Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Prairie View coaches

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 to bulk delete, without prejudice to a renomination of the articles individually. (non-admin close) RMHED (talk) 00:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Prairie View coaches

(delete) – (View log)

(by the way, it's Prairie View A&M University... Prairie View A&W is a cool place to get root beer)--Paul McDonald (talk) 23:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

This nomination relates to the following pages:

I speedy-deleted these pages under CSD:A7 as there were no overt assertion of notability in any of them. After a discussion and a DRV supported by four editors (all from WikiProject College Football) I undeleted the pages and am now listing them here. Four of the articles are on separate AFDs as they may be more notable than the others, and the current year's coach is not listed at all.

I feel this articles should be deleted for the following reasons:

  • The subjects do not meet any part of WP:BIO
  • The team which they managed does not even have its own article
  • The articles contain no citations from reliable sources, which are required under the verifiability policy
    • Note that cfbdatawarehouse.com cannot be considered a reliable source - it is merely a college football enthusiast site. I would expect to see news coverage or similar, secondary sources.
    • Note that pvamu.edu cannot be considered a reliable source as it is a primary source. See WP:SPS.

In the interest of full disclosure I would ask members of WP:CFB to declare their membership when giving their opinion in this AFD. Stifle (talk) 22:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep all - I believe the relevant part of WP:BIO exists here, stating "Competitors and coaches who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports (who meet the general criteria of secondary sources published about them)" (emphasis mine) meet the notability requirement. Now, these coaches all coached at the highest level of amateur sports in their division (I think past consensus has determined that the FCS division is still considered "highest level"), so they meet the first part of that right there. The next part it must meet is the secondary sources published about them requirement. I believe the college football database is a reliable source, and it is linked to literally thousands, probably more than 10,000 pages on Wikipedia for stat and bio information. If this is determined not to be a reliable source, I think there needs to be a much larger discussion to determine that, as that would affect thousands of articles, and would also apply to the baseball, basketball, and hockey portions of that website, affecting even more articles. Additionally, I think the section linked above on "Self-published sources (online and paper)" is being misinterpreted to classify the school's very own website as unreliable. That section states that "Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable". Note that the example of websites cites personal websites. I don't believe the intent of that at all is to exclude an otherwise-reliable source to not be reliable in the case of writing about a subject related to them. Under that logic, no university press release could ever be considered reliable unless reported on by another source. And yes, I am a member of WP:CFB, although I would hope that would be irrelevant. VegaDark (talk) 22:46, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Surely if the team they managed was anyway notable it'd have its own article... Stifle (talk) 22:50, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
      (edit conflict) One might think that, but Wikipedia is far from complete. I created Brown Bears just a few weeks ago, and that's not even on the football team alone, that is about the whole athletics program in general. Harvard has yet to get an article on their athletic program, let alone their football team, and one would be hard pressed to declare them non-notable. I don't think WP:OTHERSTUFF is the best argument to make in this case simply because an article on their football program doesn't exist yet. In fact, you will likely prod someone in to creating it by the end of this nom, if I were to make a guess. VegaDark (talk) 22:59, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
      Well, at least if that happens, I'll have improved the encyclopedia by the nomination :) Stifle (talk) 23:01, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Team articles (and even team football articles) are rather recent developments. An example is Brown Bears, it didn't have its own article until recently, whether or not the coaches are notable had no bearing on the existence of that article. Wizardman 22:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Strong Keep All Yes, I'm a member of WP:CFB. I'm also the original editor of the articles in question. Here are the reasons for keeping the article in question:

  1. Consensus has already been reached on similar articles: (examples)
    1. Mike Cottsch
    2. Oscar Dahlene
    3. Fred Clapp
    4. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fay G. Moulton
  2. Consensus from Speedy Deletion Review#Head coach articles was reached on all coaches in question, with 4-1 in favor of "Overturn All" or "Obvious Overturn All"
  3. Wikipedia:WikiProject College football consideres all head coaches (past and present) of notable college football programs to be notable, and notable college football programs are further defined as NCAA (Division I FBS, Division I FCS, Division II, and Division III) as well as NAIA programs. This school in quesiton is a Division I FCS school.
  4. The program and several of the coaches are known for their exceptoinally poor record and the school owns the longest losing streak in college football
  5. As we have continued to do research on this project, we find that more and more coaches are linked together and the project grows. Harold Elliott is just one of hundreds of examples of articles that started out as just such a stub article and has grown to a robust article.
  6. Upon further research, we have found that at least one of the coaches is in the College Football Hall of Fame.
  7. These are just some of the many reasons that we have found. Please include reasons in discussions of coaches listed above as examples.

