Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of roller derby leagues

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. Cirt (talk) 20:45, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

List of roller derby leagues

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An absolute horrorshow of failures of verifiability and notability; not one listing in one hundred is sourced to anything more than the subject's own website. This needs to be burnt to the ground and something solid built where it stands. Orange Mike | Talk 02:00, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad you've taken in interest in the list. It would certainly benefit from more people who are interested in its topic and who are capable of constructive edits.

Replacing primary source links with citations is on the agenda, and if you had visited the discussion page you'd have seen that we're starting to work on that, along with other edits to better achieve the list's purpose, which is supplementing the history of roller derby article, charting the growth of the sport from its inception to the present day — something thus far accomplished with a list requiring no original research or arbitrary standard of notability.

Those of us who have an interest in the subject are confident that nearly all of the leagues have mainstream press coverage. So the WP:V issue certainly isn't insurmountable and is more a matter of finding the time and doing Google searches, and following all those links and checking out the leagues' own press archives.

But ultimately, it's notability that is the key issue, for even if you succeed in destroying the list, it'll just get built up again without any concrete standards of notability beyond the general notability requirement: mainstream press coverage. At Talk:List of roller derby leagues#History and rationale I pointed out at least two proposals, Wikipedia:Notability (sports) and Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise, which would provides notability standard for sports leagues and lists spun off from articles, respectively, but neither of those efforts seem to be going anywhere, and I'm not aware of any others on the table. This seems to leave us with the status quo, satisfying general notability, yet you seem to feel the list needs to satisfy some higher standard of notability that you haven't articulated.

It would be nice if you would participate on Talk:List of roller derby leagues and help us establish some criteria of notability and verifiability for the list which would fulfill its purpose to your satisfaction, without introducing bias by omission, increasing our maintenance burden over what it is currently, or otherwise resulting in an unenforceable standard. In other words, those of us with an interest in the topic are dedicated to improving the list in its current form and we welcome concrete proposals for improving the list, if not direct participation. Perhaps you could muster something beyond just dismissing it as a "horrorshow" that needs to be "burnt to the ground"? —mjb (talk) 03:43, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. This list received attention from the nominator and others after being mentioned at Wikipedia:New contributors' help page#inserting an external link that does not take you where it sould. My comment there about the inappropriate lead refers in part to Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:24, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the pointer. The lead was written in accordance with WP:STAND#Lead and selection criteria and was intended to discourage additions to the list without references. In hindsight, it wasn't successful and probably needs more work, which I'd be happy to help with if you really think it's high priority. IMHO, efforts would be better directed toward seeking better references and more complete info in the short term, and discussing notability and pruning options for the long term. (I've gone ahead and rewritten the lead. Thanks again.) —mjb (talk) 00:54, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It's unfortunate that this is at such a primitive state, but it seems to be under active development. There are sufficient sources for the general subject that it should be possible to develop criteria. As for the GNG, I suspect that there will be the necessary 2 or more articles from the relevant years in each of the city newspapers. We could do some actual research now, or wait for Google News to catch up. Temporarily, a start might be made by splitting off the professional leagues. DGG ( talk ) 06:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Other than having been a "horror show" that should be "burnt to the ground", the only reason for deletion seems to have been that it was not "sourced to anything more than the subject's own website". From what I can tell, there were links to individual pages, but these were not considered to count as "sourcing", since they weren't in the "ref></ref" form, but that technicality (and it was a technicality) has been fixed. Roller derby may be cheesy, but it's been a business for more than 75 years, and it's no less encyclopedic than other forms of entertainment. I'm not horrified. Mandsford (talk) 14:06, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- reply - Verifiability is a requirement, not an option. This list is chock-full of supposed entities for which there is no evidence of their existence, other than what purport to be their websites. There is nothing to preclude somebody from making up their own fantasy RD league, setting up a hoax website for it, and then adding it to this list. Heaven knows there are precedents (hoax bands with hoax discographies and articles on their hoax albums, for example). --Orange Mike | Talk 16:24, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One of the prices of the free encyclopedia that anybody can edit is that there is always the possibility that false information can be added to any article. In that sense, they're all horrorshows, I suppose, but the WFTDA teams seem to be real enough [1]. Perhaps someone will agree that the article needs to be burnt to the ground. Mandsford (talk) 18:46, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Contrary to the unfunny sarcastic nomination, the subject is notable and the list could be brought up to grade by anyone willing to work with the subject. Warrah (talk) 19:14, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Here's verification of the existence of the vast bulk of the leagues on the list. What the list is beginning to provide that that page does not is determination of when a league formed and when it ceased to exist. Oh wait, here's more verification. That's a list of all USARS member clubs. Here's 78 WFTDA leagues. And 24 more WFTDA Apprentice leagues. Lets not forget the six OSDA leagues. I'm not entirely sure that all of you actually exist, but that hardly calls for arson. TimBRoy (talk) 09:22, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but definitely clean up, even if it means rewriting the article from scratch. The subject is notable. In the current form, the list/article is full of contradictory information, and it seems to list some leagues as different when they in fact seem to be name changes for the same league. Peter G Werner (talk) 19:53, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- comment - Thanks for the constructive feedback, but is there an example you have in mind? Please let us know on Talk:List of roller derby leagues what information seems to be contradictory or duplicated, and we'll fix its content and/or presentation ASAP. Whatever it is, it's not obvious to me, but maybe I'm too close to the subject. Thanks! —mjb (talk) 23:28, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep A useful reference for editors working on related articles and for users researching the field. Improvement of the article is needed. Nomination is mean spirited and does not assume good faith on the part of the many editors who have contributed to this article. - Michael J Swassing (talk) 03:34, 13 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - yes, it's a mess that needs to be seriously cleaned up (I would suggest removing every external link and citation which uses a primary source, and start from what's left), but the wording chosen by the nominator is exactly what many people find frustrating about Wikipedia. Perhaps a refresher of deletion criteria would help him discover that this is a textbook case of a topic that needs to be improved, not deleted. That improvement should include clearly establishing that the topic of the list is notable, and removing all the external links to specific leagues since that's probably the only standard which isn't arbitrary. I'm okay with someone nominating an article for deletion without understanding when it's appropriate (that's how we learn), but can we at least avoid language like "burned to the ground" while we do it? (Full disclosure: I think roller derby is cheesy myself.)--otherl left 15:55, 16 November 2009 (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.