Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ireland national schoolboy rugby union team


 * 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 keep following improvements made over course of AFD. Neıl ☎  00:29, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Ireland national schoolboy rugby union team

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

This is a sub-stub article on a non-notable sporting event referenced only to primary sources (thereby failing WP:N), with no meaningful content (which makes it a candidate for speedy deletion). This is a list entry mistakenly created as an article merely to remove a redlink in a template. I speedy-deleted a previous version after it was tagged as a copyvio, and it's only becuase it feels inappropriate for me to do a second speedy that I bring it to AFD rather than speedy-deleting it per WP:CSD. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:06, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ireland-related deletion discussions.  . -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:11, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete No assertation of notability but I don't think it falls under any speedy criterion. I'm just curious, how is this "a list entry mistakenly created as an article merely to remove a red link"? Ten Pound Hammer  and his otters • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 14:10, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * You were too quick in your response, I hadn't finished the nomination. :) It's speediable per WP:CSD: "No content. Any article (other than disambiguation pages) consisting only of external links, category tags and "see also" sections, a rephrasing of the title, attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title, chat-like comments, and/or images." The redlink issue arises from the template, which would contain a redlink if this article didn't exist; an article which merely restates its title serves no other purpose. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:17, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, I get it now. It's too early for me to think... but I did make yet another unnecessary link to red link. Ten Pound Hammer  and his otters • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 14:27, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Do we think it belongs on the template? If so, then having a stub seems sensible. It might encourage people to expand it. If not, then it should be removed from there too. --DanielRigal (talk) 14:28, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Isn't that starting from the wrong end of the issue? Looking at the template first seems like the tail wagging the dog :( Surely the first question is whether the subject is notable enough for an article, and inclusuion on the template is a subsidiary question which arises only if notability is established. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Isn't that starting from the wrong end of the issue? Looking at the template first seems like the tail wagging the dog :( Surely the first question is whether the subject is notable enough for an article, and inclusuion on the template is a subsidiary question which arises only if notability is established. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 *  Possible weak keep: It is only a stub so reference deficiency may not be fatal. As for notability, it is a national team, so maybe it qualifies. I think most junior national sport teams have articles. There are loads of articles about US college football teams although that might be different as adults actually seem to follow college football in the US. --DanielRigal (talk) 14:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * NB The history of this article is not fully visible, so is worth summarising:
 * Created on 3 March 2008 by User:Alexsanderson83 with content "The Irish Schoolboys rugby union team is the national team for secondary school students in Ireland."' plus stub tags and navigation template
 * 27 March: tagged by me as unref and nn, and PRODded as "16-word unreferenced sub-stub article which neither asserts the notability of the subject nor offers any evidence of it; it just restates the title"
 * 1 April: deleted by User:Jmlk17 as expired PROD
 * 21:22 3 April: recreated by User:Alexsanderson83 with same content, and a references section referencing only primary sources
 * 21:23 3 April: bot-tagged as a copyvio
 * 21:24 3 April: Speedily deleted within 2 minutes by User:Cobaltbluetony
 * 21:25 3 April: Recreated by User:Alexsanderson83
 * 21:26 3 April: bot-tagged agian as a copyvio
 * 21:26 3 April: Speedily deleted again by User:Cobaltbluetony
 * 21:27 3 April: Recreated yet again by User:Alexsanderson83
 * 21:27 3 April: bot-tagged yet agian as a copyvio
 * 5 April 06:02, speedily deleted by BrownHairedGirl -- (Speedy deleted per (CSD A1), was a very short article providing little or no context. using TW)
 * 06:54, 5 April 2008 recreated yet again by User:Alexsanderson83
 * At this point, it should probably be salted. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:05, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete It doesn't even work as a stub. The article doesn't add anything to the title, other than to tell us that "schoolboy" means high school boys rather than elementary school boys.  "Ireland national schoolboy rugby union team" means the national team (of Ireland) for secondary school students (hence, "schoolboy") who play rugby union.  No content, no sources, no assertion of notability.  Even if it were sourced, would it be any more notable than, say, the Nevada all-state high school basketball team? Keep Okay, fifth time's the charm.   Looks like Alexsanderson has made the changes that make the article work.  The added content shows sufficient notability for me, and this is a different article now than what was nominated. Mandsford (talk) 16:12, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with most of what you say, but not the last bit: Nevada is a sub-unit of a country, but Ireland is a country. If this topic has a claim to notability, it's in the fact that it it is a national team. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:21, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Luk  suh  16:24, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete and (in view of the history) salt. JohnCD (talk) 17:26, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete: Fails WP:N.  