Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1977 South Dakota Coyotes football team

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The result was Withdrawn. (non-admin closure) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:33, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1977 South Dakota Coyotes football team (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Draft which was moved to mainspace in quite a WP:POINTY manner. No prose whatsoever beyond a textual restatement of statistics included in the infobox. Each year, there are hundreds if not thousands of university sports teams, and most of their seasons are not independently notable. There is no indication how this one is supposedly outstanding enough that it warrants an article. Fails WP:NOTSTATS, WP:NSEASONS and WP:RUNOFTHEMILL. None of the sources are anything but routine match coverage, also failing WP:SIGCOV. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:58, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 01:00, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of South Dakota-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 01:00, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, per the sources in the article. Meets GNG. BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:06, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Nonsense. The sources in the article are routine match reports (something which is easily verifiable from their dates and their contents) and do not meet SIGCOV. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:09, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - In light of the expansion and sourcing, this meets WP:GNG. Fieari (talk) 23:42, 23 January 2022 (UTC) Delete - Looking at the South Dakota Coyotes football page, I could see an argument for having an article for the 1973, 1985, 1986, 2006, 2017, and 2021 seasons... but not other years than these. (I could also see an argument for having an article on none of these.) This does seem to fail WP:NSEASONS, which specifies that top college teams can have articles on years they went to championship-- this is not such. Honestly, I rather wish wikipedia did allow indiscriminate lists of facts like this as long as reliable verifiability is met (in which case we would keep this article), but that's a discussion for elsewhere. Current standards say no. Alas. Fieari (talk) 01:49, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Fieari: In light of the substantial expansion of the article and arguments below, would you be willing to give this a second look? Cbl62 (talk) 19:11, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I'll change my !vote above. Fieari (talk) 23:42, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Question. The standard proposed by Fieari would imply the deletion of many thousands of articles. I'm not raising OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, I'm saying that WP:NSEASONS doesn't describe current reality, in which individual season articles are created for every team at the Division I FBS level, and a goodly number at the FCS level (which this is, more or less). You could do a merge into an article about South Dakota Coyotes seasons in the 1970s, and in fact NSEASONS suggests that outcome, but that may not make for a good experience for the reader. I suppose what I'm saying is that while RandomCanadian has a reasonable and valid point grounded in policy and guidelines, those policies and guidelines don't match the facts on the ground. Under those circumstances, I think the movement to mainspace is less pointy and more the frustrated reaction of an editor who's not sure why this season of South Dakota football is being singled out for special treatment, as opposed to the other 73. Mackensen (talk) 02:04, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Mackensen: It has always been understood that the entirety of NSPORTS (including NSEASONS) is an inclusive standard, rather than an exclusive season. If a season receives SIGCOV in multiple, reliable sources, it qualifies as notable under GNG, regardless of whether or not it falls within NSEASONS. Cbl62 (talk) 02:32, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also, NSEASONS is drafted to cover all college sports, and in most sports, the coverage is such that most season articles would not pass GNG. College football is different in that the SIGCOV is far more extensive, such that Division I football seasons almost certainly pass GNG. GNG is the real measure that needs to be applied here. Cbl62 (talk) 02:39, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Picking the most inclusive possible criterion misses the point. Meeting GNG is not enough if it fails WP:NOT (as it does in this case), or if it can more effectively be handled on some other page instead of having a separate page of its own (as brightly explained on WP:N). NSEASONS (although it might need minor improvements) is one of the few parts of NSPORTS which is actually helpful in figuring out whether something should really have a stand-alone article or if it would better be covered elsewhere. I wouldn't be opposed to having a summary of the team's history and major sporting achievements in its article, but thousands upon thousands of run-of-the-mill model, like this:

This is the basic format of almost every page in the appropriate subsection of Template:South Dakota Coyotes football navbox (even 2017 South Dakota Coyotes football team isn't that much different: the sole significant addition is a box-score for every single game (without any prose whatsoever), which is even more NOTSTATS than the basic table). And for thousands of other sports teams. I do not think this imparts much if any pertinent information to readers other than mere statistical minutiae (and, as a reader, statistical minutiae is not something I'd look for on Wikipedia - the various databases do their job well enough). It would be better if a way of combining those, either in the main team article, as I suggest above, or in some other grouping, would avoid having these as mere statistical dumps and encourage more thoughtful prose (including, if it exists, analysis from secondary sources and not just newspapers match reports). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:59, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Typically, anti-sports editors complain that NSPORTS is way too inclusive and that our core notability policy at GNG should govern. .... but in this case, the topic clearly passes GNG and so the argument is made that meeting GNG is not enough because GNG is the "most inclusive possible criterion". Bottom line: some editors just don't like sports articles and want them deleted regardless of what our guidelines say. Cbl62 (talk) 03:19, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Bottom-line, you've picked the most inclusive criterion that you think applies (since this clearly fails NSEASONS, then you're trying to argue that it meets GNG, since finding a few routine newspapers reports and sowing enough doubt that they could actually pass off as SIGCOV is not that difficult to attempt), but you actually haven't even addressed the GNG issue (because all of the sources are still routine coverage), not the more fundamental NOT issues (which you have entirely sidestepped). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:24, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Bottom line: GNG is clearly satisfied with SIGCOV in multiple, reliable and independent sources. NSEASONS (as discussed below), like all of NSPORTS, is an inclusive standard that does not override GNG. As for WP:NOT, you have not even articulated which prong of that guideline you think applies, so it's rather difficult to reply to a vague hand-wave. Cbl62 (talk) 03:52, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, routine match coverage in local newspapers is not SIGCOV. We don't write articles based on obituaries (even if these do contain "significant coverage"). We don't write articles about local fire services if the only thing that can be said about them is a fill-in-the-blanks "X fire service is responsible for firefighting in Y area." We don't (or shouldn't) write articles about local team sport seasons if the only thing that can be said is as in the template I've provided above. