Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Winter sports in the United States


 * 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.  Sandstein  08:27, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Winter sports in the United States

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"Winter sports" is not a sport, but a collection of rather disparate sports, some Olympic, some not. I had sent this article to draft space and explained why at User talk:Dwanyewest/Archive 2, but it has been resurrected with mainly the same problems the original had.

It is a coatrack article mixing different topics and pulling some original research conclusions from flimsy sources.

The lead is a typical example; "is a sport which has only limited popular support"? It isn't a sport, and the source used to reference this states "Snow-based recreation contributes $67 billion annually and supports over 900,000 jobs in the United States.", which hardly shows evidence of "limited popular support". And the source is only about "snow-based recreation" (not sport!), so it excludes ice skating and ice hockey, to name just those two.

"Biathlon is something Americans have been successful at internationally" is sourced to an article naming biathlon as the one winter sport the US never medalled in at the Olympics, and only in 2017 at the World Championships. Basically, the source flatly contradicts the statement in our article.

"The United States is a traditional power house in winter sports" is sourced to an article that states that before the introduction of more "extreme" sports (snowboarding or freestyle skiing) in 1994, the US were not a power house but an also-ran compared to their results at the Summer games: "The U.S. Stunk At The Winter Olympics Until Extreme Sports Came Along " is the title, which says it all.

If (and it's a big if) we need an article on this subject, it may be best to simply start from scratch. Fram (talk) 12:37, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions. Fram (talk) 12:37, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Fram (talk) 12:37, 9 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment: There are 4-ish other "Winter sport(s) in country" articles:
 * Winter sport in Australia
 * Winter sports in Slovakia
 * Winter Sports in Switzerland - redirect to List of ski areas and resorts in Switzerland
 * Winter sports in India
 * As for this article, it might be a notable topic, but I might be inclined to WP:NUKEIT and start over. Chris857 (talk) 16:52, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * First, this article is full of newbie mistakes.
 * Second, I agree with, that this article is about a notable topic, suitable for a standalone article - provided there is no earlier article that already covered the topic. If there is an earlier, superior article I think deletion would be inappropriate.  A redirect, or a merge and redirect, preserving the history, would be appropriate.  Why preserve the history?  Because it contains references and possibly other elements worthy of being cannibalized.
 * What if there are no articles already covering this topic? Then why wouldn't stubification be the best choice?  Geo Swan (talk) 18:31, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep As the existence of these other articles shows, and the notability of not only specific winter sports, but groups and people well within that, should be more than enough to justify the existence of this article. Perhaps it is in need of improvement, I won't argue with that, but it is nonetheless not in any way worth deletion at this time. 128.210.106.65 (talk) 21:03, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   17:42, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. The content is abysmal, but the subject is obviously notable. I've begun overhauling it. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:01, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep If a badly written article can be improved, then that should be done instead of deletion per WP:ATD. I don't think there is any doubt that the topic is notable (there are for example numerous books on the single subject of ice hockey in the US alone), and it can be turned into a properly-written article. I see no other reason that would satisfy WP:DEL-REASON. Hzh (talk) 23:17, 24 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per everyone above. And we should probably close this because it's SNOWING (I couldn't resist).4meter4 (talk) 02:28, 25 October 2019 (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.