User:Fleets/RLN

Notability

Main page: WP:Notability (sports) § Rugby league

A player, coach, or referee of rugby league football is presumed notable if they:

1. Have appeared in at least one competitive international match between Full members of the RLIF and/or Full or Associate Members of the RLEF ^{(see Notes 1 & 2)}, or
2. Have appeared in at least one match at a Rugby League World Cup tournament, or
3. Have appeared in at least one match of a professional domestic rugby league competition:
   • National Rugby League ^{(see Note 3)}, or
   • Super League ^{(see Note 3)} including Challenge Cup appearances, or
   • Kingstone Press Championship ^{(see Note 3)} including Challenge Cup appearances

Other players and personalities surrounding the game are notable if they meet WP:GNG.

Note 1: Current full members of the RLIF are : Australia, Cook Islands, England, Fiji, France, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Samoa, South Africa, Tonga and Wales plus Great Britain for historical reasons.

Note 2: All current full members of the RLEF are also full members of the RLIF. Current associate members of the RLEF are : Italy, Jamaica, Lebanon, Russia and Scotland.

Note 3: or their earlier iterations in the UK, Australia or New Zealand.

Request direction of pre-NRL Australia re Queensland Rugby League and Country Rugby League, French Elite League, New Zealand domestic competitions

Source: WP:Notability (sports), updated 17 September 2010

Supporting guidance

Definitions

1. First grade is defined by this wikiproject as the top competition in any country at any given time presuming that the competition has notability in itself and its country. Note: This is not a guideline, but helps define a term used in the below guidance. Current first grade competitions are the Australasian National Rugby League and the European Super League.
2. A permastub is an article currently a stub that has no reasonable prospect for expansion. (taken from essay WP:PERMASTUB)

The rule 1 was ratified on 12 November 2008 (evidence). The rule 2 was ratified on 9 March 2009 (evidence).

In relation to biographies

1. Any current or former rugby league player who has played first grade rugby league should be eligible for an article on the condition that it meets the general notability guideline including reliable secondary sources.
2. Any current or former rugby league player who has not made the criteria for rugby league matches should not be eligible for an article unless it meets the general notability guideline including reliable secondary sources. However, normally these players only have information listed on their club's official website, which is a violation of Independent of the subject in the general notability guideline.
3. Any current or former rugby league player who has none or limited first grade rugby league but has played in international representative fixtures is eligible for an article on the condition that it meets the general notability guideline including reliable secondary sources.
4. Any current or former rugby league coach of a first grade team should be eligible for an article on the condition that it meets the general notability guideline including reliable secondary sources.
5. Any current or former rugby league coach who has not coached team that does not meet RLN criteria based should not be eligible for an article. Normally these coaches only have information listed on their club's official website, which is a violation of Independent of the subject in the general notability guideline.
6. Referees, no matter their statistics as such, could not be eligible for an article unless it meets the general notability guideline including reliable secondary sources. Normally, referees are not notable enough to warrant information of their lives to warrant a reliable secondary sourced article, therefore resulting in a permastub.
7. Commentators, no matter their history as such, could not be eligible for an article unless it meets the general notability guideline including reliable secondary sources. Normally, commentators are not notable enough to warrant information of their lives to warrant a reliable secondary sourced article, therefore resulting in a permastub.
8. Officials, organisers and administrators, no matter their history as such, could not be eligible for an article unless it meets the general notability guideline including reliable secondary sources. Normally, officials, organisers and administrators are not notable enough to warrant information of their lives to warrant a reliable secondary sourced article, therefore resulting in a permastub.
9. Any biography in which they are claimed to be notable based on the team/competition in which they relate to, should not be eligible for an article based on the notability of the team/competition unless the biography establishes notability of itself while meeting the general notability guideline including reliable secondary sources.

The rules 1-7 were ratified on 12 November 2008 (evidence) and rules 6-7 amended on 9 March 2009 (evidence). The rules 8-9 were ratified on 9 March 2009 (evidence). Revised September 2016

Further reading

In relation to official policies on Wikipedia please see:

• Wikipedia:Notability including the general notability guideline.
• Wikipedia:Notability (people) in particular the sub section "athletes"

In relation to other essays on Wikipedia notability please see:

• Wikipedia:Inherent notability
• Wikipedia:Run-of-the-mill
• Wikipedia:Common outcomes in Articles for deletion

References

Please see this as an ongoing effort, one that is far from finished, but certainly one that I welcome comments on, any interest is of interest to me, questions raised will be answered, queries dealt with and problems brought to a resolution, hopefully.

This proposal is a designed to improve article quality, align ourselves with other sports, give editors a single uniform notability guideline.

This revised attempt at a new guideline takes elements from previous WPRL notability positions, blends elements from comparable sports, and moves the sport towards 2017, a World Cup year for the sport.

