Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2016 MAAC Men's Soccer Tournament

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 delete, after extended time for discussion. bd2412 T 19:17, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

2016 MAAC Men's Soccer Tournament

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These amateur university conference soccer tournaments do not receive enough independent secondary coverage to be presumptively notable under WP:GNG, and the MAAC league tournament is one of those tournaments. All of the sources here are WP:PRIMARY and per my before searches there is not enough secondary coverage to properly source the article. I'm fine with creating a redirect if consensus takes us that direction, and I will reconsider the nomination if someone can present consistent non-routine media coverage of the tournaments.

Since this tournament does not get consistent secondary media coverage, I am also nominating:

2015 MAAC Men's Soccer Tournament

2012 MAAC Men's Soccer Tournament

2011 MAAC Men's Soccer Tournament

SportingFlyer T·C 22:15, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 01:04, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Connecticut-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 01:04, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Florida-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 01:06, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 01:07, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Football-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 01:09, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related deletions.CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 01:10, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Snow Keep, partially for the WP:IDONTLIKEIT nomination, and partially because a quick Google search returns reliable secondary sources. We had a similar discussion earlier and no consensus was reached (although I felt there was a consensus to keep, but the closing admin sided with the minority). Quidster4040 (talk) 01:24, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, I don't think this nomination was made it good faith. Lacking sources does not merit an article failing GNG. Not only that, I question the nominee's effort to find secondary, non-routine coverage of the tournament. In the time it took him to scramble an attempt to purge college soccer off of Wikipedia (why the nominator is so offended by college soccer, let alone it's notability is beyond me), I found these non-routine, secondary sources related to the MAAC tournaments:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. I could certainly go on, but in the interest of saving the nominator the embarrassment, I'll stop here. Cobyan02069 (talk) 01:37, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Lacking sources does not mean an article fails WP:GNG. Of the sources you've identified, you only identify four sources: theridernews.com, quchronicle.com, topdrawersoccer.com, and collegesoccernews.com. The first two are university newspapers and are not secondary/independent. Top Drawer Soccer simply regurgitates the WP:PRIMARY news releases presented by the teams (see [1] and compare to 16: they're the same) and none of the collegesoccernews.com even mention any of these tournaments at all. I've done work to make sure this one wasn't a swing and a miss, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Football#U.S._University_league_cups, and I am definitely bringing it in good faith/am glad to be embarrassed. SportingFlyer T·C 02:04, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Keep. per above. ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-^☖ 05:20, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I'm not seeing significant coverage of the competitions themselves - just routine news about local college teams participating. Giant Snowman 09:07, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per the above sources. The argument that the sources aren't about the tournaments but about participation in the tournaments is ridiculous - what else do you expect them to cover if not what's going on in it? Smartyllama (talk) 15:35, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Even with the source-bomb, all of the sources are either from the teams, reprint sources directly for the teams, or aren't about the teams, and are routine match reports (team played in tournament versus coverage of the tournament.) We would not keep an amateur English competition where the only sources we had were WP:PRIMARY. SportingFlyer T·C 18:29, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So some sources are invalid because they are about the teams and some sources are invalid because they aren't about the teams? What exactly would be a source that establishes notability in your mind? Smartyllama (talk) 18:59, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No. Most sources are invalid because they are written by the teams participating, or (in the article) written by the league which puts on the tournament and are WP:PRIMARY. Topdrawersoccer.com is invalid because it simply regurgitates WP:PRIMARY sources. Some other sources - the collegesoccernews.com sources - don't mention the tournament at all or only in passing. A valid source to me would be one written by a secondary source that covers the topic significantly - for instance, as I've noted on the Wikiproject Football board, a one or two sentence recap that a team won the tournament is not significant coverage (there was an article written by a newspaper that covered two tournaments in three sentences.) Considering we're discussing amateur tournaments, this isn't a great source, but if we were discussing the FA Vase, would in my mind help establish notability: [2] I can't find anything close for most of these articles. SportingFlyer T·C 19:16, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, I've had disagreements with others in past debates about the notability of sources, not due to content of the source but due to the source itself. But the sources provided by Cobyan, to me, seem to satisfy GNG. The newspapers mentioned by Cobyan, upon further investigation, are independent