Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mack Brown Curse


 * 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. — Jake   Wartenberg  00:48, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Mack Brown Curse

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The topic fails the general notability guideline (Notability); it hasn't received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Since the "Mack Brown Curse" lacks such sources, the article conducts original research (No original research); it's trying to define and promote the Curse rather than reporting on an established meme. (The forum community that created the article is here; there is some discussion of how to establish notability and achieve "high visibility".)

A breakdown of the current citations:
 * A column in the UT student newspaper. The author posits a curse but doesn't claim that it's a popular idea among college football fans, so it's a primary source rather than a (required) secondary source. Reliability and independence are debatable.
 * This is a blog.
 * None of the other sources (NBC, ESPN, SI) mention a curse. Melchoir (talk) 09:48, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Ahem -- | Yahoo! Sports / Rivals has an article covering this. Not sure how this qualifies as "original research" any more. Rimbo (talk) 07:33, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

What's really promising are these other forum comments by Ketchum on the story thread: "...This is a pretty well-known topic that's been discussed in the media all of the nation. Mack's been asked about it at various times... There have been newspaper columns about it in recent years." In other words, Ketchum is claiming that there exists evidence of notability-in-the-Wikipedia-sense, but he doesn't say what that evidence is! You should ask him for citations to the media. Failing that, I don't think Orangebloods.com should be considered an independent, reliable, secondary source. Google classifies it as a blog rather than as news. The article doesn't identify an author with a separate editorial staff, so its journalistic credentials are suspect. It may have corporate sponsorship from Yahoo!, but that isn't relevant for WP:RS. Melchoir (talk) 09:02, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. -- Jeandré (talk), 2009-11-06t12:04z
 * Delete - obvious promotion through original research. Urgh. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:00, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete: References are of poor quality. Smacks of WP:NEO. GreyWyvern (talk) 17:42, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - Update: Funny folks should mention "original research," as Yahoo! Sports -- via Rivals -- has actually published an article extensively covering the Mack Brown Curse. Y'all wanna review those deletion nominations now? Rimbo (talk) 07:24, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I for one happen to find sports lore fascinating. But the cure for original research is to yank it -- not to shuffle it around between articles, or to embellish it with even more OR. Melchoir (talk) 00:17, 9 November 2009 (UTC) Note, this comment was in response to another comment which has since been deleted by its author. Melchoir (talk) 09:04, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It is not "original research". At least, not anymore.Rimbo (talk) 07:33, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm... this story was posted just today, so I found the convenient timing suspicious at first. But it appears to be a coincidence. On the "Can someone post the All Mack Brown Curse Team?" thread, Geoff Ketchum himself commented on 11/7, "We've been working on the story for a couple of weeks. Coming Monday.", which suggests that the Orangebloods.com story is causally unrelated to the Wikipedia article.
 * Delete per nom.  Gongshow  Talk 05:12, 10 November 2009 (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.