Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Notre Dame Fighting Irish football series records


 * 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 after twice re-listing and extensive debate. --Anthony Bradbury"talk" 11:54, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Notre Dame Fighting Irish football series records

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

As argued in three similar, successful AfDs earlier this year—Articles for deletion/Iowa Hawkeyes football series records, Articles for deletion/Arizona Wildcats football series records, Articles for deletion/Texas Longhorns football series records—this list details statistics of minor note that have not garnered significant coverage in reliable third-party sources so as to warrant a stand-alone article. Granted, Notre Dame is one of the most storied teams in college football history, but not substantively more than Alabama, Michigan, or Texas, for which similar lists have been deleted by the same rationale. Jweiss11 (talk) 19:37, 27 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep Article is well researched, well-maintained, and has coverage in reliable third-party sources (see the footnotes on the page). This makes it unlike the Iowa, Texas, Alabama, Michigan, and Arizona pages. Shatterdaymorn (talk) 19:38, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment Does this list pass WP:GNG and WP:List or fails WP:NSTATS? Some of the sources such as "winsipedia" are unreliable. Also, the prior discussions had the consensus that these lists should not exist at allUCO2009bluejay (talk) 23:56, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Football-related deletion discussions.  Programming Geek  (Page! • Talk! • Contribs!) 22:41, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions.  Programming Geek  (Page! • Talk! • Contribs!) 22:41, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:56, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:56, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:56, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Indiana-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:56, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:56, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 16:18, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep Well researched. Top team. Noteworthy. Keep it.VanEman (talk) 17:09, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment. For the record, I voted "Keep" on the first of these AfD's, however, the widespread community consensus was crystal clear to delete this entire class of articles, as evidenced in the links above. If we're going to do that, then, IMHO, we should go ahead and do it, and not create some sort of special "Notre Dame exception" to that existing consensus. Basically, we either need to delete this one or un-delete all of the other ones; and, at this point, I don't really care which one we do, just so long as we're consistent about doing it. Ejgreen77 (talk) 18:06, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment Wikipedia does distinguish between coverage of elite teams and teams that are not elite WP:NSEASONS. So, even though for most schools series record is not notable, for an elite school this may not be the case. I think that is true here. I thought it was true for Texas, Michigan, and Alabama, but those articles were not well sourced. That being said, Notre Dame's article is well sourced and that shows that it passes general notability. Shatterdaymorn (talk) 2:51, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, Wikipedia does not "distinguish between coverage of elite teams and teams that are not elite" simply because there is no objective criteria for determining exactly what an "elite" college football team is. Not to mention that the perception of which teams are "elite" or "not elite" can change over time. For example, is Tennessee an "elite" team? If you asked people living in 1998 that question, the answer would be "Yes, absolutely." If you asked people in 2016 the same question, the answer would be "Definitely not." And, what about old-time, historical powers like Georgia Tech and Minnesota? There is simply no objective way of determining which teams are "elite" and which ones aren't. Ejgreen77 (talk) 00:49, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment Is there a reason it cannot be moved to the main Fighting Irish football page? Cake (talk) 00:21, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete - Previous consensus is that articles of this type are not encyclopedic, especially when it includes 52 teams that they haven't played. Records against teams as part of a notable rivalry (e.g. Navy–Notre Dame football rivalry) belong in the appropriate article, otherwise we must invoke WP:NSTATS. — Jkudlick • t • c • s 06:28, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep article "contain(s) sufficient explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader." as WP:STATS requires. That text also has plenty of room for expansion.  Hobit (talk) 08:43, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep Other articles being deletion can bring light to the discussion, but ultimately the question of notability relies on this particular subject. Clearly we have a well-sourced and highly notable topic that far surpasses WP:GNG and many other notability measures.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:43, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
 *  Delete  Weak delete While having the highest win percentage in college football is plenty notable enough, and that seems to be the best chance this article has of existing, I don't think this is an apropriate article to portray it. Not to mention I can imagine copycat articles popping up for teams like, say, FIU. And then arguments about why Notre Dame can have a series record article and not FIU. Maybe remove the teams they haven't played and move this to History of Notre Dame Fighting Irish football (an article that hasn't been touched in nearly 3 years, by the way). Lizard  (talk) 19:16, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment Wikipedia does distinguish between coverage of elite teams and teams that are not elite WP:NSEASONS. An article on the series records of FIU would not pass general notability because it is not discussed in independent sources. Notre Dame record, however, has extension coverage in independent sources. Hence, it passes