Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hart Legacy Wrestling


 * 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. No consensus for a particular action has emerged in this discussion. A few people have suggested the possibility of a merge, which can be further discussed on a talk page. North America1000 02:04, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Hart Legacy Wrestling

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Basically a WP:COATRACK to Hart wrestling family, Stampede Wrestling and related topics. The article is loaded with sources of dubious reliability or relevance to demonstrating the topic's notability, to the point of offering the impression that the promotion's tenuous relationship with the Hart family is its claim of notability, rather than anything which actually occurred. From reading the article, I was able to determine that they've held one wrestling event, which was not financially successful. The article and its sources dwell on that one event while leaving plenty of doubts as to whether they've actually held as opposed to merely announced any other events. When I was growing up, your typical wrestling promotion held 300–350 events per year, year in and year out, so whoop-dee-fucking-doo about this promotion maybe holding two or three events per year, if that. Last I checked, we're supposed to be here to reflect notable occurrences, not serve as another social media site promoting bottom feeders, regurgitating press releases and the like. Pacific Northwest Wrestling includes mentions of (loosely-)related successor promotions which are not independently notable. As such, this promotion and the countless others that have laid claim to being Stampede's successor in Calgary since its 1989 demise could easily fit within a paragraph or two towards the bottom of that article. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 18:54, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - I disagree with pretty much everything that you've said. This page wasn't made to promote anything. I made it mostly because of the fact that it's had two relatively big controversies and has been covered by CBC.ca, the Calgary Herald and the Calgary Sun. If you think it doesn't deserve it's own article and should be included in the Stampede Wrestling article that's one thing, but don't claim that this articles intent was to be a "social media site promoting bottom feeders" as you said. I have absolutely no interest in making the people who handle this promotion any favours. I personally feel that it is notable enough that it can have it's own article but it's up to other people to say if they agree.&#42;Treker (talk) 21:12, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Wrestling-related deletion discussions.  RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  18:55, 30 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2016 January 30.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 19:17, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - AfD is not the place to suggest merging articles, although I would oppose that as well. This is not Stampede Wrestling, and it does not seem sufficiently connected with Stampede to be included in the article. The rest of the nominator's rationale is a series of WP:IDONTLIKE it complaints ("Things were better back in the good ol' days.") that are not based in policy or guidelines. GNG is satisfied because of the extent of coverage in independent reliable sources (no, not all of the sources present are reliable, but the ones that are more than satisfy GNG). GaryColemanFan (talk) 21:38, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I forget how many years ago it was that Maclean's put Madonna on their cover. I do remember the furor which ensued over how Canadian media should be about Canada and not the United States.  Considering that, there must be lots of slow news days in Canada, because this absolutely reeks of "slow news day article".  Unfulfilled promotional hype and unpaid bills are a fact of life in the wrestling business, even at a lot higher levels than this.  That the project has chosen to categorically avoid sources which portray certain (read: uncomplimentary) views of the business, regardless of the editorial oversight of those sources, doesn't excuse away that fact.  Speaking of the "good ol' days", Bill Watts wrote that he was able to start Mid-South Wrestling because of the political connections he developed in Louisiana.  There once was a time when athletic commissions were a very real thing, and wrestling promotions had to conform to their desires and pay for the privilege, too.  The state of Louisiana was one of a number of jurisdictions which granted an exclusive franchise to promote professional wrestling.  According to Watts, the state was tired of dealing with different promoters in every town or region, with unpaid bills being one of the chief reasons why.  Watts was talking about the 1970s.  So this promotion is more notable than any other financially unsuccessful local promotion for what reason?  As I deal a lot with topics related to sparsely populated regions of the earth, saying that something having to do with Calgary is a bigger deal than some dude promoting the East Bumfuck War Memorial Auditorium amounts to systemic bias.  Otherwise, it's continuing to validate my concerns of WP:COATRACK.  I didn't even bring up WP:NOTINHERITED, while we're at it.
 * The mere existence of a few reliable sources here and there is no indication of notability or suitability for inclusion. By this criteria, every local wrestling promotion and traveling wrestling huckster in history receiving more than trivial media coverage, even if for skipping town with financial obligations, is entitled to a Wikipedia article.  I was researching magazine and newspaper articles on professional wrestling back in the 1980s when there were no web search engines.  Various wrestling historians have published newsletters and websites over the decades which track the appearance of professional wrestling in reliable sources throughout the early and middle 20th century.  Even if those sources lack a URL, they still qualify under editorial oversight, and it would be no problem to expand our coverage in that direction.  As a strictly practical matter, however, we're not going to do that.  Once again, what makes this particular promotion special?  Whatever fleeting connection it has to the Hart family?  The lead makes it pretty clear that this is what we're hinging its notability upon.  If Bret Hart has nothing to do with the promotion, he doesn't need to be mentioned, period.  The lead mentions other members of the Hart family as "operators" of the promotion while a different set of names are listed in the infobox as "owners", and only confuses the relationship between those two entities the further along it goes.  Either you're unconcerned about a general audience who is unfamiliar with the people and particulars involved, or it's further evidence of my concerns, or both.
 * While I don't necessarily agree with the unreliable sources satisfying GNG, do they satisfy BLP? Last I checked, I'm allowed to raise BLP concerns regardless of whether or not this is the most apprpriate forum for it.  I'm reading a lot of names and specifics in connection with malfeasance in the article text, not mentioned in such detail in the CBC story but mentioned in detail in perhaps unreliable sources.  I've read plenty enough over the years to suggest that Smith Hart lacks credibility in certain circles, but I'm not rushing to include any of that in a BLP article.  However, he makes an announcement of a match which never happened, with no evidence presented that the associated event ever happened.  There's a heap of ref tags surrounding questionable sources "verifying" this.  So the reaction to the announcement is what's notable here?  I ask because I see little or no evidence that any of the events announced actually occurred.  I think it's important we get something like that straight, otherwise we validate the criticisms of Wikipedia as wannabe newspaper or TMZ.  Any one of us can be on a blog or on Facebook all day long, stirring shit in the hopes that a media organization will take notice of what we're saying, further allowing us to have a "reliable source" with which to game Wikipedia's coverage.  There's evidence of that all over the encyclopedia.  Is that a solid approach to building an encyclopedic information resource?  No.
 * Back in 1985, when in my late teens and too dumb and eager to know any better of what I was getting myself into, I became briefly involved with the business in an utterly minor role. My mother worked for a guy named Bruce Kendall and my older sister and I both worked for one of Kendall's closest business associates.  One of the multitude of enterprises that guy engaged in was promoting professional wrestling, in conjunction with a former wrestler.  They also set up a wrestling school.  The venture lasted all of six months (August 1985 to February 1986) and was fraught with problems from the get go.  However, they were affiliated with the AWA, which was really more an excuse for Verne Gagne to go on a fishing trip than anything else.  Still, we had guys like Zbyszko and the Freebirds who performed in front of more fans in a single show than Smith Hart ever did in a month of Sundays, excepting perhaps his few tours of Japan and Puerto Rico.  This promotion also received some amount of local media buzz for being the first pro wrestling in Alaska in well over a decade (Don Owen Promotions announced an upcoming show in Alaska in May 1983, but I've yet to find any evidence of whether it actually took place).  From what I can tell, the promotion held more events and drew more paying fans, either per event or total, in six months than Hart Legacy Wrestling has in nearly four years of existence.  The point here is that I could dig up all sorts of reliable sources related to that promotion and plaster together an article, and you would still view it the same way that I'm viewing this.  Do different standards apply because I happen to view a URL which happens to point to a media outlet which qualifies as a reliable source?  The Anchorage Times is also a reliable source, but since it went out of business in 1992, there's no URL to be had were I to do what I just described.  As there's plenty of attitudes of "no URL = no WP:V" to be found on here, this is also a systemic bias issue which needs to be acknowledged. RadioKAOS /[[User talk:RadioKAOS| Talk to me, Billy

