Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tom McCabe (rugby)


 * 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 redirect to List of Ireland national rugby league team players. Consensus is that he isn't notable. Because he's in the target list, a redirect there makes sense for now. It can be deleted if he's not verifiable, or the article can be draftified or restored if better sources are found.  Sandstein  08:48, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Tom McCabe (rugby)

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Fails WP:GNG. Theroadislong (talk) 11:12, 31 December 2021 (UTC) Relisting comment: Providing the creator a chance to reply to 03:13, 6 January 2022 (UTC), and also for wider community input. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Daniel (talk) 13:23, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. Theroadislong (talk) 11:12, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Rugby union-related deletion discussions. Theroadislong (talk) 11:12, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ireland-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 11:14, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Rugby league-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 15:01, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Certainly doesn't pass for his rugby union credentials under WP:NRU, and I can't find anything to back up the Irish international claims in the article. There's nothing on Rugby League Project for example, which would likely bring something up if accurate (there's another Tom McCabe but different dates). I'm not seeing anything for a GNG pass either. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 17:21, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Draftify as a possible option to deleting if there's no clear consensus established to keep the article. There might be no way to improve it any more than has been tried, but there does seem to be at least a valid claim for notability per WP:RLN which might somehow make it OK to keep this as a stub after some triming, particlarly if McCabe's international career can be verified. I know very little about rugby; so, if those who do feel this can't be kept, then it can't be kept. FWIW, I came across this article first at WP:THQ and tried to explain to the article's creator that instead of focusing on images and the title of the article that it would be better for them for focus on finding reliable sources to add as citations to the article. The article was completely ended up unsourced so it ended up WP:BLPPRODed for deletion as I though might happen; some citations were added and the article deprodded, but almost all of them were only tangententially related to the subject, except for one to a YouTube video related to a rugby game between the US and Ireland in 1996. The problem with the YouTube link is that it was almost certainly a WP:COPYLINK which means a link to it can't be added to the article even as a citation. I tried explaining this to the creator at Talk:Tom McCabe (rugby), but never got a second response. I did ask about this at WT:RL, but have yet to receive a response. I also tried looking for some sources myself and found a few, but they're from archived pages of the Rugby League Ireland official website and aren't really helpful for establishing notability. In their only response so far on the article's talk page, the creator referred to this article as a "test page" and stated that the RLI "shot itself in the foot" by "not recording information". I've got no idea what that really means; however, if no reliable sources were covering this individual, then it seems unlikely an article about him can be justified. The creator also mentioned in their article talk page response that they are the "historian for Rugby League Ireland" and that their plan is "put up a full and far more detailed history of RLI than currently exists" (including "to have every full international up there (currently on the last squad we have broken links as those players do not yet have pages") and that they "plan to write them [these pages]". This might be a noble plan perhaps, but I'm not sure such a thing is in accordance with WP:NOT, particularly if this "test case" article is going to be basically a template for other 292 articles about "Full Internationals" that the creator stated they want to write. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:30, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Draftify,MarchjulyJust a few points to answer the above. The subject is a rugby league international, the other sporting information is to give further info but the main reason for uploading the info is to point out about the rugby league international status.   Records from that period for international rugby league are sketchy at best.  The rugby league project is missing a large amount of information.  The Rugby Record Keepers club will soon be posting all international information and that is the agreed source for the International Rugby League so would be a more reliable and trusted source for verification.
 * The link to the Rugby game is the actual international, it is definitive proof of the 17 players, including McCabe, who played in that international. It is absolute proof and is far better than a match report in, say, League Express or Rugby Leaguer (the national weekly RL newspapers of the time and both would have carried a report, though that would require me getting across to Yorkshire and sifting through a physical archive (none of the papers have been digitised)).  The video to the game has been archived in the University of Huddersfield's Heritage Quay (https://heritagequay.org/archives/RFL/MD/1/3/878/).
 * Furthermore, your knowledge of the lack of Media coverage misses out on two things; This was one year after the www formed (had we been in a time of the web then there would be match reports galore) and then there's the manner in which RL was treated by the national UK newspapers.  Until Rugby Union went professional in 1995 (same year as the emergence of the www) RL was treated as a second class sport and not given much coverage by the media (RL broke from RL in 1895 due to broken time payments - miners being reimbursed to play RL and being forced to miss work shifts, something that the amateur Rugby Union wouldn't allow)).