Otolemur crassicaudatus  (talk) 18:50, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - at no point was it a copyright violation. Another website mirrors what wikipedia shows and that was the link.Alexsanderson83 (talk) 18:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I had not added to the article as there was a bot mis-firing. I shall work this article up to decent standard.Alexsanderson83 (talk) 19:16, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Admin comment: I was apparently in error in deleting this article as a copyvio. Had I looked more closely at the website listed as the copyright holder, I would have seen that it itself was a mirror of this article. - CobaltBlueTony™ talk 20:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. That being said, I am uncertain as to how this team fits into the levels of pre-professional teams/leagues permitted by WP:FOOTYN, so I'm going to call on another user I know to be more well-versed in this area to comment. - CobaltBlueTony™ talk 20:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * As it's not a football team, FOOTYN is not relevant.... ChrisTheDude (talk) 21:07, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply - the article about the England national under-16 football team is in the similar state as this article was. I believe the major issue was with the shortness of the article and the inherent problems that came of the article being so short.Alexsanderson83 (talk) 21:05, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Please re-read the nomination; the major issue in this AFD nomination is the lack of notability. (The brevity also qualified it for speedy deletion, which has been fixed by expanding the article, but that doesn't affect notability). You have added lots of references, but they are all to primary sources (leinsterrugby.ie, connachtrugby.ie etc, all IRFU-related websites). To demonstrate notability, you need to find evidence of substantial coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject. The English article is irrelevant to the notability of this one (see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS). -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:29, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply - added references from the bbc and the times.Alexsanderson83 (talk) 21:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment and with those references, I've changed my vote. I urge people to revisit the article as improved. Mandsford (talk) 23:06, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply. I have just looked again, and see:
 * A ref to BBC story which reports on one of the players in his role for a school team, but which doesn't even mention the [Ireland national schoolboy rugby union team]]. So that's irrelevant to the notability of the team
 * A ref to Heavengame.com, which is a community site, and that's not a reliable source
 * A ref to an article in the Irish Independent about the "U-18 Six Nations" competitions. There is nothing in the article to confirm that the U18 team is the same thing as the Ireland national schoolboy rugby union team.
 * ... so notability is not yet established. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:58, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * The u-18 side and Schoolboys is one and the same. There is one cited source that verifies that, I can trawl for others if necessary.Alexsanderson83 (talk) 01:22, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Citations needed :) -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:32, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

The article now includes a long list of references, but the vast majority are only brief mentions of individual players, not coverage of the team. Of the references which area actually about the team, I have so far been able to verify only two reports which look remotely substantial, and one of those doesn't use the same name, so may not refer to to the same team. There are plenty of village sports teams which receive much more coverage than has been offered so far for this one, so I don't think that notability has been established. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC) Then a reference to an article on the IRFU website (not an independent source, so irrelevant to notability), and a few mentions on a specialist Irish rugby site. The rest are just more rugby-specific sites. So it looks like this team gets coverage in rugby circles, and the odd brief mentions on BBC N.Ireland website, and that's about it. This is at best marginal notability, but what concerns me is that if we accept this obscure team as notable, we'll then have the usual proliferation of stub articles on one-day-wonder players who featured briefly in this team. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and this team is a step too far. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC) But, since you mentioned personal involvement, I took a look at your contribs list and notice that you have made a lot of Rugby-related edits recently, including creating a series of one-line sub-stub article referenced only to the same primary source which you listed in your list of article creations. I wasn't aware of this before I made my comment above, but it's an unexpectedly perfect illustration of my concern that notability guidelines need to be strictly enforced wrt to sports teams, because of the strong tendency of some sports-interested editors to splatter articles which amount to nothing more than glorified list entries. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:46, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete and then salt Snappy56 (talk) 04:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - Article has been substantially improved. Not a copyvio, verified by independent sources (eg heavensgame) and is notable, a national representative sports team that plays against other national rep teams. - Shudde   talk  10:44, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - Added sources from The Times and The Irish Enquirer to satisfy those RS people. Clearly a notable topic, is insane that it needs to be asserted via all these references just to avoid deletion. No one is disputing the fact that the team represents Ireland and plays again other international sides, yet they'll happily delete someone's contributions anyway. Where is common sense? - Shudde   talk  11:49, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply. If you disagree with the notability guidelines, you can go to Wikipedia talk:Notability and try to seek consensus for their abolition. In the meantime, the extra references are one match report in the Irish Examiner (308 words plus team listings), and two references to stories in The Times from the 1990s, which I can find no trace of in Google or Google News.
