case law' gets established, and if so, is there then some mechanism for codifying the decision for future reference? Asking for a friend. Cheers, --DoubleGrazing (talk) 08:55, 24 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • No, the current policy is quite clear. From Wikipedia:Subpages#Disallowed uses bullet point 3: "Using subpages for permanent content that is meant to be part of the encyclopedia." If someone wants to change that policy, they can start an RfC at the VPP: but until then, these are not allowed, and AfD is the right forum to get them deleted. Fram (talk) 09:40, 24 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fram, I take issue with the bald assertion that the policy is quite clear. I wasn't involved in the discussion leading to that rule soon slightly hampered, but I think it seems plausible him that those pushing for the role wanted to make sure the reader never ever has to visit a sub page. That's a reasonable goal. This doesn't violate that goal. The content of the sub page is trancluded onto the main article page, so it is transparent to the reader. An editor meeting to edit the data (which should be very rare only in the case of errors because it is historical data and should never change) needs to know how to navigate to a sub page but most editors with a two days of experience can handle that.
        It isn't at all clear that AFD is the right place for this discussion. After all, it isn't an article. Isn't AfD a place to discuss articles, whether the subject is notable whether it is supported by adequate and similar issues? NONE of those considerations apply. The data needs to be sourced but it is sourced in the article. Notability is a function of the subject which is relevant to the article not to the data trancluded into the article. The puzzlement of @DoubleGrazing: is understandable. I am trying to improve articles about women's basketball by adding career stats in the form of a table. Some members of the basketball task force pushback against the inclusion of career total as opposed to ratios. I am attempting to accommodate that view by presenting the data into tables only one of which will be immediately shown (the one including ratios) and the other will only be shown if the reader so chooses. That can be implemented with a template {{Switcher}} but it's not trivial passing tables as arguments to that template. An easy way to do it which preserves the ability to use visual enter to edit the tables is to place the data in sub pages and then transclude it. There are more cumbersome ways but it's not clear why we should invoke a cumbersome approach when there is a clean approach.
        @Elli: suggest moving to template space, but as @Nabla: points out, this doesn't make sense as each one will only be used in a single article. S Philbrick(Talk) 20:14, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Sphilbrick: we should really have a separate namespace for "templates" that are only used in one - or a few - articles, but have significant Wikitext content that it makes sense to separate out. I actually do like the idea of subpages for this purpose, but I don't think an RfC for that would succeed. Elli (talk | contribs) 20:16, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • The subpages have already been tagged (by others, not by me) as lacking categories, context, ... People do encounter these, via search, Google search, random pages, what links here, ... and then encounter an "article" which isn't an article at all. Which is basically the reason (or surely one of the main reasons) these subpages are disallowed. Fram (talk) 07:36, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          • Fram, I am happy to address real issues but I'd like to stick to real issues.
            Your expressed concern that someone might accidentally stumble upon this using Google search. However, as you can see, it is noindexed, thus willshould not show up in a Google search (Of course, if you directly search for this exact name it will show up but that's true of any no indexed page, the point of no indexed is that it won'tis not supposed to show up in a general Google search.)
            I don't think it will show up if you use the random article feature. I've clicked on that button thousands of times (which I concede is short of a definitive proof) but it has never returned anything that is not an article. If it is possible, it should be corrected as the random article generator ought to generate articles not sub pages. Given that there are hundreds of thousands of legitimate sub pages (all talk page archives, for example) I find it difficult to believe that I would never have seen one of those sub pages if they could accidentally be delivered.
            DoubleGrazing mentioned stumbling across one in the uncategorized feed. I've never accessed that but I think I can guess what it might be. This sounds like a legitimate issue but could be easily addressed by creating an appropriate category. If the decision is not to sub pages I am open to suggestions for an appropriate category to help editors who managed to see them, and to make sure they do not show up in the uncategorized feed. S Philbrick(Talk) 16:16, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
            • Random article will only return pages in the main namespace, not in other namespaces, so logically you have never stumbled upon any talk page archives etc. But this is technically a pure article, just like any main namespace page with a "/" in the title, and will show up in "random". And it will show up in Google as well, it is the second result when I search for "Wikipedia "Tasha Pointer""[1]. Fram (talk) 16:26, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
              • Fram, If Google is indexing non-indexed articles, that sounds like an issue for the foundation to raise with Google not a rationale for deletion of a useful sub page. However, to be clear I am not advocating that the foundation spent any of its time on this issue unless someone can clearly identify the problem. (We have enough problems to resolve without spending time on non-problems such as this.) If someone happens to do that Google search and clicks on the link to the statistical totals, what harm has been created? I'm open to the possibility that the link to Tash Pointer should be more prominent, probably the very first entry on the page, but that simply means that the individual searching for information on Tasha has to click twice instead of once, and that only happens if they choose to ignore the first entry in the search. I'm on board with addressing real problems (I agree DoubleGrazing raised such an issue that's easy to address), but your list of issues are largely WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I am trying to make a significant improvement to basketball biographies and think I am succeeding despite the challenges. I recognize this approach is short of ideal, but within the constraints of wanting the ability to edit tables using VE, and the antipathy of some editors seeing career totals, this seemed like a reasonable approach. I've emphasized that I see this as short of perfect, outline the issues and asked for alternatives, but so far your response is simply that you don't like it so nuke it. S Philbrick(Talk) 14:57, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to the template namespace, which is the proper location for pages like this. If VE doesn't support editing