The reason for the shift is to tighten up language, and a move away, yes articles are GNG acceptable, but not notable per notability, a quandary I think most people will agree.

The desire for the 2015 rewording was no doubt down to creep and a desire to tighten up a few things. I believe in the tightening up of language, and I by my own definition will make my own clubs players ineligible for an article under my proposed rationale, so cutting off the nose to spite the face, but IMO it is a positive as whilst Championship League One has wholly professional outfits, the London Skolars are not one of them.

I will have to defer to others on wording with regards to historical competitions such as the domestic competitions within New Zealand, France, BRL, QRL, Country Rugby League, etc. as these all have historical relevance where they were considered first grade at that time, but no longer are that. I would look to others on wording as I wouldn’t want to make modern day players notable by playing in a modern day version of these historical top-flight leagues. Again I defer to others based on likely superior knowledge elsewhere.

I have looked at Notability (sports), Applicable policies and guidelines, the Basic criteria there. I have also looked at Notability (people) and Notability itself for direction. These are all views that boil down to GNG as being the underlying position. That is a valid position, but one that would see WPRL responsible for administering a rebuttal or improvement of articles, were they to be prodded. That is not a scenario I would seek to put myself, or any other editor in. What I would like to do is tighten up our wording so that another league is added, or returned to the rationale, that a few international teams are returned, or added, that we tighten up language with regards to the CC and seek to properly rationalise historical leagues and promote GNG as the underlying rationale, with a SL first team player being notable based on the league, and then passing GNG. A Bradford Bulls 2016 player being notable based on the league, provided that they meet GNG standards.

It’s not my sport but I have looked at the American Football, rugby union guidelines professionalism for how other leagues are regarded. I have also looked into cricket as to how the term first-class can be misleading, and UK cricket having two tiers, and these two tiers playing off against each other throughout the year. Interesting parallels with the English RL system with teams from Wales, France and Canada competing in the top three professional leagues.

I have also looked into non-wholly professional sports with regards to notability, ie non-pro sportsmen and women who compete with professional sportspersons. This is particularly of interest with regards to the choice of UK based rugby league players to remain not full time for financial reasons. Ie an regular working job might achieve £30k with £10k pay from their rugby league club for their pre/post day workout sessions, mid-week team sessions, weekend games and travel. This is set against a potential earning which sees the player wholly rely on a wage from the club.

The 2015 shift to a return to promotion and relegation through the Super 8s and middle 8s system is a change that was not wholly understood at the time of the 2015 move away from the pre-exisitng standard. Whilst the 2015 move was agreed upon, done with the best of intentions, it did not forsee a situation that was UK centric, with the champions of Super League XX playing in the Super 8s Qualifiers, a championship team being promoted in 2nd place, Championship teams beating SL teams and the million pound game being contested between two SL teams. This mixed with two wholly fulltime clubs being in the Championship Shield Final has seen the lines between SL, Championship, Fulltime and professional well and truly blurred.

The rationale for wholly full-time is one that does not fully appreciate the financial choice to remain not-wholly full-time and does fly in the face of the likes of Terry Geary who did not play in a full-time league, was not a full-time professional, did not play Origin, or for international rugby league, but was a fine player and would obviously meet GNG. This disparity between past and present should not preclude a league from being notable based on a financial choice as shown by the likes of Dom Brambani who made a choice to move clubs based on their existing club moving to become a wholly fulltime operation.

My words are made to avoid people seeing an existing rationale and putting a player up for deletion based on a tight rationale that promotes playing in a particular league as the centre-piece, with GNG being an afterthought. My position would be to allow a Championship player of the UK, an international player of a particular nation, providing that they meet a basic GNG standard. This not only allows the bar to be set, it also foster s an environment that is collaborative, rather than divisive. One that sees people bringing an article upwards from a stub, rather than seeking to delete an article that someone has taken time to create.

At the end of the day I am looking to improve on what we have out there, both as a standard now, and what the project has previously put down as a mantra. We should always look to improve where possible and I believe that the language used can be improved upon, to make sure that we have a useable, robust and easy to use guideline that offers a helping hand to those editors who wish to edit articles that currently do not meet the 2015 guidelines, but did meet the previous guidelines. Again a nod and a wink to GNG, but I think we can be better, we should be better and I am prepared to work with anyone who wishes to work in a collegial way to bring us up to standard, perhaps even raise the standard so that we are the envy of other sports.

I do not seek to promote the greatest game of all, I merely wish to avoid administering the potential questioning of multiple articles, and would much rather improve a rationale from the top down and perhaps avoid peoples articles created over many years being deleted because we have a rationale that is binding, overreaching and precludes players of rugby league, whilst other sports rationalise players at similar levels in their respective sports.