 * Their matches are obviously covered by some major newspapers. I can assure you that there are many more newspaper articles on the team, but just because someone hasn't trawled through all the newspaper archives yet doesn't mean they don't exist. I quickly added those three to void this AfD turning into even more of a waste of people's time, so don't get the impression they are the only ones. For the record I used factiva to find the articles, it's much better then google news. - Shudde   talk  14:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - Ireland are a test match playing rugby union nation. It has context and sources. I don't understand why it is still up for deletion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fronsdorf (talk • contribs) 10:51, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete. Fails WP:Notability per WP:RS. - Kittybrewster  &#9742;  11:18, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions.   -- Fabrictramp (talk) 18:50, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - a real solid article, strange that it is still up for deletion. Londo  06  06:27, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. It is notable. Just because it doesn't show up in US-centric news sources, doesn't mean it doesn't have notability. Is the BBC reliable enough for a source?? :,, , , (a reference to the team), , . Then we have other sources as well: , ,  (even mentioned in the French media),  (Australian media - where they tour every 4 years), --Bob (talk) 15:36, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * What's this, a URL dump? From the BBC: 4 trivial articles, another one [about the Ulster Cup, which doesn't even mention the Irish schoolboy team, a 200-word piece on the team coach, a 72-words plus team listing notice.
 * comment - 'this team is a step too far' - respectfully I believe that is POV. As an admin you have asked for further details which have been satisfied. I believe you may have become personally involved in this article, with editors illustrating the interest in the team through Australia, England, France, etc. I would request any further detail we may at this point require, although further details have been added at this point, so it may well be a moot point. Londo  06  17:14, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply "a step too far" is my judgement on how this article measures up against the notability guidelines, and I don't have an admin role in this debate -- someone else will close it.
 * Reply What other sources do you want?? How about the Irish Examiner??, , the Belfast Telegraph?? and there are more including loads of rugby sites such as this one. We don't see Beatritz de Dia in the news, so by your logic should we get rid of that article??
 * The team is notable, is referred to by reliable, secondary source, multinational news media which are not affiliated with the subject ie not presented by the IRFU, and is referenced to numerous times in biographies of current and past players and is one of the major stepping stones to test level rugby in Ireland. This is not your local pub team, like you are inferring. It is so much more. --Bob (talk) 20:40, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep seems notable enough IMO plenty of verifiable and reliable source.--BigDunc (talk) 20:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Ditto - Keep Peter Clarke  07:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep I would say it is notable, referenced far better than a lot of 'stub' articles.PeemJim86 (talk) 00:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep It's a surprising claim that an international schoolboy team in a major sport is not notable, as any games played are surely widely reported. (The current U18 tournament is certainly widely reported - perhaps a rename to schoolboy and U18 level would remove some objections?) -- roundhouse0 (talk) 11:57, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. National athletic teams are notable, regardless of level. B.Wind (talk) 06:07, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - not Irish, but reckon this article asserts itself pretty well.No9shirt (talk) 08:25, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment - This article has now been up for deletion for over a week. It has clearly been improved beyond recognition, surely time to close the afd down.Alexsanderson83 (talk) 14:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep - Is this an attack on the Irish, Rugby or Schoolboys? This articles stands up to be counted for me. Real quality sourced article. GarethHolteDavies (talk) 14:32, 14 April 2008 (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.