Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Current World Champions

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. No need to preemptively salt the article as there have not heretofore been issues with recreation. Shereth 23:33, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

List of Current World Champions

List of Current World Champions (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Contested PROD: "This article seems to consist entirely of an arbitrary list of people, teams and countries which are "world champions" at various things. It is unreferenced and there is no indication of methodology or scope". Creator removed PROD and placed "I only made this because I thought that the page should exist. Articles shouldn't be deleted because they are bad...they should be deleted because the idea of the article itself should not exist. It can be improved over time if we leave it" on the talk page. Delete, as WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Ros0709 (talk) 06:53, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

• Delete - I think this could be much better implemented as a category - [[Category:Current world champions]] - Richard Cavell (talk) 06:57, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
• Delete and salt - This is just flat out incorrect. There really cannot even be a category created because, except maybe for the NFL and the FIFA World Cup winner, the rest of these are definitively not world champions, no matter what any sources might claim. Baseball, hockey and basketball (mens and womens) have their own world championships sponsored by their respective international association. Also, (I'm not sure), doesn't chess have two or three world champions (that may have gone away). LonelyBeacon (talk) 07:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, there are several chess world champions. Don't even get started on boxing... Still, it is possible for several world championships to be recognized. - Richard Cavell (talk) 07:17, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I see no reason to salt the article. It may be misconceived but I see no reason to suspect that the author made it in bad faith. There is no reason to suspect that he will recreate it if it is deleted here. --DanielRigal (talk) 13:36, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
• Delete: I put prod on it and I stand by my reasons quoted in the nomination. The author is correct in saying that "Articles shouldn't be deleted because they are bad...they should be deleted because the idea of the article itself should not exist." but I don't think it helps in this case. This article should not exist because it is not an encyclopaedic topic. No amount of work can save it. --DanielRigal (talk) 10:25, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
• Delete So many things wrong with this article. First, a category? NO. Categories aren't practical for something that's temporary. New World Series champ, don't forget to take the "Current World Champion" tag off of the Boston Red Sox article. Then there's the problem of maintaining this list; unless you have someone who makes it their life's work to follow the newspapers for the sports championships, it's not going to be kept up to date. If the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl, is there anyone in a hurry to update this article? Finally, only two of the sports on the list so far (soccer and chess) have a "world championship". Yes, I know, the Red Sox and the Celtics and the Giants are proclaimed "world champions" by virtue of being the "American champions", and most sports fans would agree that those teams would beat the Japanese baseball champion, the European hoops titlist, or the Grey Cup holder in a competition. But there is no world championship competition in most professional sports. Fold this one now before it adds some expansion teams. Mandsford (talk) 13:38, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
• Delete The purpose of Wikipedia is not to report current events, or to have articles that are temporary. A list of "current" world champions would, by definition, consist entirely of temporary information. Calgary (talk) 14:50, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
• Keep There are tons of temporary articles. There are articles with world records that are broken every year, there are articles that consist of statistics (baseball for example) that are updated every day. The article for 2008 Major League Baseball season has updated standings. They play games every day! You're right that calling the Giants world champions of football is not politically correct because we don't really know if the Giants can beat the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Still, the article can exist. If you have a problem with the Giants (or the Celtics or the Red Sox etc.) then delete those from the list, or add the other champions. Maybe we can change the name of the article from "World Champions" to "Champions of major competitive organizations" or even "United States Champions". I just think it is an interesting and valuable list to keep. 24.195.242.210 (talk) 17:29, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
• Comment I can kind of see your point, and maybe a table that let a person see at a glance who the reigning champion is in a given sports league would be useful, such as List of current world boxing champions. It's just that there are so many champs out there. Even if you limited it to team sports, there are tons of leagues, conferences, tournament winners, etc. Mandsford (talk) 02:52, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
• Delete per nom and Lonely Beacon. Arbitrary inclusion criteria, I doubt it would ever be a complete list. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Chirps•Clams•Chowder)} 02:59, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
• Comment Who cares if it's complete? Is any article ever truly complete? 24.195.242.210 (talk) 04:41, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

  Only if it's deleted. Mandsford (talk) 23:12, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I will agree that the fact that the list may never be complete, or the fact that it would need to be regularly updated are not good reasons for deletion. The problem I see is "what defines a world champion"? ... Even "what defines sport"? We already have chess, a very legit game listed. Would the world parcheese champion also be eligible for inclusion? What about (this is what's called opening up a huge can of worms) the so called "professional wrestling champions" (to which there is a lot of disagreement as to how "competitive" it is -- I don't include it as a competition, and I don't think it should be included in such a list, no matter what sources list anyone there as a world champion). Would the winner at Nathan's Hot Dog eating championship be eligible? And then, there is the problem of what happens to a competition that either claims, or is mistakenly recognized in the media as "World Champion" (like the World Series). In the end, it becomes a huge fight about what belongs and what doesn't. There is another issue with sports like tennis and golf who do not really have a world championship, but rather a ranking system. Do the annual #1 ranked players qualify as "world champions"?.

While I also think it is kind of cool to be able to look at one source that lists all of the current champions, this is an example where a subject that may be notable, and may be supported by reliable sources (even if they are unreliable in elevating some team to a world championship), makes a poor list-article for an encyclopedia. LonelyBeacon (talk) 05:49, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Leaving practicality aside for a moment, let us ask is this an encyclopaedic subject or is it OR? If the list has obvious, uncontentious and simple inclusion criteria then that would be OK, but if we have to make up our own non-obvious, non-trivial inclusion criteria then that seems to point to OR. In my view, what it would take to legitimise this article is for there it be a body of reliable research which we can reference on the subject of what defines a "world champion" as well as externally produced lists which we could point to (instead of compiling our own). I don't think this exists. --DanielRigal (talk) 13:33, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

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.