Talk:Tom McCabe (rugby)

Notability and unsourced content

@Stevehogan1605: Although you've added a few citations to the article, none of them are really establish how McCabe meets Wikipedia:Notability (people) or even Wikipedia:Notability (sports)#Rugby league. Can you find any WP:SECONDARY coverage of him in WP:RELIABLESOURCES which can be used to support the claims made in the article? The YouTube video you tried to cite can't really be linked to because most likely the person who uploaded it to YouTube isn't the original copyright holder of the video footage, but perhaps McCabe's participation in the match received coverage in mainstream media sources (e.g. newspapers) at the time. Bascially, what is going to be needed are WP:INDEPENDENT sources (newspapers, books, magazines, etc.) with an established history of editorial control writing or reporting about McCabe's rugby achievements and not McCabe himself or those connected with him, user-generated content or otherwise self-published content discussing him. There's lots of unsourced claims being made throughout the article and the longer it remains unsourced, the greater the chance there is of it being removed. I tried to do a cursory Internet search for possible sources, but not much came up, and what I did find appears to not really be usable for Wikipedia purposes. If you had created this article as a draft and then submitted to Wikipedia:Articles for creation for review, it would've almost certainly been declined because of a lack of Wikipedia:Notability. So, the longer his Wikipedia notability remains unclear and unverifiable, the greater the chance of the article being nominated for deletion. As I posted in my reply to you at the Wikipedia Teahouse, articles aren't required to have images, but they are required to be reliably sourced and there subject's are required to be Wikipedia notable. Articles are pretty much never deleted for lacking images, but they are deleted when the Wikipedia notability of the subject of the article isn't clearly established. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:35, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Hello @Marchjuly:, I am the historian for Rugby League Ireland. the McCabe page is a test case to see the addition of all 292 Full Internationals. I was under the impression Wikipedia is about having a capture of as much reference information as possible. there are already pages of persons with as much (or little) claim to notability as per McCabe's (the reference actually showing him playing for Ireland and scoring in the 56th minute of the game v USA is pretty much a nailed on confirmation, from times when RL constantly shot itself in the foot by not recording information, that he is indeed a full international). The Rugby Record Keepers club (a collective of International Rugby League approved historians) will soon be uploading a complete capture of all international games, results, players and scorers and this will be the de facto reference point at that time.

Let me know if there is anything else I need to do. The plan is simple, put up a full and far more detailed history of RLI than currently exists (I have previously updated pages on competition winners on wikipedia as they were sorely lacking). The plan would be to have every full international up there (currently on the last squad we have broken links as those players do not yet have pages, I plan to write them.

If the above is unsatisfactory please let me know and remove McCabe's page. I don't want to spend unnecessary effort if it can be better directed.

Cheers,

Steve — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevehogan1605 (talk • contribs) 19:43, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

@Stevehogan1605: Your plan sounds interesting, but you might want to take a look at Wikipedia:The answer to life, the universe, and everything before you try and create any more articles. There are over six million Wikipedia articles, and more are being created daily. There are many articles that end up being WP:DELETEd daily as well, and almost always the main reason has to do with a lack of verifiable Wikipedia:Notability. I'm sure you can find many articles which have as much if not more unsourced content than this one but which also have as few if not less supporting citations as this one. In some cases perhaps, there might be ways to improve these articles so as to bring them more in accordance with relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines (even if that means removing content that can't be properly cited and keeping only that which can); in other cases, however, there may be no way to WP:OVERCOME all of the problems the article may have no matter what, which means that it probably needs to be deleted. Since all editors on Wikipedia are WP:VOLUNTEERs, sometimes things can go unnoticed until somebody is given a reason to notice them. So, the fact that another similar article exists doesn't necessarily mean more articles like it should exist.

As I posted already, your plan sounds interesting, but Wikipedia requires that pretty much all content, especially content about living persons, be supported by citations to reliable sources for verification purposes and these sources need to be published and somewhat accessible. The content may be true, but it has very little value to Wikipedia if it can't be verified. Even verifiable content, in some cases, may not be something considered encyclopedically relevant to the general Wikipedia reader. The fact that the RL shot itself in the foot is a problem, but not necessarily a fatal one as long as other reliable sources (e.g. established print media sources, established authors published by reputable houses, established rugby experts or comentators published in reliable sources) have provided these individuals with significant coverage. If it's not a case of the latter, then some way other than Wikipedia might be better suited for what you're trying to do.

Given the way you've describe yourself and what you're trying to do, it's possible that some may feel that you have at least an WP:APPARENTCOI when it comes to your goals and Wikipedia's goals; so, you may want to take a look at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest for reference to at least familiarize yourself what some Wikipedia policies and guidelines that you may bump up against if you decide to continue. You might also want to try discussing you plan with the members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Rugby league because that's where you're going to find editors who are also interested in improving Wikipedia's coverage of rugby and some of them might be able to help you find reliable sources and assess Wikipedia notability when it comes to rugby players.

Finally, please try to remember to WP:SIGN your talk page posts to make it easier for others to know who's posting what and when they posted it. This is kind of important if you plan on further discussing your plan with other because it will save them the additional step of trying to figure out who they're responding to. There are automated bots that sometimes will add missing sigantures to posts, but it's better to get in the habit of signing them yourself early on. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:09, 29 December 2021 (UTC)