Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/National Academic Championship

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 delete. Wizardman 03:32, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

National Academic Championship[edit]

I have worked with this article on and off for a few months. There are really no reliable sources to cover this article. The article has been greatly pared down, until an an editor asked why it existed in the absence of reliable sources. Searches turned up blogs, message boards, and the company's rather biased home page. Article was deprodded. Fails WP:RS. LonelyBeacon (talk) 15:15, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep with revisions. This deletion campaign has arisen over the "unreliability" of the criticism (since first-hand reporting and falling attendance don't appear to be valid... but that's another story), but there is still significant information on the page that is neutral and undisputed (rules, basic history, champions). These pieces of information are "reliable" - a search on Factiva reveals a newspaper article on each national champion since at least 1990, for example. --Bdsmith (talk) 17:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

~~I cannot vouch for others, but please do not accuse me of a bad faith nomination (which is what you are indirectly doing here, whether it is intended or not).~~ This criticism deletion may have been the impetus for generating discussion, but I can assure you that it is not the reason for this AfD. There may be those who are upset about a critique being thrown out, but when it came down to it, there was a question as to how an article can exist without the presence of reliable source written about the subject. The sources regarding past champions can be discussed after secondary sources written about the subject of this article can be found. My concern is that there aren't any, and another editor (I believe the one who deleted the critique) even noted that in the absence of those sources, the standing of the article is shaky. I searched, and could find no supporting secondary sources. LonelyBeacon (talk) 17:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To counter your reliable sources, I come from a town of 17,000 that hosts an annual spelling bee. Every single champion over the past 40 years has had an article in the local papers. That does not confer notability to the spelling bee. If the bee itself were the subject of articles and such, then the spelling bee makes an assertion of notability. The articles you describe assert the notability of the teams involved, and could be used to build a case to support their claims of a championship, but as I read WP:N, the sources you describe are not enough. LonelyBeacon (talk) 18:05, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete if no independent sources on the championship exist (apart from random local reports of school teams winning it). --Dhartung | Talk 18:44, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep' Some of those associated with the article assert that no sources can be found. I find that extremely strange, but I myself am not in a position to find them. If sufficient stories have been written about winners of the contest, they are notable for winning the contest--in which case the contest is also notable. DGG (talk) 18:58, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete no secondary sources. DGG, perhaps its sounds strange, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. As LonelyBeacon noted, articles on winners are not secondary sources. There are many articles on schools/students winning non-notable conttests. Without secondary sources, there is no notability. 64.107.182.4 (talk) 19:36, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Wikipedia policy. WP:RS states that "if an article topic has no reliable sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." Since sources for this article would consist of the tournament's own page, message boards (the main hub of quiz bowl communication) and a quiz bowl specific Wiki, none of which would be reliable, the site must be deleted per Wikipedia policy. --Leftsaidfred (talk) 02:48, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as reliable sources cannot be found. Shawn Pickrell (talk) 13:26, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Wikipedia policy. The issue at hand is that the topic of quiz bowl in general does not have sources that meet Wikipedia's standards of reliability. Are there hundreds of intelligent people from whom you'd be able to get perfectly accurate information? Sure. Do the supposedly reliable sources that quiz bowl Wiki articles consist of anything more than interviews with a small sample of those people, interspersed with uninformed perusal of a few websites? Regrettably. I don't think the participants will ever consider the "scholarship" written on quiz bowl, if ever there is any, to be an accurate portrayal of the activity. Other issue, DGG: it's horribly circular to say that the competition is notable because to win a competition is notable, and things with notable winners are notable. If I hold a looks-like-me contest in my backyard and win it, by your logic I am notable (and deserve an article) since I've won something, and the contest is notable because I won it. To establish that this competition is notable, you'll have to find a lot more besides "it has been won." Everyday847 (talk) 19:05, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

as I worded it, I do not think it circular. If winning a competition is notable, and this can be shown by a great number of good RS media references to people winning t hat competion, that proves that the competition in turn is important. If it werent, nobody would bother mentioning that people won it. DGG (talk) 00:52, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do we operate from the presumption of inclusion, that things are notable unless proven otherwise? I don't think so. Your idea of "good" media is kind of silly, because it's not like these pieces are great journalism; it's the same formula of team x won competition y, let's interview the contestants, done. That literally does make every competition notable, since when almost anything happens there's an article written about it somewhere. This reminds me a little of Euthyphro--is that which is pious so because it is loved by the gods, or because of some innate quality? I think that there ought to be external criteria for whether something is notable--we shouldn't say that it's notable because people have noted it. 68.162.156.58 (talk) 02:30, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and mark with citations needed. Just because you have not found reliable sources yet does not mean none exist. dml (talk) 00:37, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are, technically, right in saying that there's no implication there. Hypothetically, there could be sources. But ask anyone involved in the community: there are no sources that satisfy Wikipedia policy. Keeping "citation needed" is a fraud; it suggests that people are trying to find them (or that they could potentially exist) when really neither is the case. If we had a "unsourceable" tag, or a "rank speculation" tag, then sure--but the idea of "citation needed" suggests "otherwise accurate, or of some kind of determinant truth-value, but not sourced," which is not at all the correct impression.68.162.156.58 (talk) 02:30, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A 2 minute lexis-nexis search turns up

