Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Walter J. West

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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 delete.

m 13:07, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply
]

Walter J. West

Walter J. West (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Contested prod, basically because "the College Football wikiproject consensus is that college football head coaches are notable". You can see the discussion about this on the article talk page. Basically, I disagree with this blanket notability agreed upon by this Wikiproject, which is in direct disagreement with

Fram (talk) 14:53, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply
]

Keep per CFB:COACH and points below:

  1. Nominator appears to be "forum shopping" -- editor admits to not liking the resulting discussion on the talk page and wants to try again. By itself, not so much--but mixed in with the rest, worth noting
  2. Nominator failed to notify other editors about the re-nomination.
  3. Nominator openly states that the issue is with CFB:N and the discussion should go there, not on this particular article. Why this article? Why this coach?
  4. Nominator says that
    WP:NOTE
    but does not state how that violation occurs. We would be thrilled to discuss at [{WP:CFB]]!
  5. Nominator states "There is no indication that there are multiple reliable independent sources about this person" --
    WP:GOOGLEHITS
    -- offline sources do indeed exist, as exist for all college football coaches through the massive ammounts of record keeping in the media. Just because you can't find it on GOOGLE doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and football coaching records from 1949-1952 fit into that historical category. Google and other search engines are useful tools in determining notability, but are not the only rule. Even for modern-day players, it is highly unlikely that a first-round draft pick at offensive line will be written about through traditional news and web channels.
  6. "His run as a coach seems to have been unremarkable":
    bottom 10
    every week during the regular season. In the great scheme of college football, there is no such thing as an "unimportant game" during the regular season. Additionally, detailed historical analysis continues on games that have already been played.
  7. "and there are no other facts which would make him notable" except that he was a head coach for three years in college football, an amateur sport at the highest level. Consensus has repeatedly supported notability for this accomplishment.
  8. And for all the other reasons on the talk page--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:20, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: To quote from
     RGTraynor  16:39, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • And to address a couple other of McDonald's points:
  1. Alerting Wikiprojects of pertinent AfD discussions is a courtesy, not a requirement.
  2. Why this article? Quite aside from that this tiny school with no history of NCAA football at any level makes a lot better case for non-notability than a contemporaneous coach at Penn State or Harvard? If you run into an article that doesn't meet the criteria for inclusion, it's suitable for the deletion process, period.
  3. Per deletion policy, it is explicitly the duty of editors who wish to save an article to provide
     RGTraynor  16:48, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Reply: It was? Have you any evidence of that? That aside, I just took a close look at the talk page for
     RGTraynor  16:58, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply
    ]
* None of those are discussions of your private notability essay. In the case of Dahlene, it is a heavily sourced article for the coach of a major program who wound up being a college president, a post that has been held to be de facto notable. In the case of Moulton, the nomination was withdrawn because he was an Olympic athlete, another de facto notable bit. Taylor had broad notability outside of football. Wright was inducted into the US Track and Field Hall of Fame. And so on and so forth. Truth be told, the thread linking all those AfDs are the passionate Keep votes made by yourself,
 RGTraynor  17:14, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply
]
I don't conflate people voting Keep in AfDs with them participating in adopting a consensus policy at a Wikiproject.
 RGTraynor  19:44, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply
]
I would say that the twelve projects that I notified are not exactly a "limited group of editors", plus with the listing among the essays category, the newsletter announcements, and other measures taken--it's not like two or three people got together and decided this--just that a few editors were actively involved in the writing of it. Many, many, many people have viewed and reviewed the essay. The essay has stood up against multiple AFDs in the past and even been referenced on projects outside sports as a model notability essay (Wikipedia Airports, I think). The broader community has been convinced. Yes, consensus can change, and the project welcomes all input on that consensus--but here is not the place to do it. And for the notability/athlete/people project, I think we already have... but I'll go there right now.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:13, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as not notable. Needs proof of signifcantly more non-trivial coverage coverage which is also non-trivial if it's to be kept. More detailed points:
    • WP:N
      requires non-trivial coverage. IMO mentions in record books etc is almost certainly going to be trivial probably listing no more than his record. The coverage in the link provided looks trivial to me.
    • My reading of "Competitors who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports" from
      WP:ATHLETE
      is that it should apply to amateur sports or at least sports that were amateur at the relevant time. American football is not amateur so I do not think falls under this category. Even if we accept that this guideline is meant to cover college football I doubt there would be many editors that would consider "Division III" top level. Given the coverage college football recieves in America I would have no problems with coverage of some of the players / coaches for the top teams but I seriously doubt this would stretch to Division III.
    • WP:N
      especially as it's not been adopted and doesn't look close to being.
    • I agree with the others that state that this is a perfectly acceptable place to discuss this. If CFB:COACH was an accepted standard then I might disagree but as it isn't it's perfectly proper to bring it here.
Dpmuk (talk) 17:29, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that although college football is amateur, american football as a sport is not. We do not have articles on players in the
Rugby Union up to the mid-nineties, where no player was professional so would never have qualified under the first athlete criteria despite the league they were playing in having a similar standing to the top league in professional sports. This clearly does not apply for college football as the pinnacle of an American Football career is the NFL. Dpmuk (talk) 21:03, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply
]
The existence of the NFL does not negatge the notability of college football. Please read
WP:ATHLETE more carefully. The second point says "Competitors who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports" not "Competitors who have competed at the highest level in amateur sports unless there is a professional league for that sport." --Paul McDonald (talk) 00:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply
]
I have read it carefully - it's only one sentence! It's basically all down to interpretation and what you take "highest level in amateur sports" to mean. As stated above I think this to mean "the highest level of a sport where the entire sport at all levels is amateur" (e.g. Rugby Union prior to 1995) whereas you take it to mean "the highest level of the amateur levels of a sport". I think both are valid interpretations of the sentence (don't you just love the ambiguity in the English language). However I think common wikipedia usage is more towards my interpretation. As stated above we don't automatically think the top plays in amateur football (soccer) are notable (there's a whole bunch of AfDs to support this). Likewise we don't have articles on the top amateur tennis players, top amateur baseball players etc. (unless they're notable for some other reason under general notability guidelines). Now I accept the situation in American Football is different to all these sports but it's a general guideline and it would be really odd if people interpreted it one way for one sport and another way for others. Dpmuk (talk) 01:20, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it is only one sentence... so why are you adding so much to it instead of just what it says? I hate to be harsh in discussions like this, but seriously: If you know it's only why sentence, how can you be getting it so wrong?--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:30, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please try to be
WP:FOOTY/N which has been accepted by many editors. Dpmuk (talk) 11:08, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply
]