 * I give you a different example of the lack of knowledge of RL, not just by the admin herewithin, but also by the wider RL community. RL Cares is a charity that supports former RL players in times of need but also collects and collates the wider RL history.  I made a point of collating all the games I could, from different media formats, across different computers and gaming consoles, which were specifically about Rugby League.  I donated these to the RL Museum.  Here's the article.  I know my stuff when it comes to specific parts of RL history - computer games and Rugby League on the island of Ireland.
 * https://www.rugbyleaguecares.org/news/general/gaming-collection-joins-the-sports-archive/?fbclid=IwAR06C66AL75u6rhwapaC-DKmF7Ez9zfcnBqANRZfprqBg565_iWBhJjqZs4
 * And just for additional information, someone else has linked McCabe to another wikipedia page to do with Lansdowne FC (Rugby Union club), showing how he is one of their former RL internationals. That page and that link existed prior to me building this first page.
 * And the project to get all the full internationals up here isn't that big, it's a simple template for all the players and I have to get information on each of them. Sometimes i have to talk to them to gain additional information.  As a historian it is my duty to get as much information as possible to preserve the history.  It is beyond parody that this could be considered conflict of interest, it's due dilligence, nothing more.  Any person trying to garner information would be aware of that.
 * It's in your hands, if you still consider the above not enough to prove then crack on, remove the page, but it concerns me you are being selective if that is the case. If I go on the England Rugby page then I can find all the past internationals if I so wish.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ireland_national_rugby_union_players  Many of these aren't notable but are rightly captured with a page to assist in the capture of the history of the game of Rugby Union.  Does this amount to double standards?
 * Point in case William Hallaran. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hallaran I wouldn't consider the referencing or even the information on this page to be anywhere near the information I have provided you for McCabe but I wouldn't want Hallaran removed as it is correct to have him up as he is a former Rugby Union international.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevehogan1605 (talk • contribs) 11:42, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * As far as I'm aware, just playing internationally isn't enough to pass rugby league guidelines. He'd have to have played in a world cup or european cup (for tournaments Ireland have competed in) which he did not. So he'd have to pass GNG. The rugby union list argument is irrelevant as the rugby union guidelines state that anyone playing internationally for Ireland has presumed notability. It's obviously likely this person existed and likely played for Ireland (although I haven't found a source confirming this), but this information is likely better recorded in a list article on Wikipedia (perhaps List of Ireland national rugby league team players) or on a specialist rugby league encyclopedia. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 15:55, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment If verification of him playing internationally for Ireland is found/shown, I'm happy for this to be redirected to List of Ireland national rugby league team players as a valid WP:ATD. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 16:06, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Rugbyfan22 The link below will show him named in the team line-up (displayed on screen after about 3 and a half minutes) in the 1996 USA v Ireland Rugby League international from RFK Stadium, Washington, and he scores a try during the match (after 50 minutes). Link below. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevehogan1605 (talk • contribs) 20:29, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Please don't add this YouTube link to anymore Wikipedia pages. As I tried to explain on the article's talk page, a link to this YouTube video can't be used on Wikipedia per WP:YOUTUBE and WP:COPYLINK because the uploader of the video is almost certainly not the original copyright holder of the content. Just for reference, a reliable source (as defined here by Wikipedia) doesn't need to be available online; it only needs to be published and somewhat accessible. So, if you're aware of any books, newspapers, magazines, etc. that you think might be considered reliable sources by Wikipedia that help show that McCabe meets WP:GNG, WP:RL/N or WP:NRU, then please add information about them to Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Tom McCabe (rugby) to give others a chance to assess them and see if they can be used. The more information you can provide about the source (e.g. publication name, publication date, author name, isbn #), the easier it might be for someone to track it down. Lots of newspapers, for example, archive their older content and these are sometimes accessible online. Of course, online sources are easier to verify, but there might be other ways to verify sources not available online. -- Marchjuly (talk) 03:13, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Redirect to the list suggested above. I assume that sources for everything in the article exist, but I'm not sure that a single rugby league cap for Ireland int he sort of match he played in means there is real notability. The list would appear, by the way, to be out of date and has a whole pile of errors associated with it (an article exists for Oliver Roberts, for example). I'd suggest starting with the list and ensuring that whatever references exist are used in it will help us judge whether individuals might or might not be notable. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:19, 16 January 2022 (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.