templates, that's not really our problem - get the devs to fix it, maybe. Elli (talk | contribs) 05:00, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all as unusefull (unwiki, I say) use os subpages. No point in moving to template space as they are not used across multiple articles. It is OK to merge/subst before deleting, though I doubt we need this level of statistics detail, but that is another issue - Nabla (talk) 12:17, 27 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've just removed all of the switcher tabs from each player's article. I don't think there's much of a use for them. Feel free to revert. RGrosjean51 (talk) 12:36, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • RGrosjean51, That was rather rude. This AFD is still open, and convention is that one doesn't do things like that prior to the resolution of the AFD. If you read the discussion you'll see that I didn't simply present the two tables because some members of the basketball wiki project object to seeing the totals. (Technically they object to the totals being included, but I used switcher so that they wouldn't have to see them, which I think accomplishes the same purpose.) Your removal of the template means both tables are visible on the article. Frankly, I wouldn't mind that as a result personally, but if Bagumba comes along and removes any of the totals tables I trust you will take the responsibility of dealing with that editor. We are nine days into this AFD so it is likely to be resolved shortly — what's so urgent that it couldn't have waited a couple days? S Philbrick(Talk) 14:38, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all There was zero support for this idea at WikiProject Basketball at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Basketball#Proposal_for_player_stats with Sabbatino, Howard the Duck, Crossover1370 and I all objecting. In hindsight, it appears disingenuous that Sphilbrick solicited "reactions" from the project before, when their continued one-person show on this topic apparently shows they were only interested in a rubber stamp.—Bagumba (talk) 15:20, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I am astounded that Bagumba is objecting. I proposed something different at the basketball task force, and came up with this to meet the objections. I don't like how much work it is to create some subpages and use switcher but I did it specifically to address Bagumba's opposition to seeing totals. Bagumba doesn't like to see totals, so I crafted something so that this editor doesn't have to see totals. I still don't understand the objection to totals. See Harvard Crimson men's basketball statistical leaders, UCLA Bruins men's basketball statistical leaders, and 239 other examples in Category:Lists of college basketball statistical leaders by team, all of which list career, season and single-game totals without a single ratio to be seen. I am one of the more prolific editors of basketball articles and frankly don't recall any negative interactions with any of the other participants in the wiki project prior to this issue so I'm not sure what's going on but it seems difficult to believe there is this much antipathy to showing statistical totals in basketball biographies.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:07, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just one editor. Others have disagreed with you. I'm not sure why you pinged me out of the blue, nor why you blamed RGrosjean51 and now me for the fact that you have not gotten any support for your preferred stats. You know how consensus works.—Bagumba (talk) 16:18, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bagumba, I didn't ping you out of the blue. I am specifically responding to your deletion "rationale". I couldn't use the "respond to AFD" code which would have addressed you directly because you failed to sign your post originally. I responded before you cured that problem. What on earth is going on? Have I done something to offend you? S Philbrick(Talk) 19:16, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't ping you out of the blue: You pinged me here. I was not involved in this AfD prior, nor even aware of the pages being discussed. Hence, you did ping me out of the blue.—Bagumba (talk) 03:52, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    ... you failed to sign your post originally: This was my post, which shows that it's signed.—Bagumba (talk) 03:52, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bagumba, I didn't "blamed RGrosjean51" for the lack of support, I pointed out that it's not generally considered acceptable to make substantive changes during an AFD. How are contributors to this discussion supposed to make sense of why the subpages exist given that the material is fully contained in another article and the sub page now appears to be an orphan?
    Please don't misunderstand. I hope the edit by RGrosjean51 stands. I think it is a great improvement. It will make my life easier if that's the way to add the material. I prefer that approach. The only reason why I'm going through so much work is to address your objection. If you don't object to the edit by RGrosjean51, we can all go home. I'll personally delete every one of the sub pages and work on improving other articles following that model which I greatly prefer to the way I've been doing it. Does that work for you? S Philbrick(Talk) 19:36, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The only reason why I'm going through so much work is to address your objection: It was your idea to create these subpages in mainspace—not mine. Please be accountable for your actions in putting your sandbox there; you already had User:Sphilbrick/Stats example. External links to stats sites can provide readers access to this content. The WP:ONUS is on you to get consensus to add more stats directly into Wikipedia. This site is crowdsourced. Sometimes what one thinks is "essential", everyone else thinks is WP:FANCRUFT.—Bagumba (talk) 05:59, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Basketball-related deletion discussions. —Bagumba (talk) 15:22, 1 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are thousands of editors of basketball articles, but I'm supposed to accept that three editors constitute a consensus? That's not how consensus works. It may be that we need a proper RFC to resolve the issue. That editor also made the assertion that the great majority of the Internet prefers ratios. That's demonstrably false as I provided example after example of sites that use both and sometimes only totals. There is a slight preference for totals over ratios among the major sites, and that was before I stumbled across the 241 Wikipedia articles listing only totals. I honestly think that pointing out their world view was flawed caused them to double down on opposition to anything I propose. Perhaps it's the case that the NBA stats emphasize averages, but there's more to basketball than the NBA. My cursory review of these three editors suggests they are not major contributors to articles about women's basketball, my main area of interest. If they would like to propose that articles about NBA players emphasize averages, that's fine with me. Perhaps I should've just stuck to editing articles about women's basketball and not gotten involved in wiki project basketball but I notice the inconsistency of statistic templates and honestly thought there would be some collaboration about how to improve the presentation.