St. Petersburg Times (Florida) June 28, 1991, Friday, City Edition Bloomingdale "brain team' is winner despite losses BYLINE: MICHELLE JONES, SECTION: BRANDON TIMES; Pg. 3, LENGTH: 477 words, DATELINE: BRANDON

Newsweek July 2, 1984, UNITED STATES EDITION A Different Sort of Sport BYLINE: DENNIS A. WILLIAMS with DIANNE H. McDONALD in New York, BARBARA BURGOWER in Dallas, TENLEY-ANN JACKSON in Los Angeles and MARGO C. POPE in Jacksonville SECTION: EDUCATION; Pg. 72. LENGTH: 1718 words

and a weak USA TODAY June 15, 1992, Monday, FINAL EDITION ALABAMA SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 8A LENGTH: 3863 words DATELINE: TUSCALOOSA

* Strong Keep dml (talk) 18:26, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See, I lexisnexis the phrase "national academic championship", and here are my results:

1. Washington academic team is tops

Tulsa World (Oklahoma), June 11, 2008 Wednesday, News; Pg. A5, 232 words, ANDREA EGER World Staff Writer

2. Middle school to compete nationally

Tulsa World (Oklahoma), May 29, 2008 Thursday, News; Pg. A8, 380 words, NORA FROESCHLE World Staff Writer

3. E-Town Quiz Team 2Nd At States, Goes To Nationals

Lancaster New Era (Pennsylvania), May 7, 2008 Wednesday, B; Pg. 7, 401 words, Robyn Meadows

That gives us what, a thousand words of primary sources? And here's an excerpt from the first article. I don't know what you can do with the following, but if you can make an encyclopedic article out of it, props:

"The teams were asked to identify the designer of a pair of pants being modeled in a photo and were given the clue that the designer had recently died. Rogers correctly answered, 'Yves Saint Laurent.' 'The other kids were like, 'Huh?' And the other team didn't have a clue," McGinnis said. "Jordan's more into current events and that kind of stuff.'"

I'd like to reiterate my call to delete this article since it is impossible (believe me! I've been part of this community for years now!) to find any secondary scholarship, or any primary scholarship better than a few hometown newspapers noting that a team went there. (I also searched ebsco, which might actually contain, you know, some secondary scholarship (if only in the form of uninformed article-writers editorializing), and I found nothing with the phrase "National Academic Championship." Eventually I found an article on "Quiz Bowl" but it was essentially an interest piece about the coach of Byram Hill's team and the "superstar" he discovered in some kid named Nate Mattison. It's also bad enough that it describes quiz bowl as basically team Jeopardy. Everyday847 (talk) 14:53, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might increase the timespan search for your references, just because there is little in the past two years doesn't mean there isn't more in previous years (also many print publications are not in online sources pre-1995). Granted, there are probably no books on the subject, and the individual articles may be weak, but a collection of lots of individual articles can easily be used to verify the various facts (format, it exists, so and so won, it was once on TV as Texaco Star National Academic Challenge (which I think alone provides sufficient notoriety, someone just needs to look up TV Guide back in 1990 or whenever)). Also, try looking for "Chip Beall" in your digging. dml (talk) 16:09, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Um .... could you elaborate on the exact nature of those articles. Just because they show up on a search does not make them secondary sources. We already have numerous other sources about teams winning the tournament that do not qualify as secondary. Just because they show up on a search does not make them secondary sources. LonelyBeacon (talk) 19:17, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No hyperlinks to the articles are possible as far as I know, they are pre-Internet, and they are copyrighted or I would include the text, but you can find them in Lexis-Nexis if you have access (most universities do). The Newsweek article is especially on point and detailed, describing the tournament, the others are basically winners of X, which I think is still valuable, but not as good. dml (talk) 19:33, 18 July 2008 (UTC). See also [1] for additional links, not optimal, but from reliable sources. dml (talk) 20:59, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info. The Newsweek article could be an article that would work, but without being able to see it, I can't comment on it. The others not only aren't secondary sources, but prompt a concern I have in doing searches of this nature. A few of the hits that came up had nothing to do with this tournament, and instead dealt with a national collegiate tournament for historically African-American schools sponsored by Honda. These were not among the sources that you mentioned. LonelyBeacon (talk) 08:17, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I'm not sure we are allowed to operate under assumed reliability. There are several editors, experts in national quizbowl, who have searched for reliable secondary sources to meet WP:RS. They have all consistently turned up negative. I welcome and encourage anyone to find neutral, secondary sources to support this article, but please do not simply assume that they must exist. LonelyBeacon (talk) 01:54, 18 July 2008 (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.