Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Texas Longhorns football series records

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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 delete. Consensus is clear. Drmies (talk) 01:20, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Texas Longhorns football series records[edit]

Texas Longhorns football series records (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Non-notable list subject that fails WP:GNG and WP:LIST, for lack of significant discussion as a group and coverage in multiple, independent, reliable sources. Moreover, this list of statistics also violates the spirit, if not the letter of WP:NOTSTATS, to wit:

"Wikipedia articles should not be . . . [e]xcessive listings of statistics. Long and sprawling lists of statistics may be confusing to readers and reduce the readability and neatness of our articles. In addition, articles should contain sufficient explanatory text to put statistics within the article in their proper context for a general reader. In cases where this may be necessary, (e.g. Nationwide opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2012), consider using tables to enhance the readability of lengthy data lists. Where it is not necessary, as in the main article United States presidential election, 2012, omit excess statistics altogether and summarize any necessary data concisely."

This article was previously PROD'ed, but the article creator removed the PROD template without explanation. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:24, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:59, 1 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:15, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Fails WP:NOT#STAT. While the team's overall win-loss record or even season by season is reasonable to keep in other articles, specific team-based win-losses make no sense, though I believe that the Longhorns do have a notable rivalry with one team that can be documented there. --MASEM (t) 00:46, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:50, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:50, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:18, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The Texas Longhorns are a historically significant college football team WP:ORGIN with extensive coverage of their history. Does it fail WP:NOT#STAT? The table doesn't represent excessive statistics. It is similar to a season by season list, but instead focuses on the team vs. team results. Representing the information this way highlight different features. This table tells you who Texas has played, when they first played, when they last played, and also who they have not played. This is information you can not easily discover if you consult just the season by season records of the team or the List of Texas Longhorns football seasons. This information is certainly notable WP:GNG since all-time record versus a team is frequently cited when discussing an up-coming game. The article could use more explanatory prose, but that is just a reason for expansion not deletion. Note: I am the original author of the page though I have not updated this page for a while. (Sorry for deleting the PROD without explanation. I have never had one of my pages proposed for deletion and did it to stop the automatic deletion). Shatterdaymorn (talk) 02:35, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I think you misunderstand several of the Wikipedia guidelines involved here. . . .
First, the Texas Longhorns football team is clearly notable per the notability guidelines for sports teams and other organizations per WP:ORG and WP:GNG, with significant coverage of the Longhorns football team in hundreds, if not thousands of independent, reliable secondary sources, but that does not mean that the all-time series records of the Longhorns vs. their opponents are likewise notable per GNG. The topic of this list -- "Texas Longhorns football series records" -- has not received significant coverage in multiple, independent, secondary sources, as a group. That means retrospective newspaper articles, magazine articles and books that discuss the Longhorns football series records, as a group, against their opponents. That does not include sports stats websites (e.g., College Football Data Warehouse, Sports-Reference.com), the Texas Longhorns website (texassports.com/), the Longhorns football media guide, Longhorns fan sites (e.g., burntorangenation.com), other user-contributed fan websites (e.g., Bleacher Report), the Big XII Conference media guide and records, the NCAA's various record books, or the UT student newspaper, yearbook, alumni magazine, and other publications of the university or its athletic department.
Second, this is exactly the type of excessive list of stats that WP:NOTSTATS was meant to exclude. There is no significant collective coverage of the actual list topic as a group, the article is nothing more than a list of over 100 win-loss records of the Longhorns vs. their all-time opponents, and the stats have been copied from one or more of the college football stats websites. Given that the topic is not notable per GNG and LISTN, no amount of added explanatory text will rectify the problem absent significant coverage of the specific topic of the list in multiple, independent, reliable secondary sources. