Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Westfield State Owls football

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 no consensus. Sandstein 06:48, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Westfield State Owls football

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

A non notable college sports team. No evidence of notability through independent secondary sources, plus it’s a WP:COATRACK for non-notable coaches, plus it houses far too much data about individual games. Cardiffbear88 (talk) 13:56, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions. Cardiffbear88 (talk) 13:56, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. Cardiffbear88 (talk) 13:56, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Cardiffbear88 (talk) 13:56, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Massachusetts-related deletion discussions. Cardiffbear88 (talk) 13:56, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect: to Westfield State University. No merge required; this is a completely NN Division III program, and it's darkly amusing (if not at all surprising) that the level of detail in this article swamps the word count of the college. Ravenswing 01:36, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep we typically keep main pages of college-level sports teams for sports such as American Football. The article does itself need (much) better sourcing and could do with some good editing, but those are editing issues and not deletion issues. That this article has more content than the article about the college itself is in no way a deletion argument either, because Wikipedia is not being built in any orderly fashion. US college football programs normally generate enough press to surpass WP:GNG and a simple web search supports that for this college program. AFD is not cleanup.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:22, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: We certainly typically keep main pages of college-level sports teams for Division I programs (heck, I've created a couple myself), but we're talking a Division III program here, about which reliable media sources are significantly less forthcoming, beyond the routine sports coverage debarred from supporting a subject's notability. That being said, this article has been carrying tags about needing secondary sources for nearly a decade now, without anyone stirring themselves to improve the article, and if you believe that there are non-local sources providing substantive coverage to the subject ... what prevents you from adding them? Ravenswing 17:03, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- My lack of enthusiasm for rapidly editing an article is no reason to delete, and there is no time limit. Personally, I kind of have something else going on in my life right now and don't have the time to edit articles.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:00, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - One would think that you wouldn't have time either at AfD, but you're the best judge of that, I suppose. In any event, it doesn't seem that anyone else is doing anything, "rapidly" or otherwise. But that's not even the point. The point is that the article's gone nearly a decade without any reliable sourcing. I maintain that there is none beyond ones debarred by WP:ROUTINE. It is up to anyone who wishes to save the article to demonstrate that such sources exist, as a prerequisite to keeping it; otherwise, it must be deleted. Ravenswing 10:30, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    - first off, WP:ROUTINE applies to events and not organizations. See WP:NOTROUTINE (or read the "routine" page and realize that it is part of Wikipedia:Notability (events). Second, the organization has been in operation for [22 seasons. ESPN maintains their win-loss record since 2005. And this search reveals a good number of potential candidates. Keeping an article like this is a typical outcome.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:19, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. A search of Newspapers.com turns up 13,756 articles on the Westfield State football team. See here. This level of coverage warrants an overall article on the football program. As a caveat, I note that I do not support the creation of season articles for Division III schools such as Westfield. An overall article about the program is sufficient IMO to cover such a program. Cbl62 (talk) 17:25, 21 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Cbl62 and Paulmcdonald's reasoning and arguments. Ejgreen77 (talk) 03:34, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or redirect Lacks WP:RS to establish notability. Cheers, 1292simon (talk) 13:13, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It seems there is plenty of coverage for this football program. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 16:21, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Still in heavy discussion. Giving it a bit more time.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, xinbenlv ^{Talk, Remember to "ping" me} 23:47, 23 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep plenty of coverage and per Cbl62 and Paulmcdonald above. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:17, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Looking through the Newspapers.com sources, much of this doesn’t seem to be more than just simple results listings and the routine local coverage you’d expect for a non notable sports team. Are there any more substantial sources? Cardiffbear88 (talk) 21:37, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Additional discussion has not made clear that there is notability establishing coverage only coverage. Number of Newspaper.com results is an argument to avoid (newspapers.com is just a search engine for newspapers whose articles may or may not help establish notability).
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:09, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Plenty of sources available to establish GNG. To expect us to individually list 13,000+ sources in this discussion to "prove" GNG is absurd - they're clearly out there. Smartyllama (talk) 19:54, 5 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Smartyllama Almost all of the hits are merely brief mentions of match results, something most non-notable teams will have without becoming notable. Otherwise, we’d be creating articles on every amateur sports team in the world, no matter what their actual notability. What we need is evidence of more substantial articles outside of short mentions in local newspapers. WP:GNG isn’t about indiscriminately listing sources, it’s picking those that best highlight your case. Cardiffbear88 (talk) 08:16, 6 April 2020 (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.