Discussion invitations were sent to Sports and American Football projects.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:06, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment As this guy plainly fulfills the college football project's criteria, why are you seeking to have just this article deleted? Perhaps it would be more productive, if you believe the criteria to be contrary to overall notability standards, to seek to overturn the project's criteria and then revisit this question? Nyttend (talk) 20:29, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, I consider "signifcantly more non-trivial coverage" (which is what it said when I placed my "keep") to be equivalent to "lots". Anyway, seeing how many people we have in Category:American football officials and Category:Baseball umpires, I'd guess that other people than the actual sportspeople are generally considered to count under WP:ATHLETE. I'm well aware that other stuff exists, and that we're not debating whether baseball umpires should have articles, but please consider that "competitors" apparently isn't always interpreted as meaning just the people actually playing. Nyttend (talk) 20:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mm, that really is the overwhelming definition, actually; competitors are those who compete. As you say, this AfD isn't about baseball umpires, although I agree they don't qualify under
 RGTraynor  21:12, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply
]
  • It has been discussed to my satisfaction. I didn't see much of a counter argument regarding : 1) coaching as opposed to competing; 2) the "highest level" of college football; 3) lack of non trival coverage. I read people's points, I formed an opinion, I did not feel I needed to reiterate points already made, so I didn't. I'm also not quite sure how "amateur sport" is to be interpreted in
    WP:ATHLETE hence my mention of it. I read it as including those sports that don't have professional competition. Equendil Talk 00:11, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply
    ]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, lifebaka++ 15:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment / request. Please would he /she who closes this please delete all coaches with similar non notable bios. Kittybrewster ☎ 07:55, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Non-Notable. As if
WP:ATHLETE wasn't bad enough. No Wikiproject gets to give their favorite topic a free ride.Kww (talk) 13:54, 14 September 2008 (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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