I honestly never expected such antipathy and vitriol from experienced editors interested in basketball. I know there are some fans of male basketball teens that look down upon women's teams but I naïvely hoped that Wikipedia editors would be better than that.

I don't accept the three editors who don't like totals constitutes a consensus, but I wasn't up for fighting a battle so I thought I'd try to be clever and come up with a presentation that could include the information for readers but wouldn't put it in the face of these three editors if they happen to stumble across the article. Again, perhaps I'm too naïve. Coverage of women's basketball is far less extensive then it is of the male counterpart. That's hardly surprising and I'm not asking any of these three editors to help rectify the situation. I'm happy to work on that along with other members of the women's basketball task force, but if they don't want to help, can they please stop actively fighting me? I honestly thought my approach might achieve my goal without treading on their abhorrence for seeing totals in an article, but I was wrong. As noted above, I am happy to follow the approach consistent with RGrosjean51's edit—it's frankly a lot easier for me than creating sub pages or using switcher with tables, but my fear was that approach would lead to these editors similarly deleting information about totals from women's basketball articles. I'll even promise never to add statistics to a biography about NBA players if that's their concern.

Despite the absurd claim:

There are thousands of examples of women being celebrated for milestones such as a 1000 points or 2000 points in a career, a thousand rebounds and other milestones such as double-doubles and triple doubles. Maybe it's different in the men's game, I don't really follow it, but the notion that we shouldn't report such information because it's cruft is abject nonsense.

I can't emphasize too strongly that I have no particular desire to retain subpages for the holding of statistics – I created them in an attempt to address the concerns of three editors and it appears they aren't on board with the approach. I prefer to have the information in the article itself as several other contributors to this discussion have proposed, but my fear is the 60 or so articles I've improved over the last three weeks will be eviscerated if I follow that approach. If I get any assurances that won't happen, I will happily remove the sub pages myself.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Sphilbrick (talk • contribs) 12:39, 2 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If the totals are to be included in the article, they should be included in the main article, not in a subpage. As for totals and women's basketball, I have browsed through the articles of several high-profile WNBA players and don't see a single one with totals. I don't know how these players' totals warrant inclusion in their articles. Crossover1370 (talk | contribs) 23:37, 2 July 2021 (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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