Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2015–16 Alaska Anchorage Seawolves men's basketball 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 no consensus. I encourage discussion on the article talk page about renaming the article as discussed by some participants, to see if that addresses some of the concerns. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 12:11, 11 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

2015–16 Alaska Anchorage Seawolves men's basketball team

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This article is problematic on multiple levels. To start, there is no main article on the basketball team. There's no reason to put the cart before the horse other than to further push the encyclopedia in the direction of forever being a constant series of curious snapshots in time reflecting fleeting current events occuring within the encyclopedia's lifetime, already a major problem with this site. The article is a horribly incomplete data dump with little usable prose; the original revision contained multiple references to the Drexel Dragons, also revealing a pattern of cut-and-paste copycat content creation with little regard for article quality. The last game listed took place on November 28, 2015, whereas this story shows that they finished their season on March 3, 2016, losing a quarterfinal in the conference tournament. If we're really here to reflect what's notable rather than dump meaningless fanboy content, then the season article which needed to be created was on UAA's women's team. It took a little bit of effort to find the above story, as search results were dominated by stories of the women making the Division II national finals during this same season. Of course, the weight given in the article to game scores and other minor details at the expense of usable prose is a blatant violation of WP:INDISCRIMINATE, but that information shows a number of non-tournament games with an attendance of all of a hundred people or so. What's terribly notable about that? As an aside, UAF's normal venue for basketball is not the Carlson Center, so there's factual accuracy issues suggesting that what's presented in the article may require further verification. As the summer of 2016 within the UA system has been dominated by discussion of consolidating or eliminating athletic programs for budgetary reasons, it would stand to reason that the university would be guilty of gross impropriety were they to be regularly renting the 5–6,000-seat Carlson Center for games which draw 75 or 100 people. On top of all that, what really motivated this AFD was the recent creation of THREE categories (Category:Alaska Anchorage Seawolves basketball, subcategory Category:Alaska Anchorage Seawolves men's basketball and subcategory Category:Alaska Anchorage Seawolves men's basketball seasons) solely to support this one subpar article. Don't we have an admonition somewhere within the project namespace to "avoid puffery"? My previous statement about putting the cart before the horse applies here, too. With only the one article, all these categories hinder rather than help category navigation, again a major problem in general. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 01:13, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Basketball-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 01:54, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Alaska-related deletion discussions. Everymorning (talk) 01:54, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Rename and refocus: There's limited enough RS coverage to establish WP:ORGDEPTH for the team, however there's elements of the article which would form a foundation for a team article if cut down. I have linked the site, which contains all the up-to-date statistics that anyone who's interested could want. "Carlson Center" should have been "Patty Center" per this. ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 02:03, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any problem with refactoring. I left a notice about this AFD on the creator's talk page. In the course of doing so, I perused their contributions, which offers evidence of a certain pattern of being too busy creating content of this sort to properly curate any of it (another problem hardly limited to any one article or contributor). The fact that no one else has stepped up to the plate could be considered another indication of non-notability. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 05:05, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:22, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:23, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment A failure to maintain may or may not indicate a problem with notability. However, maintainability is a factor in software standardization, so why does it not have a stated role at Wikipedia? Unscintillating (talk) 18:44, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Articles about a team's season do not create a requirement to have an article about the team itself, because volunteers aren't required to develop the encyclopedia in a reasonable sequence. Unscintillating (talk) 18:44, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This article was marked in February 2016 as lacking sources. It is not acceptable that an article have no sources cited for any length of time, not to mention a future event, as it is easy to move articles to draftspace. There is no adequate WP:DEL-REASON for "no sources...fails WP:V", because WP:DEL7 is stated using notability logic that sources that are not cited are considered...so I must add WP:IAR to my !vote here. WP:V is a core content policy that requires verifiability in the article itself. Unscintillating (talk) 18:44, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It's not a future event. It already happened. The season is over. It ended in March of this year. Smartyllama (talk) 18:34, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The nomination states, "The last game listed took place on November 28, 2015, whereas this story shows that they finished their season on March 3, 2016, losing a quarterfinal in the conference tournament." I think most people would consider an article written in 2015, about a season ending in 2016, to be an article written about events that have yet to take place. Contrary to your premise that an article is ok if the topic of the article has shifted to being in the past, I think the fact that time has changed is actually (unnecessary) proof that there was no need to write this article before the season had ended. Unscintillating (talk) 23:44, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Articles are frequently written about seasons before they end, when the seasons are notable. In fact, that's pretty much standard practice here. We've had numerous previous AfD's to establish that this is acceptable. The only question, therefore, is whether this season is in fact notable. Smartyllama (talk) 12:58, 27 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

