Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Torquay United F.C. season 1996–97

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 NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 01:02, 14 September 2010 (UTC) keep. NativeForeigner ^Talk/_Contribs 01:02, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Torquay United F.C. season 1996–97

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Individual season currently consisting of just a list of players. The season was also played in the fourth tier of English football (and doesn't otherwise seem particularly notable), so also fails the notability requirements of WP:NSPORTS#Individual seasons. J Mo 101 (talk) 19:13, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related deletions. J Mo 101 (talk) 19:18, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am adding to this nomination the following related articles:

Herostratus (talk) 20:18, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - is someone other than the nominator even allowed to add more articles to the AfD?! I suspect not...GiantSnowman 20:25, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, it is a wiki. I have no opinion on the articles, but there is a template and it is apparent that people have made articles on the other seasons and intend to add more, so its not really proper to nominate just one article in the set, I don't think, absent some compelling reason. It would seem odd to end up with articles for all the seasons except 1996–97, unless someone could explain why that should be so. Herostratus (talk) 22:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - I understand where you're coming from, but personally I just think that it should be up to the nominator to say what articles they feel need discussing. Depending on the outcome of this AfD, perhaps it could be a plan to nominate any articles you feel are eligible seperately...? GiantSnowman 22:41, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - I respectfully disagree. In my opinion, this AfD was malformed or improper in that it should have either been a multiple-article nom or nothing, unless the nominator made a specific explanation of why he was not nominating the other articles. Being malformed, it needed correction. I could have instead contacted the nominator, but 1) I was willing to do it myself (teamwork!), and 2) depending on lag time and whatever, people might have started commenting before the other articles were added, which would have been confusing (some people commenting on just the one article, others commenting on the whole set, all in the same AfD). Herostratus (talk) 04:05, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - As probably the major contributor to the Torquay United Season pages for the past few seasons, I feel particularly strongly against the deletion of these pages. I accept that the 1996-97 page is not very well developed, but to use that as a reason to delete the other Season pages which have had a lot of work put into them is ridiculous. If you want to use the excuse that these pages are part of a group, then you may as well delete all of the season pages relating to every team, and that includes the Premiership sides, which are apparently far more important than teams in the lower leagues. Jordansongs 01:25, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Question - when was it decided (and by who) that only Premier League clubs could have season articles? You're going to be helluva busy with these nominations if that's now the case, as for example there are 45 articles in Category:Newport County A.F.C. seasons, 19 in Category:Plymouth Argyle F.C. seasons, 17 in Category:Colchester United F.C. seasons, etc etc, and nearly 90 of the articles in Category:Blackpool F.C. seasons refer to second level or lower seasons. The WP:FOOTY project has always operated on the basis that teams playing national professional leagues (the top four levels in England) were OK to have such articles...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 20:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I know what you mean, and to an extent I agree with you, but that NSPORT guideline is completely irrelevant if enough sources are provided in each season article to show that the season meets the GNG. I can see why some of these particular articles, and similar ones in the past, are nominated for deletion because they just have a list of players and other very basic information; they show no evidence of notability in a Wikipedia sense. Big Dom 20:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't disagree with you, I was merely questioning the part of the nomination which appeared to explicitly state that WP policy was that only top division clubs could have season articles..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:40, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I don't see that it's a problem that the articles are just lists of players - at least it helps to contextualise player articles and create links to them. And there's always room for articles to grow. ArtVandelay13 (talk) 20:57, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The article's current state is largely irrelevant; the question is whether this could be expanded into a worthwhile article. Unquestionably, it could. NSPORTS states that the individual players who may well have played one or two games in this season and never again are notable. So to argue, based on NSPORTS, that entire seasons are not notable is highly questionable. If anything, it should be the other way around; players whose only claim to notability is games played this season should be merged into the article, which admittedly needs significant expansion. --W F C-- 21:21, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. They don't fail WP:NSPORTS#Individual seasons which only seems to be guidelines for what might be notable, not what isn't notable. In fact these are potentially well-sourced articles (admittedly not in some cases at the moment) which makes them appear to pass that very policy. They need improvements to prose and referencing not deleteing. Brad78 (talk) 21:35, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: articles need referencing and improving; there is no doubt that the sources to do this exist (perhaps a thorough WP:BEFORE check was in order here). The NSPORT guideline is outrageously US-centric when it comes to individual seasons - the GNG is the only thing that matters here. Big Dom 21:42, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - completely incorrect interpretation of guidelines, the notability of these seasons is long-established! Giant Snowman 21:44, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep – as the above comments say, the NSPORT "guidelines" are irrelevant and apply only to American College Football, or should that be American Football in US Colleges. Many of the articles concerned need expansion and text adding, but that of itself is not and never has been grounds for deletion. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 21:49, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Per above. They can be expanded and improved but there is no deadline. The user who created the article isn't active on Wikipedia anymore, so its not really surprising that nothing substantial has been added since. I myself have created stubs like this with the intention of getting it to this standard eventually. Argyle 4 Life^talk 00:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep – Articles on a sports team's season are usually going to be notable, with everything that is written on them both during a season and afterwards. In the case of English soccer teams, the "top professional leagues" clause in WP:NSPORTS should allow for some leeway since many, many teams outside the Premier League have enough coverage to justify such articles. The more I see season pages here, the more I think this part of NSPORTS may be flawed. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 01:19, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My interpretation of that clause is that (in this case) the "top professional league" referred to is the entire Football League, not just the first/premier division. I don't think it's always been the case that the FL was the only pro league - I remember reading somewhere that the Southern League Premier Division was fully pro for a while at the turn of the 20th century, and there's always the possibility of the Conference National going the same way in the future. Bettia (talk) 17:05, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – I can only assume that the original nominator is playing devil's advocate, as he created the 2008–09 Rochdale A.F.C. season article, about a club playing in the Fourth tier of English football. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 04:42, 9 September 2010 (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.