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a sports database (which is what those articles are and are likely to remain) and not a collection of routine coverage of events of little to no long-term significance. See also [1]. RandomCanadian (talk /contribs) 17:43, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Feature articles are not routine.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:10, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep I've expanded the article a bit with sources I was able to find, and there are now sixteen news sources in the article. This include coverage of every game and the team's notable achievements, as one of its players broke school and conference rushing records. There's also this article and this article, which aren't cited because I couldn't find a place for them in the current version of the article; both could be used to expand the article in the future. I'd say the article easily passes WP:GNG with those sources. As for WP:NSEASONS, that guidance hasn't reflected either community standards or known source coverage of college football in quite some time; the reality is that most seasons on teams in Division I, and even a handful on lower-division teams, will have enough coverage to pass GNG. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 02:48, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Passes WP:GNG per the sourcing efforts of TheCatalyst31. While South Dakota was then a Division II team, it has been promoted to Division I which enhances the notability of the program and its history. Cbl62 (talk) 03:04, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  WTF? Notability is not inherent, nor inherited, nor based on some sense of what is historically "significant" or not. I'm not even sure the two sentence statistical mentions are more than NOTSTATS and NOTNEWS stuff: these could probably be covered on some other, more relevant page (if it exists, I don't know, List of NCAA football records, or maybe even on South Dakota Coyotes football team - I'm sure if you combined all the non-trivial prose from all of the seasons article, you'd have plenty enough to write a decent section, and it probably wouldn't even be too much). The other sources are still routine match reports. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:07, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Despite the vast improvement of this article to the point that it will soon be approaching GA status, it's clear you're unwilling to maintain an open mind and will stubbornly insist that every in-depth piece of SIGCOV that is added to the article is simply "routine" coverage. Rather than continuing to reply here, I'll just continue to improve the article. Best, Cbl62 (talk) 18:30, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No, this is a fundamental disagreement over what Wikipedia is and should be. How you're going about, you seem to think it should cover every event which happens to get mentioned somewhere in newspapers (yes, the local newspapers reporting on yesterday's football game is "routine", and there are thousands of such games every single year played by hundreds if not similarly thousands of different teams. Should we really have an article about each one of those teams providing details about each one of their routine games? I'll remind you we don't have that even for pro teams, much less for university teams anywhere but in the US...), acting as some form of sports pseudo-database or the like. This is probably not the place to fully expound upon why it shouldn't. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:44, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Well, two points on that. One, college football in the United States should probably be understood as semi-professional. It can't really be compared to any other university sport with the possible exception of college basketball. Two, we do, in fact, have such articles about professional teams. See for example 2021 Kansas City Chiefs season. Mackensen (talk) 20:02, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An AFD for one article is not the place for a discussion on "a fundamental disagreement over what Wikipedia is and should be" --Paul McDonald (talk) 20:09, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• @RandomCanadian: Just so you know, nobody here (certainly not me) is suggesting that every college football season should have a stand-alone article. It's my general view that season articles should be restricted to Division I programs. There are some exceptions, however, where the coverage warrants stand-alone treatment. The four Dakota universities are among those exceptions, and in part based on the extensive coverage and following, all four of the Dakota universities have now been promoted to Division I. Cbl62 (talk) 20:41, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Cleary passes GNG per cited sources. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:56, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 07:18, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. As noted above, WP:NSEASONS doesn't reflect current practice. To the degree that subject notability guidelines are descriptive rather than prescriptive. this represents a problem best addressed at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports), not here. A season article is a useful way of grouping information that otherwise belongs (potentially) in at least two places: the main article about the football team (which we all agree is notable), and, in ascending article, the main article about the conference during that season, or potentially the whole division. It could also be a useful container for information that would otherwise be located in articles about the head coach or some of the assistants, and also individual players. Most of these topics are presumptively notable. Breaking out that information into an individual season article doesn't change that. That the article started bare-bones doesn't signify; many articles start with a bare-bones structure, with the easy part done first. Mackensen (talk) 18:10, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep sources in the article pass WP:GNG. I understand the nominator disagrees with that position. I leave it to the closer to determine.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:12, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Keep now that more referencing has been added and the prose has been built out. I still don't hate the idea of seasons such as this being rolled into an over article of a program's history. I also think that this nomination is far more WP:POINTY than moving the draft to the main space. GPL93 (talk) 19:42, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. This article, while it may be a less than run of the mill season for a D2 school, is pretty well sourced with independent, reliable publications (some of which may be routine, but I think it still passes WP:GNG.) I will concede that there is a slight aspect of WP:FANCRUFT to the article, but it doesn't rise to the level of deletion. Spf121188 (talk) 20:20, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, it passes WP:GNG, as what other users said. Severestorm28 22:59, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Meets WP:GNG, per all above. Definitely a WP:POINTY nomination here. Ejgreen77 (talk) 05:22, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per TheCatalyst's improvements and others above. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 06:37, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Clearly meets GNG with sufficient sources, and a decent rewrite as well. ~EDDY ^{(talk/contribs)}~ 13:26, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep passes GNG, pointy nomination. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 19:00, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I think it's starting to snow here. Spf121188 (talk) 19:01, 22 January 2022 (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.