Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Laos women's national 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. Consensus is that the newly revealed references establish notability. Kubigula (talk) 04:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Laos women's national rugby union team

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I have trouble finding proper sources of this team. I start to fear it is a hoax. Please proof me wrong! Night of the Big Wind talk  00:06, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

No hoax. Laos hosted the Asian Women's Championship (Div 2) last month, and - as the article says - have been playing for some years now. Photo and tournament report can be found here and you can also inspect their Facebook page here. There is even a picture of the team here.

How much more proof do you need?

And why do you question the veracity of Laos women's rugby, but not any of the other 53 or so women's national rugby team pages?Johnlbirch (talk) 00:21, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
 * A few reliable third party sources is all need... Night of the Big Wind  talk  00:29, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

I assume these are reliable enough? I can produce video and quite a lot of photos as well if you like. Johnlbirch (talk) 00:32, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Asia-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:36, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Rugby union-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:36, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Can we take this deletion notice off now? Or would you like me to put anyone who still doubts the existence of this team in touch with the managers, the PR guy, the sponsors, the Lao Rugby Union... Johnlbirch (talk) 00:38, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Being angry is not a reason to close the nomination. Supplying reliable third party sources is. So, no first hand stories or pictures and no own research. Any newspapers articles about the games of the team? Night of the Big Wind  talk  00:55, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment Unfortunately the given sources do not seem to support the claims. The IRB ref does not work but this page does not indicate much about either the men's or women's teams. The rugbydata link is about the men's team. The third reference only mentions the women's team in an advert for their sponsor and the 4th reference comes up as a 404 page. Unless better refs can be provided it should be deleted. noq (talk) 01:26, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. Two links don't work. One doesn't mention the team. The remaining one is a passing mention by a sponsor. However, the team certainly exists, it's up to the articles defenders to provide some reliable third-party sources which show the team is notable. And no, facebook pages and blogs don't count. Tigerboy1966 (talk) 23:27, 25 December 2011 (UTC)
 * DO NOT DELETEI may not be too good with the politics of Wikipedia, but I am very puzzled why you have problems with the Laos team and not any of the other 53 women's test playing nations. Is it just because its small and Asian? I also find it strange that you object to a page about the nation's women's team, but not the men's Laos_national_rugby_union_team, which has considerably less information or "original research". Far be for me to suggest that there is some sexism or worse involved with these complaints but it seems really odd - and, I feel, gives me every justification for not only being angry but absolutely livid. I have now added some links to a recent report on the tournament Laos hosted, and a link to - yes - a Facebook page, but a page that includes photos and videos. I hope these will do. If you want newspaper accounts to back all this up as well then, I'm sorry, but newspaper coverage of women's sport is famously poor. If you will not accept a report from ScrumQueens - the leading women's rugby news website - then we may as well strip all mentions of women's rugby, not just from Laos, but from Netherlands and the rest of the world, from WikipediaJohnlbirch (talk) 20:50, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, for your information: It is not necessary to add sources in English, although they are appreciated. I have no problem with sources in other langfuages, as long as their in a program available to translate it to an understandable level. Google Translate does not offer Laotian, but it does have Chinese, Thai and Spanish in its package. Maybe you can find newspaper articles in those languages to backup your claim. Night of the Big Wind  talk  21:53, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Please WP:assume good faith and read WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Just because other pages currently exist that may not meet the inclusion criteria is no reason to retain this one. Wikipedia articles are based on WP:notability and WP:verifiability. Without these then pages are likely to get deleted. The report on the tournament is good and helps your case - the facebook one doesn't. The scrumqueens link would incline me to keep the article. noq (talk) 21:06, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, what is wrong with the Facebook page? If you look at the main Laos Rugby Federation page its page on national teams links to the Facebook page for further information about women's rugby and the 2011 Asian Championship. It is therefore an official page. It includes video and photographic evidence about the team which I would have thought would be more convincing than the ScrumQueens article, which you do accept.Johnlbirch (talk) 00:50, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The problem with a Facebook-page or other social media pages (including Twitter), is that it is a first party source. Wikipedia requires others to write about the subject. Night of the Big Wind  talk  16:00, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment Just so no-one thinks I'm sexist, I should point out that Laos_national_rugby_union_team looks very dodgy as well. Tigerboy1966 (talk) 23:04, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Really? Why are you not suggesting its deletion then? Along with Mayotte national rugby union team and Réunion national rugby union team and New Caledonia national rugby union team and Peru national rugby union team and Kyrgyzstan national rugby union team... I could go on and on. All of these articles have fewer sources and less supporting articles than the Laos women's national rugby union team, so logically all (and many more besides) should be marked for deletion. Of course they are all men's rugby articles... Johnlbirch (talk) 00:41, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * comment WP:CHILLOUT - Wikipedia is not perfect but that is no reason to hit out at people trying to make it better. You may not agree with other editors but that is not a reason to hit out - all you are doing is highlighting other articles that people may then nominate for deletion. You are reading too much into this debate and not arguing in a manor that will help your cause - The scrumqueens link helps but your belligerent attitude here does not - try to achieve consensus rather than ranting. noq (talk) 00:53, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

All, I hope this finds you well and thank you for your spirited debate regarding the veracity of the 'claims' regarding the Lao Women's National Rugby Team, as well as for your work to improve wikipedia. I am writing to you from the Lao Rugby Federation and would like to urge you to contact us directly in the future on info@laorugby.com with queries related to our national rugby sides, as we are able to provide you with a variety of third-party sources backing up the information posted on these pages, which we have NOT curated. These third-party sources include the Asian Rugby Football Union - 1 and ARFU - 2, the IRB, HSBC, lead sponsors of Asian Rugby, the Lao National Sports Committee and local Lao press, most of which is not readily available online or in English language. Here are two articles from the Vientiane Times, a daily English language newspaper, regarding the Lao WNT's participation in the Asian Women's 7s; I have uploaded photos of the articles on our facebook page because the Vientiane Times online archive requires a subscription. Now that this has been brought to our attention (thank you Johnlbirch and Nancy) we can work to provide access to these third-party articles in Lao and English from our website, www.laorugby.com, which provides extensive information about our national teams. Thank you for your consideration, and please do not hesitate to be in touch with further questions (info@laorugby.com). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maggielao (talk • contribs) 02:56, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * We Have A Winner erm, I mean Keep. The press clippings are legit. Vientiane Times indeed has a great paywall, but at least one of the articles shows up in a site search .  Notability established, though it would be great if someone who is interested in this topic took up the offers of User:Maggielao and got some more sources in to the article. :)   Liv it ⇑ Eh?/What? 02:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep Third party sources provided by Maggie above check out. Will se what I can do to improve the article using them. AIR corn (talk) 22:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep Nothing quite like going straight to the source. Edward Vielmetti (talk) 09:56, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete. Verifiability is necessary but not sufficient. Stifle (talk) 16:46, 29 January 2012 (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.