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:05, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lean to delete. These types of lists have been discussed at some length at here in Nov. 2015 and here in Sept. 2015. As for WP:NOTSTATS, it remains my view that a number of editors (including some deletionists) have incorrectly interpreted NOTSTATS. Its purpose, as I understand it, is to require context for stats and to avoid pure data dumps. If there is a statistical list that is notable and not indisciminate, NOTSTATS suggests that any such listing should have contextual narrative text and citations. The introductory sentence of WP:NOTSTATS emphasizes precisely this: "To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources." As @Ejgreen77: has noted elsewere, if NOTSTATS was a valid basis for deleting statistical listings regardless of notability, it could be used to support deletion of highly notable statistical lists such as: List of college football coaches with 200 wins, List of NCAA football records, List of NCAA Division I FBS running backs with at least 5,000 rushing yards, etc. IMO, the real issue is not whether such lists are precluded under NOTSTATS. Rather, as suggested by @Bagumba:, the real issues here are whether the lists satisfy WP:LISTN and whether, even if the subject is notable, we ought to exercise editorial judgment under WP:PAGEDECIDE to opt against a stand-alone list/article. In this case, I would exercise our editorial judgment to avoid such articles for two reasons. First, I have concerns about our ability to maintain such sprawling lists, as the data at issue is massive (particularly if there are such lists for hundreds of college football programs) and changes with great frequency. Second, the same data sets are published off Wikipedia by organizations (e.g., here) that are better equipped to perform regular updates of the data. Cbl62 (talk) 05:23, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • In considering NOTSTATS and providing context, there is none here, which is why it applies. Yet the data about the Longhorns vs A&M (that rivalry itself a notable topic) would be fine on the rivalry page, while an overall W-L summation would be appropriate on the overall team page in discussing how successful the team has been over it's history. Your other examples are cases where things like achieving 200 wins as a coach is a notable means to represent successful coaches (based on a check at Google). --MASEM (t) 05:56, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think we are largely in agreement, Masem. The list here lacks any context, but that could be cured with little effort by simply adding narrative text providing such context. For this reason, I see NOTSTATS as a red herring and not a good reason for deleting. I believe the stronger and more appropriate grounds for deletion are those summarized (hopefully, correctly) above. Cbl62 (talk) 06:05, 2 January 2016 (UTC)][reply]
  • I have added additional commentary to address the NOTSTATS complaint and some additional citations to try to make it better fit with people's interpretations of GNG. Shatterdaymorn (talk) 07:10 , 2 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Thank you, Shatterdaymorn. I think your edits have now mooted any NOTSTATS issue. That said, I still lean slightly toward deleting for the reasons outlined above, though I will keep an open mind. Let's see what others have to add to the discussion. Cbl62 (talk) 07:52, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The additions do not alleviate the NOTSTATS issue. You are simply summarizing the stats, not putting them into larger context of why its overall record against any other team is significant. This potentially edgesd on original research as well. --MASEM (t) 13:41, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • In regard to the worry over maintaining such data, I do understand the concern. I have made pages like this for other major football teams near the top in total overall wins (Alabama, Notre Dame, and Michigan) and those have been fairly well maintained in the years they have been available (since 2012) though the Texas one has not fared well. Do such list need to exist for every team? Probably not, but for teams that claim significant historical pedigree these lists help to explain that in a way that merely stating the pedigree does not. Shatterdaymorn (talk) 07:10 , 2 January 2016 (UTC)
  • @Jweiss11: Test case. There have been too many thinly decided sports-related list cases, and the goal was to nominate one and thrash out the arguments here before proceeding with the rest. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 07:23, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge - Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. This sort of statistical information does have a place within Wikipedia, even if it does not merit a stand alone article. In this case, I think the information would be best presented as a chart within the Texas Longhorns football article. Blueboar (talk) 14:12, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • However, I've never seen in summary articles outside of WP of stat tables that build out the overall historical records of a team against all other teams it plays against, outside of key rivalries. It's the level of resolution that would still be a problem in the main article. --MASEM (t) 15:26, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Masem, the problem is one of editorial judgment; that is, understanding and accepting what an appropriate level of summary detail is in a survey article written for a general interest encyclopedia. We see this problem frequently in our sports articles wherein even some experienced contributors have difficulty in distinguishing trivia from material facts; the problem, however is not peculiar to sports articles and is, in fact, a recurring issue to a greater or lesser degree throughout Wikipedia. As an example, it's one thing to state that John F. Kennedy attended the Choate School, produced a middling academic record, gained a reputation as something of a rebel, and provide noteworthy details as illustrative examples. It's quite another thing to create wikitables that list Kennedy's grades in each and every individual class he took over his four years of high school, with a running tally of his calculated cumulative grade point average on a semester-by-semester basis.