First you talk about WP:OSE, and then you claim that there are AfDs that have been decided on notability, which is a guideline; and imply that those AfDs ignored WP:NOT, which is a policy. If you look at what a policy says, it reads something like, "This is a widely accepted standard which all editors should normally follow." Your argument implies that it has become "acceptable" to ignore policy at AfDs, so you propose to do it here also. Yet this is the fallacy of argumentum ad populum, which administrators have a responsibility to reject. Unscintillating (talk) 01:19, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can show you about seven AfDs saying it's acceptable to create articles on seasons before they end if they're notable. I can show you about 500 season articles that are not yet over but which exist. If it were one or two, WP:OSE wouldn't be a valid argument, but when it's literally hundreds, I think it flies. And in any event, the season is over now so everything you say is irrelevant, we just need to add that information to the article. See here, here, here, here, here, and here, and that's not even counting the AfDs on similar premises for teams in other sports. So clearly it's acceptable to create articles on seasons before they're over if they satisfy WP:GNG or WP:NSEASONS, and there are literally hundreds if not thousands of articles about seasons still in progress, and even those that haven't started yet, across all sports. WP:OSE usually isn't an argument, but when there are literally hundreds if not thousands of articles, not to mention at least half a dozen AfDs, it's clear what consensus is. The only question is notability, which you haven't addressed at all. Smartyllama (talk) 13:47, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I find the Crystal argument both unpersuasive and a red herring: if X is notable and a set of scheduled events related to X is sufficiently notable, then the fact that the set of events may have not yet been completed is no reason not to have an article, regardless of whether it's sports or otherwise.

The Keep AFDs you've listed, however, are for Division I team seasons while this article is of a Division II team season. Are you arguing that all Division II team seasons should be retained as presumed notable, or that this individual team meets notability requirements for its season? ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 14:45, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The latter. Considering the school played and hosted several Division I schools in the Great Alaska Shootout, a significant tournament, they received significantly more coverage than most Division II schools. But as I said, if you want to discuss notability, let's discuss notability. But don't say it shouldn't be included because it's a future event, since that's wrong on multiple levels.Smartyllama (talk) 15:14, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete totally agree with nom's assessment. Also, this project is not a receptacle for indiscriminate collections of information such as general stats and a season schedule, including a TV schedule - give me a break! WP:NOTSTATS. This topic lacks any kind of significant coverage and therefore fails WP:V, and GNG. Steve Quinn (talk) 03:02, 25 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The article has potential and AFD is not cleanup. See also WP:POTENTIAL. Also, the article doesn't say the team plays their home games at the Carlson Center. They played two neutral site games there. Their home games are at the Alaska Airlines Center which is also quite sizeable, so perhaps nominator is confused, but that does appear to be accurate and per WP:BEFORE should have been checked before nominator made complains about inaccuracy. Not to mention their home games draw far more than "75-100 fans" if nominator bothered to read the article. The two neutral site games in Fairbanks drew that many fans roughly, but for the most part they were drawing 10-20 times more than that, in actual home games. Now, attendance alone doesn't determine notability, but it would be nice if nominator showed some evidence he actually read the article before nominating. Smartyllama (talk) 18:34, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"AfD is not cleanup" sounds like a WP:NPA issue in this context. As far as potential, where are the sources that cover this season? Coverage of Division 1 teams began in the pre-season. You are claiming potential but not adding references to this article. And the nom has demonstrated WP:BEFORE. If this season is over, where is the coverage in reliable sources? Responding at AfD rather than adding sources either here or into the article does not demonstrate notability for this topic. Pointing fingers at the nominator also does not demonstrate notability for the topic. Steve Quinn (talk) 15:11, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have plenty more to say, but real life means that I'm playing catch up every time I'm on here. I wanted to address Smartyllama, particularly their mention of the Great Alaska Shootout in their most recent reply. Frankly, the Shootout is a shell of its former self. Before the NCAA closed the applicable loophole, UAA, UAF and Chaminade had a regular "turkey tournament circuit" going, benefiting from the fact that top-tier teams could play outside the continental U.S. without it counting towards their season limit. I have no idea about the current status WRT Chaminade, but UAF's Top of the World Classic ceased to exist quite some years ago because of the NCAA's action. The attendance figures I see in this article and in recent years' media reports for the Shootout don't impress me. The Anchorage Northern Knights were drawing bigger crowds before the bottom fell out of that team and they were playing in a high school gymnasium, albeit one with a much larger seating capacity than what UAA's Wells Fargo Center offered prior to the opening of the Alaska Airlines Center. Our coverage of the Shootout similiarly doesn't properly reflect what's notable, instead offering up a current edition article each year containing precious little more than a tournament bracket. The rationale of the keep voters appears to be that if the team is notable, then every last piece of minutiae related to the team is also notable. They also don't seem to respect the fact that encyclopedic content is intended to be read by a general audience, not "by fanboys, for fanboys". The only era of this team's existence that really stands out in my mind was when Hansi Gnad was there. Otherwise, pretty WP:ROUTINE, which is precisely all we're reflecting. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 23:17, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Chaminade hosts the Maui Invitational, one of the most notable early-season tournaments. Smartyllama (talk) 23:53, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but retitle and repurpose to an article about he team. It's absurd to havean article about a particular season only. DGG ( talk ) 23:43, 10 October 2016 (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.