Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2016 VFL Women's season

2016 VFL Women's season

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I am bundle-nominating all league season pages of the VFL Women's competition for deletion. This bundle incorporates eight articles.

On balance, these articles fail WP:GNG, and this competition does not garner the level of coverage or references to justify having season-by-season articles. Existing references across all nine articles are almost exclusively non-independent sources (from the league's website, clubs' websites and scores databases), occasionally with a brief WP:ROUTINE article about the grand final result; in particular, although the recent articles have healthy-looking reference counts, it's largely padded by short non-independent, routine articles from club websites which fill out the tables of coaches, captains and best-and-fairest winners. WP:BEFORE searches for "VFL Women's" and "VFL Women's season", Google-filtered for news and excluding afl.com.au results, and the results are a very thin collection of local newspaper clippings which are closer to human interest stories than sports WP:SIGCOV.

I see no valid alternative to deletion, and that all content worth saving is already found on VFL Women's and List of VFL Women's premiers.

I am also nominating the following related pages under the bundle:

Aspirex (talk) 22:27, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Sports and Australia. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 23:34, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Women and Football. TarnishedPath^talk 08:02, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy keep: Competition receives WP:SIGCOV from what is left of the News Corporation legacy media, both at the statewide and local level. ProQuest has approx 400 keyword filtered references (there was 804 on my first pass through) for "VFL women" for the 2016 season alone, with spikes around the Grand Final and VFL/W Awards; across News, Fairfax/Nine and other Australian news sources. I find this AfD to be WP:POINTY and disingenuous. Merging these forks back into VFL Women's would result in an unweildy mess of an article. If the state-level competition of a women's Australian football competition does not warrant the little amount of referenced information currently present, are we WP:BUILDWP with useful encyclopedic content for future readers? Storm machine (talk) 11:56, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment how exactly is this a Speedy Keep 2c (making nominations of the same page with the same arguments immediately after they were strongly rejected in a recently closed deletion discussion)? Aspirex (talk) 22:12, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  the "2c" reference in my edit description was a shortening of my regular "2¢ plus GST" apologies for the confusion at your end. Storm machine (talk) 23:21, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  Cool, thanks. Aspirex (talk) 23:49, 8 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: I'd like to hear more opinions.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:36, 13 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per @Storm machine's argument. I would be concerned if an article with 40+ references can be thrown away as part of a bulk AfD without any attempt from the nominator to improve it further. What is the end goal here? Gibbsy^spin 03:55, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My point is the following: yes, 2023 VFL Women's season has 43 references (I assume that's the one you're referring specifically to); 37 of them are statements from club websites which serve to fill out this table of the names of captains and coaches, and this table of best and fairest winners. Every Australian rules football season from the lowest suburban/country level to the highest professional level could be written to at least this standard using a mix of club website references and WP:LOCAL newspapers, but that doesn't make them notable. What I can't find despite looking is genuine independent WP:SIGCOV of the VFL Women's which elevates this league to the point that it should have individual season articles. This is not a question of improvement – any article can be improved – it's a question of assessing the body of available references and reaching a determination of notability or lack thereof. My end goal is that this league be treated like all other low-coverage leagues in the Australian rules football Wikiproject: a main article with a history section, a list of premiers/grand finals, a list of B&Fs, and club-by-club information split out among the individual club pages. Aspirex (talk) 23:36, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Questions then: where are you stopping? Why do the VFL/SANFL/WAFL season articles exist in their current forms? Have any of those competitions had WP:SIGCOV to your standards since their heydays? Or has coverage retreated to the margins? If this is your baseline, then how does any sports non-top level competition fit into your ideal? Shall we inform the editors who maintain the AIHL, Hockey One, or Queensland and NSW Cup rugby league season articles of impending AfD?

The VFLW/SANFLW/WAFLW competitions easily pass WP:GNG and maintain enough coverage from what's left of the legacy media and enthusiast press to justify the level of content present to have season articles the same way that their men's equivalents do. Storm machine (talk) 10:00, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can you link some references? As I said in the nomination, my BEFORE searches have not yielded anything that looks like independent SIGCOV. I want to know what references you're looking at to draw your conclusion (and I'm sure the closer would want to see them as well). Aspirex (talk) 21:58, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Currently have nine non-AFL/club references for the 2024 season article, which given the amount of content compares rather favourably to say 2024 Carlton Football Club season to pick an article at random. Storm machine (talk) 02:22, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Half of those nine are routine match reports on the grand final. A couple are routine reports on NSW teams playing games against VFLW teams. Cherny's article is the only one which is genuine SIGCOV, but it is a general article about AFLW and VFLW pathways - it offers scant coverage of its VFLW season. Aspirex (talk) 03:35, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Go nuts and add more then: [1], [2], Storm machine (talk) 03:56, 16 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. A valuable collection of encyclopedic data, that is well resourced with both secondary and, yes, some primary sources. What harm does it do to keep this stuff? And it is a fair point, VFLW gets a broadly similar amount of media attention that leagues like Hockey One and the NSW Cup. So bring on the AfDs for all those articles and more just because you're pedantic. Global-Cityzen (talk) 00:57, 20 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]