Wikipedia:WikiProject Arena Football League/Reliable Sources

The WikiProject Arena Football League Reliable Sources guidelines aim to define what does and does not constitute a reliable source in the world of arena football teams and related topics.

Online sources considered to be reliable

 * ArenaFootball.com
 * ArenaFan
 * af2.com

ArenaFootball.com/af2.com
The league website is probably the best place to get information that you need. The league will almost always take a neutral stance on anything that appears on the site, because they have nothing to gain from showing bias one way or the other.

ArenaFan.com
One criticism of the use of this website is that it is "self-published material", refer to it as an "enthusiast website", or just a fansite. The claim is that the site does not meet the standards set in WP:SPS.

ArenaFan in fact does meet the criteria on WP:SPS because it is neither a "self-published source" nor "non-English" source. The site is not run by just ONE person, it has numerous people who contribute to it, as well as has links to sites that have AFL or af2 news headlines. Also, the following has been said about the site from AFL executives:

"We are honored to have all the family at Arenafan as part of our 'extended staff' getting the good news out and introducing the great game of Arena Football to others."- C. David Baker, AFL Commissioner "I check it every day when I get up, and every day before I go to bed." – Gene Nudo, Arizona Rattlers Executive VP

Official Team websites
Editors in the project often reference the teams official website itself for historical data on coaching changes, records history, coaching tenure, etc. Project consensus supports that there is often no better source than the team itself for information on who the coach is at any given time. However, some team sites do not have a list of former coaches, however, some do.

Criticisms of team websites: Critics have stated that team websites are not reliable sources because it is similar to a "self-published" source and that if the information were noteworthy, other major sources would pick up the information.


 * Response to Critics: The front office of any sports organization is considered a reliable primary news source--many of the major news reporting agencies get information from the front offices. The project trusts the integrity of the organizations under the umbrella of the Arena Football League and af2 to produce reliable information particularly when it comes to facts (scores of games, coaching changes, records, and so forth).

Local and regional publications
Local and regional publications such as the Orlando Sentinel are acceptable as supplementary or secondary information for most articles. However, lesser known teams, such as members of af2 may have truly national topics covered primarily by traditionally regional newspapers. Discretion may be used for such special cases.

Books, magazines, and newspapers
Not all sporting news published in hard copy format is reproduced on the internet, and sometimes it is placed on the web but only for a short time. This may leave only hard-copy material references available for certain topics within the project. Hard-copy only references are an acceptable practice for the project and for Wikipedia.