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 keep‎. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:28, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

List of athletes who came out of retirement[edit]

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An WP:INDISCRIMINATE list of sportspeople who 'retire' for various reasons undisclosed in this list. It is nothing new to see some of them being dropped by their teams then take a season out and come back, does that mean they have 'retired'? Take this example of Fernando Alonso, he did not retire at all. Despite being without a drive, and despite competing at Le Mans and tried to qualify at Indy in 2019, he was held by his team under contract, then COVID. Alan Jones may had 'retired' but his racing career elsewhere continued through to 2002. Overall, I cannot see how this pass WP:LISTN either. SpacedFarmer (talk) 18:38, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Sportspeople and Lists of people. SpacedFarmer (talk) 18:38, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep per [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. Should I go on? WP:AFDISNOTCLEANUP. Conyo14 (talk) 05:15, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But I think that list needs fixing. There needs to be a subsection on why some of them have come out of retirement. These reasons can be about money (Niki Lauda), being encouraged to join a new team under familiar teammates (Rob Gronkowski, who retired to avoid being traded off). Do one-offs really count? (Tony Hawk, Dale Jr) - this was part of that reason for that AfD. SpacedFarmer (talk) 10:02, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but that isn't a reason to delete the article entirely. WP:FIXIT applies. Let'srun (talk) 14:10, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are you suggesting a section at the start of the article explaining why an athlete might come out of retirement or a narrative for the circumstances of each athlete's retirement and un-retirement? If the latter, you're talking about something that is no longer a list but a full-fledged article. If you want to know more about why the guy retired and/or unretired, you can simply read the player's article or the cited sources. There have been some athletes for whom I added footnotes when their un-retirement was not what we'd think of as a traditional case of an athlete coming out of retirement (e.g. as a publicity stunt, as part of a bet, a player-coach inserting himself into a game, etc.) I think those one-sentence explanations for those strange outlier cases suffices. Dennis C. Abrams (talk) 17:40, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep. As someone who has contributed to this list (primarily the baseball section) perhaps as significantly as anyone, I have to disagree with your premise. I am always sure to find sources saying that the athlete actually quit and was not simply unemployed or injured for a year. For example, I haven't added Joe Page to the list because I searched diligently and wasn't able to find a source saying he quit. Some of those other sections may need to be better sourced or someone needs to go through and remove those entries which don't fit the actual criteria of the article. Dennis C. Abrams (talk) 17:35, 13 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Clearly a notable concept, as noted in the sources provided in this discussion. This is a perfect example of an article which needs cleanup, not deletion. Let'srun (talk) 04:40, 17 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Whilst I agree that it is a clearly a notable concept. I still think it needs to be in a better quality than this, such as explaining why those sportspoeple retired and came back and remove all one-off comebacks, these are not officially such. I had already removed some questionable ones such as those in motorsport. other than that, I offer to call close to this nomination. SpacedFarmer (talk) 10:04, 17 May 2024 (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.