]]/ Transmissions 14:42, 31 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry I don't see how any of these arguments make sense or how your story about being involved in the industry when you were younger is relevant at all. You simply don't seem to like this article and want it gone. Since when does it matter if it was a slow news week as you say.&#42;Treker (talk) 16:32, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it's just a difference in perspective. Here's another one.  I make my living in a very results-driven, boots-on-the-ground line of business.  Therefore, I'm flabbergasted someone would believe that the notability of a company boils down to how much media buzz the company generates for themselves, all the while said media and other ostensibly reliable sources tell us that the company is as long on media buzz and name recognition as it is short on actual accomplishments.  Notability is what we're discussing.  Last I checked, we're supposed to give more weight to accomplishments than to announcements in determining notability.  I've been through a number of AFDs of articles constructed by patching together sources but not patching together a coherent narrative or clear claim of notability to tie everything together.  Eventually, some editor will argue that the mere existence of the sources constitutes notability, but that hasn't saved the article from being deleted.  As I said before, this is at the level of suggesting that any one could write a Wikipedia article about themselves. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  18:41, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I still don't see how anything you've said supports the deletion of this page. I don't care for what businesses you have worked with or for, it isn't relevant. This article isn't meant to promote any media buzz for the promotion or support it. It's here because the events surrounding it, both controversies and charity events has been covered by notable news sources in Canada and in the pro wrestling sphere, PWInsider, PWTorch, F4W and Canoe are all decently reliable sources for news about pro wrestling. I also wouldn't suport including the material in Teddy Hart since the controversy appears to be more surrounding the promoter, the Hart Family's wikipedia page since the event only seem to have included about three or four of it's members, or the Stampede Wrestling's page since this clearly isn't that promotion.&#42;Treker (talk) 19:50, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This discussion has already reached the point of being too polluted by the perspective of wrestling fandom. Plenty of editors will be happy to beat you over the head with their contention that we're here for a general audience, period.  To that end, there will be readers who won't be viewing this article through fanboy goggles.  If they view this promotion as simply a company and not expressly as a wrestling promotion, we leave lots of doubt as to just what the fuck the big deal is, anyway.  I also should point out that my line of business is heavily competitive.  Compounding that, Trump's rise to prominence is entirely too appropriate, as the predatory, dog-eat-dog economic environment which has kept New York City afloat all these years has spread throughout the rest of the country.  Resultantly, I don't need Casey Kasem to tell me to "keep reaching for the stars".  As I've been working for a living since I was 16 years old, I already know that I need to keep reaching for the stars, otherwise I don't eat or sleep as well the next day.  I've also been involved in politics in years past.  I think I can safely say that you don't stick around that long in either business or politics if all you do is issue press releases.  You have to go out and do something, and the article's text and sources are painfully short of describing what they've actually done.  It's little surprising that the project hates on Ring of Hell so much, as it dwells on the less noble aspects of the Harts, with one chapter entitled "Turd Polish".  Go read it and you'll think that this promotion is just the next episode in a lineage of such behavior.  At least Stu Hart had willing guinea pigs and a healthy business to boot.  Anyway, I didn't feel like it before, but I guess it's necessary to invite other perspectives on this. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  20:26, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions.  RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  20:26, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions.  RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  20:26, 31 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The fact that you've been working since you've been 16 or what you work with has no relevance to anything. Don't turn this into being about me and you and insulting me. The only one here with an obvious bias is you. I don't have any "fanboy goggles" and if you think the writing is sub-par you can chose to fix it. If other editors think the article deserves to be deleted due to lack of notability they can gladly do so but stop questioning my intent in creating it and tossing information about yourself and your credibility towards me.&#42;Treker (talk) 20:54, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I got my first job when I was 11, so that somehow proves that this Wikipedia article should be kept. GaryColemanFan (talk) 02:52, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete, has held a total of three shows ot looks like. Coverage for not paying and for lying about the Benoit kid.... yeah I am not seeing that being about the company but a section in articlez on Teddy etc.  MPJ  -US 16:30, 31 January 2016 (UTC)


