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. T. Canens (talk) 19:38, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Northeastern Football Alliance (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Non-notable amateur/semi-professional sports league, fails WP:N and WP:NSPORTS. Only sources provided are either trivial or the league itself, failing WP:RS. Also have concerns about WP:NPOV, WP:COI, and WP:ADV. All but one team in the league listed has either had its page deleted or was never created. Paul McDonald (talk) 21:31, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 01:40, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Enough. I have full reason to believe that this campaign is no longer in good faith. Mr. McDonald has systematically tagged every single semi-pro football article on Wikipedia with either proposed deletion or articles for deletion under the guise of WP:N. Even ones that have sources have been pooh-poohed on technicalities. The Hartford Knights article had at least a half-dozen substantial sources on it, including AP articles and a reference book, and it still got tagged with PROD. Mr. McDonald has even attempted to initiate a rule banning semi-pro articles but has been overruled, so he's acting within his twisting of the rules to do it anyway. This is no longer about following criteria but instead about eliminating all mention of semi-pro football from Wikipedia. This is getting out of hand. P.S. For the record, I have no involvement in any semi-pro football team or league and never have.J. Myrle Fuller (talk) 21:37, 30 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting Lots of issues there, I'll break into points for easier reading/response. If the discussion goes beyond this, we should move it to another place. Heck, maybe we should do that now... but I feel the need to resopnd here for the moment:

1. Second prod I did mistakenly place a second prod on one article that should have gone to AFD, but it wasn't intentional and it has been corrected.
2. Rule ban I'm curious what rule I attempted to initiate to ban semi-pro articles and even more curious who overruled it.
3. Systematically tagged I have indeed proposed for deletion and/or initiated AFD on many semi-pro articles that I believe do not meet notability standards. I went slowly through the group so that those enthusiastic about those articles would have time to respond.
4. Hartford Knights deletion I think the Hartford Knights article was one of them, but it was deleted by User:Courcelles and not me (I can't delete anything on Wikipedia, I don't know how and I'm not sure I even have the rights to do so).
5. Technicalities As for the "technicalities" I can only assume that we have a disagreement on what constitutes a reliable source, as many of the articles only sources are the team or league website (which is most certainly not independent) or fan-based discussion sites/groups (which is not considered reliable by Wikipedia standards).
6. DRV is the place But as I mentioned before, I can't delete anything--someone else has to come along and agree that the position I put forward is in the best interest of Wikipedia and then take action. If you believe that these are incorrect, I encourage you to send those deleted articles to deletion review and other people can take a closer look at it.

Summary All of that really has nothing to do with this article in question, which is poorly sourced and suffers from the same notability issues the others did.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:25, 31 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete non-notable football league, no reliable sources other than WP:ROUTINE news coverage in the local newspaper. Secret ^account 22:20, 7 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: Truth be told, I'm somewhat baffled by football project members on the one hand hotly asserting that obscure football coaches from teensy collegiate amateur programs are presumptively notable, while on the other hand claiming that entire semi-pro leagues aren't. I am utterly baffled by attempts to hijack the notability criteria of NSPORTS, which in the case of football solely pertain to individuals, and apply it to entire leagues, without any consensus on the subject. Gain a consensus over at NSPORTS for league criteria first.  Ravenswing  04:53, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Because you asked simply because there are verifiable, independent reliable sources and consensus support for notability of the college programs--some of which are over 150 years old and have a large amount of coverage in the news; generally (but not always) semi-pro teams and leagues do not. Aside from that, there are a multitude of reasons at least from my perspective. Obviously there is disagreement. If you understood my perspective, you might be inclined to agree. But that's all general stuff and not really pertinent to this article.--Paul McDonald 13:50, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • You made the contrary argument with those purportedly "notable" small college football programs - that routine, local coverage satisfied the GNG, whether or not the subject was discussed in any detail at all, let alone the "significant detail" required. I see no reason why such coverage does not satisfy notability requirements for entire leagues. That being said, I'm glad you appreciate there's disagreement, which through poor logic some people conflate with lack of understanding.  Ravenswing  21:26, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Wow, you totally missed my point. Ah, well.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:54, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep As others have pointed out, WP:NSPORT has no bearing on leagues or teams, although it applies to persons who played. Until there is some subject specific guideline or prohibition against semi-pro or amateur leagues, they would be judged on WP:ORG "A company, corporation, organization, school, team, religion, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in secondary sources. Such sources must be reliable, and independent of the subject. A single independent source is almost never sufficient for demonstrating the notability of an organization." After that, it comes down to individual opinion about what's significant, and opinions vary. Under its previous name, the NYAFL, it received, from multiple sources, what I would call significant coverage. [1], and although none of the teams are in the nomination, some of them got coverage as well [2]. Searching under the newer name, not as much coverage [3] and [4]. I'll refrain from getting into the other issues raised in the discussion. Mandsford 18:08, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nomination. No significant coverage (one of the provided references makes no mention of the Northeastern Football Alliance) outside routine news coverage in local newspapers. MikeWazowski (talk) 03:25, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Gotta agree with nom, it's an amateur sports league failing WP:NSPORTS, as simply non-notable. Lacks very significant coverage. It's full of redlinks, which shows that there ain't much coverage about the topic elsewhere either, and references are in a pretty poor shape. The number of reliable sources also looks tiny. I'm not sure about WP:NPOV or WP:ADV that nominator mentioned, but they might be little concerns as well. DARTH SIDIOUS 2 ^(Contact) 19:12, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment WP:NSPORTS is almost entirely about individual athletes and does not set criteria for the notability of football leagues. Judge articles against the GNG by all means, though... bobrayner (talk) 03:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep. WP:GNG doesn't prohibit local sources, and WP:ROUTINE appears only to refer to events rather than entitites, so I don't buy in to either of those arguments. That said, the level of coverage in the local news sources looks fairly limited in scope. Maybe just enough to qualify as significant coverage, but not as convincing as I thought it might be. Alzarian16 (talk) 13:26, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete One reference in a local paper is not remotely enough for notability. NBeale (talk) 16:26, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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.