Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of the Border (Lamar–McNeese)

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. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 08:39, 6 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of the Border (Lamar–McNeese)[edit]

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This "rivalry" appears to be simply a marketing slogan and does not have significant, independent coverage with which to meet the WP:GNG. Let'srun (talk) 18:41, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Sports, Football, Louisiana, and Texas. Let'srun (talk) 18:41, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: American football, Baseball, Basketball, and Softball. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 20:51, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment There are several media outlets that call this rivalry the Battle of the Border in their coverage. [1][2][3][4] Alvaldi (talk) 21:16, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Going over the sources, in the order in which they appear: Non-WP:INDY. SI bare stats that do not even mention a rivalry. Non-INDY. More bare stats. Non-INDY (and a mangled cite). Non-INDY × 3. Non-INDY and another mangled cite. Non-INDY × 10. I'm not going to read all the non-independent material from school publications to see if even they have any in-depth material on a "rivalry" as such, since none of it counts toward notability. A couple of sentences might be mergeable into the articles on the schools in the sections under their athletic departments, but since it doesn't seem like anyone declares a "rivalry" to exist other than people at the schools, even this doesn't really seem like encyclopedically pertinent claims, and the all the sourcing for it would be WP:PRIMARY. The bare fact that there's a local name, "Battle of the Border", for games (in various sports) between teams from these schools might be worth including at the school articles, since Wcquidditch's sources above show the term used in independent (local news) sources. But none of them refer to a rivalry, and they're not in sufficient depth about this as a long-term series of games to make it notable. The first is about a particular instance of "The three-game series" in one season of baseball, and is almost entirely focused on players and on team stats, not a series of events as such, or a rivalry. The second is about the outcome of a specific football game and how players performed in it. Ditto the third one but basketball. And the fourth but back to football. So, what we have here is simply proof that locals, including the students and the local press, refer to games between these schools as "Battle[s] of the Border". It's arguably pertinent to mention this in schools' athletic sections, but this is not an encyclopedia topic on its own. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:35, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. In addition to the sources that Alvaldi has uncovered above, there is also this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this. Ejgreen77 (talk) 23:04, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The depth of coverage needs to be evaluated; other factors considered in determining whether a series may be considered a traditional rivalry include: (i) geographic proximity of the schools (in this case 60 miles apart on the interstate); (ii) the existence of a trophy or an official name for the series (present here); (iii) competitiveness of the series (McNeese has the edge but not a runaway); (iv) length and frequency of play (series has been played for > 70 years and with regularity); and (v) prominence of the programs (not present here - programs not particularly prominent). Cbl62 (talk) 01:42, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Only the first factor is relevant to whether this should have an article. It matters not one whit that it may have been played for 70 years or has a trophy. It matters whether anyone outwith its coiners has ever documented it, and its trophy and whatnot, in depth during those 70 years, which is only marginally the case from the aforegiven. Uncle G (talk) 09:51, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  - outwith, coiners and aforegiven: Brings to mind a zinger coined by old Bill Shakespeare: "Who knows himself a braggart, let him fear this, for it will come to pass that every braggart shall be found an ass." SIGCOV is the touchstone, and no one has said otherwise. That said, it is entirely appropriate (one might even say "snotor") in close cases to look at other real-world factors in determining whether or not a series of football games is worthy of a stand-alone article. Cbl62 (talk) 16:45, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I think the coverage is enough to warrant this staying.KatoKungLee (talk) 00:40, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CycloneYoris ^talk! 02:12, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: agree with SMcCandlish's eval. Sources show that students and school boosters use the phrase and that local news covers local sports. A phrase being mentioned in routine local news does not meet GNG, no sources from WP:IS WP:RS with WP:SIGCOV addressing the subject directly and indepth found in BEFORE. // Timothy :: talk 02:16, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Appears to pass GNG with given coverage, including articles providing direct significant coverage from at least seven different publications. Unlike what TimothyBlue seems to be asserting, locality of coverage has no bearing on whether coverage can count towards notability in these types of instances. BeanieFan11 (talk) 03:20, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The sourcing provided by User:Ejgreen77 is the kind of WP:SIGCOV we need to establish a rivalry as notable. Cbl62 (talk) 23:01, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Meets WP:GNG, per the sources brought forth above in this AfD. Ejgreen77 (talk) 18:27, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The Subject meets the WP:GNG and WP:BIO. Micheal Kaluba (talk) 08:17, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:36, 28 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ejgreen77's new sources are:
- a 1966 newspaper article that devotes 5 sentences to the subject (before going off to concentrate on the subject of the individual players of two sports teams), and at least gives us some historical context, although wouldn't justify a whole article;
- a 1982 newspaper article that is a headline-only match, and spends all of its body talking about a single family with two sports players in it that have ended up in competition with each other;
- a 1979 newspaper article that is fairly substantial, analysing the rivalry itself for a major fraction of the piece, and has an amusing "I don't know that it can be classified as a great rivalry" quotation;
- a 2022 newspaper article that is a headline-only match, that is actually an after-match score report and doesn't discuss a battle or a rivalry at any point in its body, and is a prime example of research-by-search-engine-keyword-matching without reading the source;
- a 2022 newspaper article that spends its first 4 sentences on the subject, and is like the 1966 one, providing more stuff on the subject for its development in the 21st century, building it up, making this three not very big independent sources, with a huge gap in the history between 1979 and 2022; and
- a 1971 newspaper article that ironically explains why the 1982 article is a non-source, since it supports adding content saying that the 1982 situation is run of the mill and why it is run of the mill, which still leaves a huge gap in the history, but it's four small sources now.
Alvaldi's sources are all only phrase matches without content like Ejgreen77's first 2022 article, and one of them is that article, which overlap one would think people actually reading the sources proffered would have spotted. Even doing proper citations instead of bare URLs would have made this duplication easy to spot.
I could make a fair stub out of this, but it would have glaring holes in it that the phrase-only headline-only matching research doesn't fill in. Amusingly with regard an earlier comment in this discussion, the second 2022 newspaper article explains how this is not something that has gone on continuously for 70 years, because it explains that there was a gap when it didn't. We have 40 years missing, during which there could have been further gaps, for all that we know. Would that people were properly researching this, instead of phrase matching with search engines!
So that's a stub with probable scope for expansion, although we have no sources to show that the scope for expansion, to the missing decades, and to the other sports (the proffered sources all discussing one sport and not even the women's teams), is definitely there.
Uncle G (talk) 09:51, 28 November 2023 (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.