 * It is true that most of the coverage of the promotion is about the controversies but the charity event in December 2015 was covered by both the Ottawa Citizen, Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald.&#42;Treker (talk) 17:06, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't wish to dwell about inherent media bias. Here in the United States, I can tune in 24/7 to any number of media outlets masquerading as the Trump News Network for all the minutiae I can stomach.  That doesn't mean that every little last bit of it is appropriate to encyclopedic coverage of Trump or the presidential race or any other related topics.  Same applies here, except that minutiae is needed in this case to fill up content, so that you have anything at all. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  18:41, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't wish to dwell on media bias either but since you brought it up, I'm not Canadian nor have I ever lived in Canada. The fact that some Canadian news sources have chosen to write about pro wrestling instead of something else doesn't matter, the sources may be from somewhere but they're available everywhere through the internet. Of course every detail about the presidential campaign cannot be included in the article, it would end up being ridiculously long and cluttered, but by that logic a lot of articles should not be deemed relevant because they don't have as large amount of media coverage as Trump. As far as I'm concerned notability has been covered.&#42;Treker (talk) 19:50, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * "...but they're available everywhere through the internet." – Yeah, I get it. It's a new world order, the Internet has made us one big world now, etc. etc.  Doncha know that you're only here to consume content?  You want a contextually coherent and relevant understanding of the topic, too?  Sheesh, you kids today are so demanding... RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions  20:26, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - It doesn't matter how many shows they've had, it's still a notable promotion, because if that's the case then delete Wrestling Society X. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.214.94.65 (talk) 15:23, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Weak delete. There's not much here: two events and some money troubles following on from the first of these. I'm unconvinced this organization meets the GNG. Mackensen (talk) 23:52, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, &mdash; Coffee //  have a cup  //  beans  // 02:29, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Hart wrestling family Lots of routine coverage about their events and promotional controversies, but I don't think this deserves its own article. It's only the family connection that generates any coverage so a redirect seems like a better idea.Mdtemp (talk) 01:21, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Redirect perhaps at best as this may be best connected to the family and may not yet be solidly independent. SwisterTwister   talk  06:38, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep, I would not oppose a merging/redirect but there are enough contents and coverage to sustain a separate article from Hart wrestling family.  CBC Radio, Canoe.ca, Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun etc. are reliable sources and most of the coverage is significant and covers events promoted by this federation, so I don't see where the  coatrack is supposed to be. Cavarrone  22:29, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 17:16, 11 February 2016 (UTC)


 * 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.