@Bagumba: Hey, thanks for asking. The close says multiple reliable sources must report that a player is widely considered one of the greatest of all time, or similar phrasing. which appears to align well with the essay. Unfortunately, it seems very difficult to enforce in practice, since many editors are innocuously duped into the WP:OR trick of adding "widely considered/regarded" when seeing (or presented with) an arbitrary stack of sources that simply use the word "greatest", leaving aside the fact that said sources are often questionable and/or unreliable. I also find that sometimes sports editors can be very dogmatic, fanatical, and stubborn about this particular topic, so my mind has largely been off of it. I'm fine discussing it with you though, since you're always a cool level head even in hot topic areas (like MOS:CAPS for example). So how about you? What's your take? Left guide (talk) 08:10, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Bagumba: Honestly, it's always going to be the same ol' Wild West unless interested editors collectively prioritize policies over their personal beliefs and fandoms, which basically doesn't happen LOL. Sometimes, the least bad (and most time-saving) option is to simply draw the line in the sand, and say "no". Left guide (talk) 08:24, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the community at least agreed that sources should say "widely", I'd be OK. Otherwise, it's always a mess if editors find the sources they like and claim "widely" based on WP:OR and confirmation bias, ignoring the sources that contradict or don't even mention said player. I mean, you can't expect to find sources to explicitly contradict every fringe "greatest" claim, like Wilt no longer being widely considered the greatest. But do dig up those 80s quotes or OGs' current stories. —Bagumba (talk) 08:38, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