of the university, and not news services by the universities. If they were the official university news service, I would be inclined to agree with Sporting about it not being notable. Usually I want to give benefit of the doubt with people nominating articles for deletion, but this seems like a repetitive process to delete college soccer related articles, despite abundant evidence of GNG. Top Drawer Soccer and College Soccer News may be niche for some people, but they are generally seen within the American soccer community as reputable sources, who often do original reporting, and analysis. Twwalter (talk) 23:55, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Twwalter: The question isn't whether Top Drawer Soccer or College Soccer News are reputable are not, but whether they actually cover the topic of the articles significantly. If they did, I'd be happy to say they pass WP:GNG and would source the article instead of nominating it for deletion! The issue is, for these tournaments, Top Drawer Soccer directly reprints articles written by the participating clubs, which is not secondary, and none of the College Soccer News links cover the MAAC tournaments at all apart from mentioning the winner of the tournament, which is not significant coverage. SportingFlyer T·C 18:34, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@SportingFlyer: That's fair, thanks for clarifying. In that case, upon reading your rebuttal with Smartyllama and providing your link to BristolLive, I'll still maintain my opinion that this article and others should be kept. I think we're ultimately going to disagree, but I do agree with you in the extent upon reading further into the source bomb, not everyone of the 16 or so sources Cobyan provided may meet GNG. I will say though that not every source Cobyan does provide is invalid. To me at least, based on your reading of GNG and Cobyan's source drop, I would say sources 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, and 15 meet GNG for this tournament. The others seem more fluff to me, or not entirely relevant to this specific rendition of the MAAC Tournament. Twwalter (talk) 23:17, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your thoughtful response and going through the sources. 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7 are student university newspapers. I think we'll still disagree, but I do not think they are independent enough coverage. #10 and #12 clearly do not meet WP:GNG, since they are direct reprints of WP:PRIMARY articles: 10 was first printed at [3] and #12 was first printed here [4]. #15 contains one sentence about the tournament in a preview of the first round of the NCAA Tournament, which I don't think is significant coverage. I'm trying hard not to be WP:POINTY because I thought this would be a more straightforward nomination, but I think this is at best an edge case and am trying to make clear generally this was made in good faith. SportingFlyer T·C 05:18, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@SportingFlyer: Of course. That is fair, and I'll still maintain my position that student university newspapers, being that are independent and not university-funded or supported, which these seem to be, are notable secondary sources. I can't speak on behalf of every student newspaper, but several I have known of have been known to pay their journalists and the only necessary connection to the university is in their namesake, and the core emphasis of coverage, much like how a newspaper like the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette focuses on Arkansas and Little Rock-specific news, although I doubt anyone would question their legitimacy of original reporting. I'll reaffirm that I think the independence of the sources and paid staff allows me to feel comfortable calling those sources reliable secondary sources, and thus allows this article to meet GNG for reliable secondary source coverage, allowing me to further feel comfortable that this article, and other college soccer tournament articles for that matter should be kept. But of course our opinions should be taken with a grain of salt. I don't expect there to be a consensus, or ever be a consensus, of those sources (I'm sure some will agree with you and with me, since it seems to be a grey space of interpretations, but I would like to see other editors chime in and see their thoughts. Twwalter (talk) 16:50, 7 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: There's some strong feelings here and a large number of sources presented. There are also some strong rebuttals of a number of sources as PRIMARY. I think there is no harm in extending this discussion to see whether there is any additional input that would move us to a wider consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Fenix down (talk) 12:41, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete/Merge to 2016 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference men's soccer season. Reviewing the sources provided above, I do not believe this establishes notability. www.collegesoccernews.com and www.topdrawersoccer.com are specialized sources that are close to the topic, as well as routine coverage of routine events. The season as a whole may be a notable topic but the tournament for a non-major conference is not. If others believe this is notable content, there is still no reason it cannot be covered in the article with the rest of the season rather than separately: per WP:SPORTSEVENT, "consider developing the topic in the existing article first until it becomes clearer that a standalone article is warranted. Although a game or series may be notable, it may sometimes be better to present the topic in an existing article on a broader topic instead of creating a new standalone page." None of the keepers have explained why this needs to be standalone. Then again, seeing how undeveloped that article is, and the results here and here, I'm not sure if that season article is notable either. Reywas92^Talk 22:52, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - per Quidster4040, Cobyan02069, and Matthew J. Long. Articles seem to pass WP:GNG. Inter&anthro (talk) 00:57, 9 February 2019 (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.