And now, to address the administrators specific points:

  • "The subjects do not meet any part of WP:BIO"
The subjects all meet the criteria "Additional criteria/Athletes" with the specific clarification "Competitors and coaches who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports (who meet the general criteria of secondary sources published about them)" -- Varsity head collegiate coaches have indeed achieved the highest level in amateur sports.
  • The team which they managed does not even have its own article
First off, this is not the "manager" of the team but the "head coach" of the team. College football team managers would not even be considered for inclusion unless they did something really, really special. Second, part of our project is to build those team pages. And third, see Prairie View A&M University#Football.
The articles cite the school website (which would be considered an authority of who the coach is) and also, the College Football Data Warehouse.
    • "Note that cfbdatawarehouse.com cannot be considered a reliable source - it is merely a college football enthusiast site. I would expect to see news coverage or similar, secondary sources.
    • Note that pvamu.edu cannot be considered a reliable source as it is a primary source. See WP:SPS."
Our project has been recommending and using this as a resource in thousands of articles. I do not know of any complaints so far except for this one. If you wish to dispute that source, then I would recommend creating a separate discussion on that topic instead of blindly deleting pages.
However, CFDW indeed DOES meet the criteria on WP:SPS because it is neither a "self-published source" nor "non-English" source. Also, the pages meet the criteria "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so" -- the information has proven time and again to be reliable, it is by an established expert on the topic and is relevant to the field and the author has been published by reliable third-party publications. A cursory review of the site would make that clear. It certainly is not a "self-published book, newsletter, personal website, open wiki, blog, or forum posting."

Unfortunately, to be fair, I must also include some comments about the administrator in question--simply because of the behavior of the admin has seriously brought into question the ability of the admin to make a reasonable judgement:

  1. On the page for Oscar Dahlene, the admin tried to "re-speedy-delete" a page that had been closed consensus keep. The admin's comment in the history is "only admins may remove speedy deletion tags" in an attempt to say that it was a violation of Wikipedia policy for the user who deleted it to do so. Please visit User talk:Paulmcdonald#Oscar Dahlene to read the conversation where the admin refused to retract the statement on the page in question.
  2. Another user, on another subject, the admin is attempting to make another user believe that only GFDL items can be used in Wikipedia. While that's preferred, it certainly is not the only option. See discussion: User talk:Stifle#Kulveer ranger
  3. On the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#HELP! Emergency Action Required! page, I informed the project team about the issue and what to do about it. I was accused of "vote-stacking" -- you can read it on your own and figure it out for yourself.

It has been very time-consuming for me to follow up with these points. I reserve the right to add more comments later.--Paul McDonald (talk) 23:25, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

These points, particularly #2, are completely irrelevant to the current debate and my behaviour is being discussed at ANI. I would ask Mr. McDonald to refactor and remove them. Stifle (talk) 08:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Probably Keep but it would seem to be more reasonable to make an article on the team first. If the team is really notable, then each of its individual coaches will be. But I do not assume that a college's team will necessarily have been notable for all of its history. I think that this one probably is, because its long time coach from 1930-65 is in the College Football Hall of Fame. His successors may be less highly notable, but they are likely to be notable enough. As for his [predecessors, that depends on the history of the team. I do not think this it is the case for all college teams even in football as a matter of course, and also not necessarily for other sports. the college football project may consider all football head coaches notable, but they're wrong just by common sense: Many small colleges have an insignificant team. They may want to assert this standard, but, if so, the general community can and should tell them otherwise.
    I think that my experienced colleague Stifle knows that non-admins can remove speedy tags, even if he thinks they should not be permitted to. Notifying a project is nt vote stacking; tho some people think it should be otherwise, consensus is firmly that its OK. The mass deletion by speedy was of course a mistake, and DRV set it right very quickly. This was not a case where an admin should have acted on his own , but at should have placed he tags and let some other admin judge. But a whole group of low quality articles for a single college does tend to arouse a certain degree of annoyance. DGG (talk) 00:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    Touché. There is, however, no prohibition on admins outright deleting articles that they feel meet the speedy criteria - we are not required to tag them for someone else to delete. Stifle (talk) 09:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep — Re:PaulMcDonald. Precedent has been set with other articles. JKBrooks85 (talk) 01:05, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    Can you please specify which other articles and why Wikipedia:No binding precedents should be ignored here? Stifle (talk) 09:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    Just a thought, but I would say that it doesn't apply because Wikipedia:No binding precedents is a blank... page... did you mean to do that?--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    Hehe, I suck at linking. Meant Wikipedia:No binding decisions. Stifle (talk) 15:18, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    Ahhh that helps... It does not apply because: 1) no one brought "fresh ideas", 2) no "new needs" have been identified, 3) we did not "find a better way to do things", and 4) no other new reason has been brought up. Sure, the previous keep decisions shouldn't be binding forever, but to overturn that someone should at least bring a new idea to the party.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    I don't agree with everything Paul does, but I do have to agree here. I just don't believe you've made your case that the article has drastically changed from what it was when consensus said that the article should be kept. I'd be willing to hear more arguments, though. JKBrooks85 (talk) 19:22, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete all except possibly Ronald Beard with its external sources. No independent sources and no assertion of notability other than being college football coaches, which isn't a reason for notability per WP:BIO for sportspeople. Contrary to the claim above, no consensus has been reached on such articles - I am not entirely sure why Mike Gottsch was kept, Oscar Dahlene and Fred Clapp should ber added to this AfD, and Fay G. Moulton was found to be notable for a completely different reason - being an Olympic athlete. Without citations as to whether these people are notable for any other reason, these article aren't viable as they stand. Black Kite 07:42, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment WP:BIO actually supports keep. "Competitors and coaches who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports (who meet the general criteria of secondary sources published about them)."
    • Comment the other articles mentioned were kept because the consensus decided to do so and regarded the accomplishments as notable. Why are you asserting that a consensus was not reached when it was?--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:45, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment I just noticed above where the original admin stated "current year's coach is not listed at all" ... and I have to wonder, does this mean that the editor agrees that the current coach is notable, but then will become "non-notable" when he leaves the post and we then have to delete the page? And if not, all the previous coaches were at one time the "current coach" -- so if holding the post is notable, then why would "no longer holding the post" suddenly and automatically make them not notable?--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:26, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete all but Ronald Beard. With the exception of Ronald Beard, none of these articles pass notability requirements for secondary coverage in independent reliable sources. A considerable amount of the sources are primary data about the footballing team's record, which, while useful, do not constitute RS. Celarnor Talk to me 20:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. They all pass WP:ATHLETE pretty straightforwardly. "Competitors and coaches who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports (who meet the general criteria of secondary sources published about them)." --SmashvilleBONK! 21:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Could you add the required secondary sources you seem to have found to the articles, or at list them here? Celarnor Talk to me 21:23, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Larry Dorsey [1]
  • Clifton Gilliard [2]
  • Greg Johnson [3]
  • Hensley Sapenter [4]
  • Ronald Beard (who is also the losingest coach in major college football history) [5]
  • Haney Catchings [6]
  • Conway Hayman [7]
There are a few hundred sources after about 5 minutes of google. --SmashvilleBONK! 21:45, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete for lack of non-trivial and independent sources. Somwhere between the Superbowl and the sandlot, a line gets drawn. I think it's drawn higher than college football coaches, since there is no evidence that any meaningful number of them are subjects of independent biographical coverage. Guy (Help!) 23:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • So that's a sweeping delete for all of them despite the fact that 2 hours before in the response directly above them I provided hundreds of sources on 7 of them? --SmashvilleBONK! 00:53, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree that somewhere between the sandlot and the Superbowl a line should be drawn. Let's see... Sandlot, Pee Wee, Junior High, High School Junior Varisty, High School Varisity, Junior College, College, Professional,... Super Bowl. And since the Super Bowl is a part of professionall, we can really scratch that. At the college football project, we considered National Junior College Athletic Assocation and decided not to extend notability there. We also discussed high school coaches and while there certainly can be merit from an exceptional high school coach, or a high school coach that continues to college and professional coaching, we decided (by consensus, I might add) to exclude those. We decided to draw the line right before "College" -- hence, the project we are involved in. Wanna raise that bar, draw that line higher? Okay, let's discuss. What are your reasons?--Paul McDonald (talk) 03:47, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep All - I am a member of CFB project. With that said here is my explanation:
    • "The subjects do not meet any part of WP:BIO"
      • WP:ATHLETE states: "Competitors and coaches who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports(who meet the general criteria of secondary sources published about them)." PV is FCS which is Division I, which is the highest level in amateur sports.
    • "The team which they managed does not even have its own article"
      • WP:OTHERSTUFF - Does not matter as editors are creating it now.
  • "The articles contain no citations from reliable sources, which are required under the verifiability policy"
    • "Note that cfbdatawarehouse.com cannot be considered a reliable source - it is merely a college football enthusiast site. I would expect to see news coverage or similar, secondary sources."
      • I believe CFBDW is a reliable source. wikipedia and other websites rely on it a lot. The College coach infobox uses the website as apart of its template.
    • "Note that pvamu.edu cannot be considered a reliable source as it is a primary source. See WP:SPS."
      • WP:SPS also states "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so."
        • I believe pvamu.edu would qualify as a reliable source. But I also belive there should be secondary sources as well. I think CFBDatawarehouse qualifies. But, if to attain a consesus, other sources should be found.
          • Just curious--exactly how would an accredited college or university not be a qualified source?--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:50, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
            • Exactly, it is a qualified source. This sentence: "Note that pvamu.edu cannot be considered a reliable source as it is a primary source." does not make sense to me. Its one thing if John Doe starts a blog about something, but its totally different if a established university publishes information about their university. I still think the university source and cfbdatawarehouse.com are sufficient enough for these articles. These websites are only needed to establish that these people in fact were coaches at Praire View. Once that is established/agreed upon, then they are notable under WP:ATHLETE. -PGPirate 12:52, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
              • The problem is that pvamu.edu is not independent of the subject (Prairie View coaches), and hence must be considered a primary, self-published source with respect to the article. That doesn't mean that it is completely unreliable, but it must be used with care, and should not form the basis of an article. For example, it is quite legitimate to cite pvamu.edu in moderation in Prairie View A&M University, as long as we cite plenty of third-party sources. Since numerous third-party sources attest to the notability of PV, that's not a problem. The question is whether specific staff employed by PV are notable, and we need to apply the same test. cfbdatawarehouse.com cannot be considered a reliable source at all. What is needed to establish notability (and, importantly, to satisfy WP:V and WP:PSTS) are multiple independent reliable sources; see WP:BIO#Basic criteria. Jakew (talk) 13:11, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
                • I'd say that the problem is a bias against sports. If a chemistry professor had done research and discovered a new kind of goo and published their findings through the university, we'd have no problem listing their accomplishments and they would be considered completely reliable. Why should sports have a different standard? And when you're answering, please remember that sports as a business is legitimate and huge and may indeed surpass chemistry as a business in many, many ways.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
                  • I'm afraid you're mistaken, Paul. There's no bias against sports, but we don't make an exception for sports. To consider your example, firstly a new discovery of "goo" would, almost certainly, be reported through the news media and through scientific journals, not just on the university website (conversely, if the discovery is only reported on the university website, then we have to ask how notable it really is). Secondly, discovery of "goo" may not necessarily mean that the person making the discovery is notable. Thirdly, we don't have articles about random academics; we have notability guidelines for academics which are, if anything, stricter than those for sports coaches. And the reason is that simply being an academic, employed by a university is not itself evidence of notability (and if the only sources that can be found for an academic are the university website and chemistryfans.net, (s)he might not be notable). Similarly, simply being a sports coach, employed by a university is not itself evidence of notability. The basic test of notability, as determined by Wikipedia, is whether the subject has been noted in multiple reliable sources that are independent of the subject. That's not a particularly high standard, is it? Jakew (talk) 13:49, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

-PGPirate 13:36, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment Are we ready to come to a conclusion on this discussion? It's been over 5 days. Reference Deletion Discussion for policy. We have 6 editors in favor of at least some form of "keep" and 3 that support "delete" (two of which want to keep the Ronald Beard article). Of course, it's not a popular vote but it can help to know those results.

Therefore, I propose the following:

  1. Keep the Ronald Beard article and remove the AFD tag, consensus result is "keep"
  2. Keep all other articles in the list and remove the AFD tag, either as consensus is "keep" or there no rough consensus, which normally defaults to "keep".

Any objections? Discussion on closing this way?--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:03, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep all per VegaDark, but especially Ronald Beard. While a few of these may possibly warrant deletion, they would be better handled through separate nominations that allow consideration of the the unique circumstances of each article. The "no consensus" compromise suggested by Paul McDonald, which would permit renomination of the articles without any substantial delay, seems reasonable to me, but it's ultimately up to the closer's evaluation of the discussion. –Black Falcon (Talk) 20:48, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Fabrictramp | talk to me 21:55, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep all as suggested with no prejudice against individual renominations of the less sourceable individuals. --Dhartung | Talk 22:18, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep all and allow for individual renominations as appropriate - there's clearly not a consensus to remove all the articles listed en masse. Townlake (talk) 23:23, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment look, most if not all of these articles have the ability to be expanded. Coach McKinley, for example, coached at three different schools and had a victory in the Gold Bowl in 1980. We need to close this as keep all, let the editors do their work at a reasonable pace instead of a scrambling pace--and then if revisition needs to happen, so be it.--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:03, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

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.