This list of the Longhorns' all-time series win-loss records fails LISTN, and simply merging this entire list of mostly trivia to the Texas Longhorns football main article would overwhelm it with mostly trivial stats in the same way that including tabular representations of young Kennedy's report cards would overwhelm the John F. Kennedy article. What would be a typical resolution of our particular problem would be to include a much reduced table with the Longhorns' cumulative win-loss records against their individual conference opponents and other identified historical rivals. Virtually no general interest reader gives a rat's furry little backside what the Longhorns' all-time record is against, for instance, the Idaho Vandals. As noted above, there are entire websites dedicated to compiling, recording and reporting the all-time head-to-head win-loss records of college football teams in tabular format, and there is no real value in copying such data from such stats sites to Wikipedia and trying to maintain it when the dedicated sources do a much better job of maintaining such statistics then Wikipedia ever could hope to do. That's the purpose of linked footnotes and "external links" sections, i.e., further reading. Trying to replicate the Longhorns' media guide or dedicated CFB statistics sites is folly. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:01, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Are cumulative win-loss records against their individual opponents worthy of note? In typical game previews, such information is frequently noted. For example [1] and [2]. Notice Cal does not have a rivalry Texas. Is there a problem with maintaining such information? Possibly. The Texas page was not frequently updated, but I should note that a number of college football lists fall behind on this measure as well. That being said series records pages for other teams are well maintained. Do other sites do a better job of handling this information? I have added more context to the page to alleviate the NOTSTATS and GNG worry and I think that may address this worry as well. That being said, dedicated sources also do a better job of recording things like List of NCAA football records and List of college football coaches with 200 wins, but I don't think that makes those lists also subject to deletion. Also, please don't intimate that this is just a copied data dump. Notice, I constructed a table to present the information. This was by no means a simple feat. It was something that required a days of work. These debates are suppose to be rational, civil, and respectful and your tone (e.g., "gives a rat's furry little backside") is failing that. Shatterdaymorn (talk) 07:26, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"Are cumulative win-loss records against their individual opponents worthy of note?" No, based on the lack of this information provided by secondary reliable source on team records across all sports and level of professionalism save for specific rivalries (where it makes sense). The only time I see this otherwise brought up is when team X plays team Y for a specific game and it is a random factoid the color commentators bring up. More specifically, because this type of win-loss record keeping is not a regular way of presenting these stats, we should not be doing it ourselves. --MASEM (t) 03:57, 3 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Shatterdaymorn, Masem: I think it's fine to note win-loss records between two opponents in articles about specific games, i.e. bowl games and other games that are historically significant enough to warrant a stand-alone article. It also may be worthwhile to note such records in the game detail section of team season articles. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:29, 3 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Shatterdaymorn has come along and added the kind of text-based contextual significance that articles like this one need (and that, really, so few of our list-class CFB articles currently have, unfortunately). Right now, 14 years into the Wikipedia experiment, there are only ten such lists currently in existence, so I find the idea that there will suddenly be hundreds of such lists to maintain to be an exaggeration, at best. And, as far as the whole "well, this stuff is already available elsewhere" argument, need I remind anyone of this? Just because it's available now, doesn't mean that it always will be. And, adding the information into the main Longhorns page would just result in over burdening and cluttering up the main Texas Longhorns football article, which is the whole reason why it was split out into a separate list article in the first place. IMHO, this information should be WP:PRESERVED somewhere, and it's probably best, easiest, and most logical to just keep it right here. Ejgreen77 (talk) 20:17, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • You rely on so many faulty premises and make so many bad assumptions, EJ, that it's difficult to know where to start . . . First, you say, "Just because it's available now, doesn't mean that it always will be." -- Do you think think that the official Texas Longhorns football media guide is going to stop publishing all-time series record data, as they have every year for the last 30+ years (see p. 208 et seq.)? This is exactly the sort of trivia that media guides exist to present, and almost all CFB media guides include. Official team media guides -- whether hard-copy or web-based -- are not going away.
You also misunderstand and misrepresent WP:PRESERVE: it is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for non-notable subjects . . . It says "Preserve appropriate content. As long as any facts or ideas would belong in an encyclopedia, they should be retained in Wikipedia." Note the emphasis on "appropriate"; non-notable subjects do not get "preserved" as stand-alone articles. Period. First address the notability of the specific list topic; absent the notability of a stand-alone subject, you may "preserve" content as part of another article if it's appropriate. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:08, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge an abbreviated table of the current and former Big 12 teams (and maybe a few others, such as old Southwest Conference rivals) into the Texas Longhorns football article and cut the rest. Jhn31 (talk) 21:31, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and the rest of its sort. Non-Discriminate list of information, if not downright plagiarism of other works such as CFBDW. Their current Big XII opponents records is already in the main article as this is standard practice for CFB team pages. The rivals records should be listed as prose in any section of the main page article and in the rivalry page.UCO2009bluejay (talk) 05:01, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - per Masem's WP:NOT argument. Not especially in favor of a merge/redirect situation, as the parent article already has the appropriate content, and its not especially a good search term... Sergecross73 msg me 15:10, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I respect the effort to create this list. It looks to me like it is something that would be better served by a link to an external website that hosts this data. The list is WP:DISCRIMINATE but that's only one measure (and is not inclusionary anyway).--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:41, 4 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Fails to meet WP:LISTN, which requires that the grouping to be discussed by independent, reliable sources. Rivalries would meet coverage for a series with an individual team, but non-rivaries usually just mention the overall record in passing, Concerns with WP:UNDUE and WP:FANCRUFT precludes a merge to Texas Longhorns football to WP:PRESERVE.—Bagumba (talk) 22:19, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Texas-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 22:27, 5 January 2016 (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.
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