the general notability requirement and should be kept. Shatterdaymorn (talk) 12:58, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete. There's a fundamental problem with this class of article. If the teams don't have a rivalry, then the record of the series is non-notable and likely not even found in reliable sources (i.e. delete info). If the teams do have a rivalry, then the record of the series is notable and found in reliable sources, but this page represents an unnecessary fork from the actual rivalry page which should contain any information about the record of the series. As it is, this article is very crufty, with a long table of statistics on series that very few people carry about, least of all the students at Notre Dame. ~ RobTalk 04:36, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment I don't buy the statement that if the teams don't have a rivalry then the record of the series is non-notable. This isn't a list about any rivalry, it's a list of the records of one team.  As for reliable sources, Notre Dame Football records are found all over in reliable sources (45 are listed in the article).  And finally, it does not matter if a large or small number of people care about the topic WP:IDONTLIKEIT but what matters is the amount of third party coverage in reliable sources.  The question on the table is this:  "Is the article subject matter notable?"--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:49, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Coverage of a team's record is WP:ROUTINE, though. Everything in reliable sources isn't immediately notable. There are lots of caveats, and ROUTINE is one of them. A few relevant excerpts:
 * "Run-of-the-mill events—common, everyday, ordinary items that do not stand out—are probably not notable." It's hard to argue that a sports team playing a game is anything other than run-of-the-mill.
 * "Wedding announcements, obituaries, sports scores, crime logs, and other items that tend to get an exemption from newsworthiness discussions should be considered routine." (bold added) Specific reference to sports scores being routine. Sports records is obviously analogous.
 * "Routine events such as sports matches, film premieres, press conferences etc. may be better covered as part of another article, if at all." In other words, at the rivalry pages or on the season pages. ~ RobTalk 06:04, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment Coverage of CFB team's record may be routine, but coverage of Notre Dame's record tends to emphasize its past success in football. Part of that is because it has the highest win percentage of any school and third party coverage emphasizes the school's tradition of success. As I mentioned elsewhere, Wikipedia does distinguish between coverage of elite teams and teams that are not elite WP:NSEASONS. For most schools, all time record is not notable because they are not elite and their records are not discussed in reliable independent sources. Notre Dame, however, is an elite football school and series record is notable given the third party coverage. Shatterdaymorn (talk) 2:51, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete as still questionable for its own article, likely not enough for its own convincing article. SwisterTwister   talk  04:58, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete per Rob.UCO2009bluejay (talk) 04:37, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment: If consensus is to delete, the table might be usefully incorporated into http://americanfootball.wikia.com/wiki/Notre_Dame_Fighting_Irish (and/or the article transwikied there?). ~Hydronium~Hydroxide~(Talk)~ 08:11, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Omni Flames   let's talk about it  06:20, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment - I am split about this vote because the article is well written and researched but at the same time it seems to fail WP:NSEASONS as nothing exceptional or out of the ordinary happened. If it wasn't for that I would definitely vote keep. Inter&#38;anthro (talk) 13:10, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment It seems to me that what is notable here relative to other CFB schools is that Notre Dame has the highest win percentage of any school in CFB. Third party coverage tends to exist for that and because coverage of ND tends to focus on its traditional success in the sport. Shatterdaymorn (talk) 2:51, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep for now as I intended to comment earlier but this certainly needs better attention now so I will go with Keep for now and wait until later if this article is still of concerns. SwisterTwister   talk  05:31, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment So are you striking your earlier vote, or...? Lizard  (talk) 05:42, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Comment much of the support for keeping his article seems to center around the fact that it is well researched and cited. Sure, it is. But is the subject of the reliable third-party sources really the subject of the article at hand, the "Notre Dame Fighting Irish football series records"? Much of the source material focuses on Notre Dame's record against specific opponents, in the context of a specific game or rivalry. Jweiss11 (talk) 12:20, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment Exactly, same problem with List of college football head coaches with non-consecutive tenure (an article I still find ridiculous). But back to this article, you could probably find series records for any school against every other school they've played, and throw them into a "Our Lady of the Flying el Chupacabra football series records" or whatever, and say it's "well sourced." Lizard  (talk) 15:36, 23 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment. This has to be one of the more bizarre AfD debates I have ever witnessed. Above we have: 1.) An editor who had previously voted "Delete" in three previous identical deletion debates (all of them coming within the past six months of this one) suddenly voting "Keep" out of the blue here. 2.) Now, we have an editor voting both "Delete" and "Keep" in the same AfD debate - without striking either vote! Crazy. Ejgreen77 (talk) 00:29, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
 * That explains why WP:CFB and WP:NFL never make any headway. Lizard  (talk) 00:40, 24 April 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.