 | This is an essay on Wikipedia:Notability (people). It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Not meeting WP:ATHLETE does not disqualify an article. Meeting WP:ATHLETE may not always qualify an article, but this is controversial. |
Many Articles for Deletion discussions on sports figures are often begun with a phrase such as the following:
- Delete Does not meet WP:ATHLETE.
There are several faults with this statement, first and foremost is that WP:ATHLETE is a guideline and not a policy, secondly that simply making a statement without supporting information is not the best approach in the discussion, and thirdly that another editor may interpret the guidelines differently and find that the guideline is actually met. But the fourth reason is that the statement (or argument) seems to take the stance that since the article does not met the WP:ATHLETE guidelines, it must be deleted.
Let's be clear: Abraham Lincoln doesn't meet the guidelines of WP:ATHLETE, but that doesn't mean the article on him should be deleted. Athletes can achieve notability through other means, as Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford did. Or, athletes who haven't met any guidelines of WP:ATHLETE such as "not playing at the highest professional level" could nevertheless have enough widespread significant coverage to qualify under the general notability guidelines.
The WP:ATHLETE guidelines are meant to be "inclusive" and not "exclusive": Meeting them suffices for inclusion, but failure to meet them is not grounds for exclusion. Several pertinent discussions illustrating this principle: