Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2005 Texas vs. Ohio State football game

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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 keep -- Samir 04:54, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

2005 Texas vs. Ohio State football game

2005 Texas vs. Ohio State football game (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Individual football games are non-notable. Regardless that this was the first meeting between the teams and the article is well referenced. Nearly any article about any major pro or collegiate athletic competition would have reliable sources available due to the overwhelming number of sports publications in the world, this doesn't make a game notable. Early season, little impact, little coverage=equals non-notable, not even a title game of any sort. Other than it being the first meeting betwen the two teams, (this happens all the time because of the sheer number of universities in the United States) there is no assertion of notability here. Basically a game review. Wikipedia is not an

indiscriminate collection of information. IvoShandor 10:01, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
]

There is an assertion of notability, and it certainly is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Johntex\talk 01:02, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - wow, a good piece of journalism (more independent citations than all the other AFDs listed here put together), but as stated in the nomination, setting an unhealthy precedent for reports on first-time match-ups in any sport from now to the start of time. Really not notable other than for the meeting being the first one, so fails
    WP:NOT. The Rambling Man 11:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
Comment thank you for remarking on the number of independent citations. I think that is a valuable point to consider.
-You link to
WP:N
, so I would like to quote from it
"The primary criterion for notability, and one shared by many of the subject-specific notability guidelines and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not is that: A notable topic has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works that are reliable and independent of the subject."
With 53 in-line references, this seems to me to pass WP:N with flying colors. There are also more notable things about the game beside that one fact. Several are mentioned below.
-You also link to
WP:NOT
. That policy covers a lot of ground.
I assume you are not talking about "Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia" or "Wikipedia is not a dictionary".
Perhaps you are thinking of "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information"? Even that secion does not seem relevant here, it lists things like "travel guides, instruction manuals, sprawling lists of statistics".
This article is none of those things. It is a prose article about an event that was witnessed and read about by millions of people. The event has an impact on the national championship picture of one of the most popular sports in the US.
Could you please explain more precisely how you think this article violates any policy or guideline? Thanks, Johntex\talk 22:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete As per nom. Dalejenkins 12:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd say that Wikipedia is
    WikiNews, so delete. >Radiant< 12:10, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Comment I haven't made my decision yet on this AfD (leaning towards keep) but I just wanted to point out that this article was created because a
    original article is too long for GA and that some of the longer game summaries (like this one) should be separated into a separate article. So, it appears to me that this article was merely created as a way to appease the GA reviewers now it is up for deletion. ↔NMajdan•talk 13:24, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
Full disclosure: I
original article was too long but was not the reviewer who suggested that the article be created about a football game. I wouldn't do that as I do not think that every individual football game is inherently notable. Just FYI, if anyone cares. : ) IvoShandor 14:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
]
So would a remerge into
2005 Texas Longhorn football team be a sufficient course-of-action?↔NMajdan•talk 14:38, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
]
  • Delete - lengthy article about a non-notable event. --Abu badali (talk) 14:52, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep As an avid college football fan, I believe this article is notable. It was a non-conference matchup between two top five teams, which is very rare. Texas won and went on the win the national championship that year so it was a very important game. It was the first matchup between these two tradition-rich teams. It is a very well-written and well-cited article. I see no reason in deleting such an exceptional article. Why delete the article when it is a very real possibility that someone who wants information on this game may come to Wikipedia looking for it. I know I wish there were articles like this on some other games of the past. This is a valuable article and I see no reason why these types of articles should be deleted. Now if this article was 1983 Middle Tennessee State vs. Rice football game, then I would be for deletion as that game would be non-notable. But, as I said, we're talking about two top five teams here and one was that year's national champion. ↔NMajdan•talk 15:24, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Notability of the 2005 Texas Longhorn football team

The 2005 Texas Longhorn football team went on to win the national championship in college football. In doing so, they set numerous school and NCAA records.[1] The, team, their season, and their ultimate bowl win have been called by numerous national media outlets as "the" or "one of the" greatest of all time.[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

How the main article grew to be long

The 2005 UT football team article is partly maintained by members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject College football, which aims "to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to college football". In improving the article on the 2005 Texas Longhorn football team, I have gotten help from numerous contributors and reviewers.
The
first attempt at a GA nom
failed partly because of things not included in the article of that time. That caused me to add a roster, information on training regimines, and information about the off-season, all of which lengthened the main article of course.
I then took the article to a peer review. This peer review resulted in comments by several people. Many of the points including covering additional aspects of the season. Addressing all their concerns caused the article to continue to grow, naturally. This is especially true because of requests for coverage of the on-the-field action. On-the-field action takes a fair amount of text to describe. It could be put into a more succinct form in a table, perhaps, but then there would probably be people who say that prose is preferred over tables.

How this article got created as a spin-off of the main article

As the article grew from addressing all the points raised at the first GA attempt and in the peer review, the article was evenually tagged with a template called
Template:Verylong
, which states "Please consider summarizing or transferring content to subtopic articles."
I decided to go ahead and try again for GA, and at that time I got multiple opinions that the article was too long. Two of these comments specifially mentioned to consider splitting the main article into summary articles:
- "This article seems unusably long, consider breaking it up per
WP:SUMMARY
.IvoShandor 08:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)"
- "...It seems to me like the notes on individual games (game notes) is the primary culprit here, which could be better summarized or moved to child articles about the game...Dr. Cash 18:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)"
So, that is exactly what I did, in keeping with
WP:SUMMARY
, I began to break out the more lengthy game descriptions into their own articles.

Some precedents

There is plenty of precedent for this. In fact, the
2006 World Women's Boxing Championship
),

Notability of the game described in this sub-article

As to the notability of the particular game in question, there is plenty about it that is notable. For example:
- It was a meeting of 2 top five teams in the second week of the season. This is very rare. The article explains this and attributes that fact to reputable national sources.
- Both teams had national championship hopes, and one did go one to win the national championship, as noted above. The national championship is very difficult to win unless the team is undefeated (again as explained and cited in the article) so this game was very important in that regard.
-It was the first ever meeting between the two teams. That is actually somewhat rare, especially for big name programs that have been around for a long time. These two teams had 227 seasons between them. The total number of games they had played prior to facing was the second most for any two college football teams to have played before meeting each other. (The record is Texas vs. Michigan from the prior year - see 2005 Rose Bowl).
-The game was one of the most anticipated games of the early season (again as explained and cited in the article) and afterwards was called one of the best in the season (again, cited in the article).

My summary

The article complies with all Wikipedia policies and guidelines as I understand them. It came about because the main article needed to be rewritten into summary style. Please note that the nominator of this AfD, IvoShandor is one of the very people who suggested I re-write the article in summary style, and this is what I have done. . It follows the format established by the WikiProject for a single game article. It is cited with more than 50 reputable in-line sources. It is a valuable article for helping people to understand college football in general and this season and teams in particular. I think this article shoould be kept. Johntex\talk 18:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Johntex's long discussion here. Also, I think the page should be nominated for GA status. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 19:56, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete even with Johntex's long discussion. You in no way can compare this to the Rose Bowl in your discussion. This was just a game that was played, was this for the national championship? No? Then it is no big deal. This wikipedia is suppose to have notable events in it, which this clearly is not. What next, should I include a game between two high school teams that are huge rivals?--Kranar drogin 22:57, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The team could not have won the Rose Bowl if they did not win this game first.
We have lots of other articles on individual games that were not for the national championship (E.g. 2007 Outback Bowl, 2007 International Bowl). I list more examples up above that were not even bowl games (there are lots of others, see 1985 Oregon State vs. Washington football game)
There are also examples I list above in Women's Volleyball and Women's Boxing that are not as well referenced and probably were not seen by as many people as this one football game.
You talk about 2 high school teams - were they covered by the national media? If so, maybe we could have an article on them if anyone cares to write it.
Can you please point to any specific policy that this article violates? Johntex\talk 23:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment-Ok, I had to wait until I had talked to an admin who's opinion I trust in these matters to see if I had made the wrong decision. Upon his recommendations, I will not change my vote, and here is why (I am going to copy his response to me):
Personally, although the article is indeed verifiable and well written, I don't think it is notable enough for inclusion. You see, a subject needs both verifiability and notability in order to become an entry in Wikipedia, and while this one is verifiable, is not really notable. If during the game lightning killed a player, in example, it would be a notable match, but as far as I see, it is not really notable.
Oh, forgot about the rationale. I would say Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, as this specific match is not more notable than the match they played the week before, nor the match they played on the week after, and therefore, allowing a match without notability to be in Wikipedia will allow any of the ten of thousands of matches of different sports played every day around the world to be included. Of course, people will usually claim that Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, which indicates Wikipedia has no limit regarding what to cover and what not. I guess the closing admin will choose a "No consensus" verdict.
And also, note that there are not guidelines for "notability of matches", the closest one would be
Wikipedia:Television episodes
, but it is a proposal and does not target matches really.
So, going by all this, I will have to continue with my delete. I see that the article has been canvased to the Wiki Football group, so I am sure it will pass this time, but I am thinking that any non-notable football games will be up for deletion in the future.--Kranar drogin 23:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Nicely written article, but it was just a regular season football game, and as a matter of principle I do not see these as belonging in an encyclopedia, any more than we need a play by play description of each and every other college or professional football, baseball, basketball or soccer game. It violates
    WP:N with its "sprawling list of statistics." Too much information. The article has lots of references, but many of these are about a former Ohio State coach, or the band traditions, or the histories of the schools football teams etc. When you get to the actual game, there is ref 31 and ref 32 cited repeatedly. Having several papers carry stories based on the wire service coverage of a game does not add up to the degree of notability the bloated reference list implies. Edison 23:34, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
Can you please point to the "sprawling list of statistics"? There is not a list of statistics in the entire article, other than the score by quarters.
As for certain references suporting the band or the historical records of the program - what is the problem with that? Those facts are in the article so they are cited.
In terms of the game action, I can certainly use other/additional references besides 31 and 32. Many of those same events are mentioned in the other citations as well, but certain reviews actually don't like it when too many references are cited, so I just stuck with two main sources for that. Johntex\talk 01:01, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge if there is an article about either team's season. Many teams have their season's documented here, I bet one of these teams has a document of their 2005 season.Mastrchf91 02:00, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with that is that this article is well-written and thoroughly referenced, and the season articles are already too long. Merging would decrease the quality of all of the involved articles, whereas this could easily become a GA. Is there a rule against nominating an article for GA status while it's under a deletion debate? —Disavian (talk/contribs) 02:08, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete due to non-notability, despite being a well written article. I hope the main author goes on to write well written articles that satisfy notability guidelines. LuciferMorgan 02:19, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that articles about specific games are rare and rarely notable, but I feel that the reasons presented are a strong (or at least, significant) assertion of notability. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 02:26, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The editor contacted me, and I'm now aware it set an all time attendance record in the stadium it was played at. Mostly based on this, alongside one or two other things, I'm gonna change my vote. LuciferMorgan 09:10, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep for now, but there should be further discussion about articles of this kind, next to the articles listed above by JohnTex. This is a very interesting article, imo, and certainly has enough refs and is well-written enough. Also, definite assertion of notability. This will require far larger discussion on the notability of individual games and whether we should have articles on individual games. – Chacor 02:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep for now per Chacor. I think articles on individual games are certainly warranted in the case of particularly notable games, but I'm not sure I would consider this game notable enough for its own article. I'd like more discussion on the notability requirements for articles on individual games. If determined that this isn't notable enough, the info should be merged, there is no reason for someone's hard work to go to waste when the info could be included in the season article. VegaDark 06:27, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all the bases are covered. The discussion on article types should not be done on an Afd. Bad form. CJC47 13:18, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I have opened a discussion about questions raised above at
    WP:N, it can be seen here. IvoShandor 13:34, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
Note - Thanks to advice from LuciferMorgan, I expanded the lead to make clearer some of the reasons the game was an important event. Johntex\talk 05:53, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep. When notability is the *only* criterion used to support deletion of a well-referenced article at afd, I expect to see a pretty damn good explanation for why the subject is non-notable, even more so when the article is as comprehensive as this one. There hasn't been such a convincing explanation here (though the article's defenders have presented an excellent case for keeping). Let's not overuse notability as a criterion for deletion, please. · j e r s y k o talk · 15:07, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Certainly notable by every guideline on notability; multiple independent sources, citations, the whole 9 yards. C'mon, folks; more notable than 99% of the schools that are "notable". Carlossuarez46 03:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep I'm kind of on the fence about this mainly because of the precedent (How would this fare if it were a mid-season blowout by Texas versus a weaker team?). But this event is notable.
    Quadzilla99 06:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
    ]
Still say delete. This is going to set that unhealthy precedent. There will be articles about individual games of all sorts after this AfD. Just because there are refs doesn't make it notable. Maybe this game is, but every game in that season, not in my opinion, I won't be changing my opinion. IvoShandor 02:49, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry to say delete, because a lot of effort was put into this. But in the end, it was just a game. Not a bowl game; just a regular season game. It belongs as a summary in each team's season article, nothing more. Fantastic work. This is just not the proper forum, though. —Twigboy 03:19, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per User:Jersyko. Basically, nobody has given a sufficient explanation as to how this article doesn't meet the standards in Wikipedia:Notability (which is a guideline anyway). --ALL IN (u t c m l ) 20:02, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Football game. Herostratus 04:30, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Such a comment provides no sufficient explanation as to why the article should be deleted. --ALL IN (u t c m l ) 17:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. A fascinating article, and extremely well-sourced. I'm not a football fan, but now I'm more interested in reading some of the related topics. Ksheka 11:26, 18 April 2007 (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.
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