Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Entertainers (NUFC)

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 and Userfy. The contents will shortly be available to the author on a subpage, per author's request. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 22:29, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Entertainers (NUFC)

The Entertainers (NUFC) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

This article is largely POV and ought to be merged into the history section of Newcastle United F.C. Peanut4 (talk) 17:58, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Close as invalid Afd nomination (Article creator) Stated reasons for nomination are not valid for raising an Afd under the deletion policy. No attempt has been made to highlight POV issues or opening a merge debate before rasing this Afd. MickMacNee (talk) 18:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
  • NB - it should be noted that MickMacNee is the creator of this article. Qwghlm (talk) 12:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Hence the (brackets) in included  :) MickMacNee (talk) 13:52, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete - there's already sufficient mention of this period in the main club article. - fchd (talk) 18:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• I disagree, otherwise I would not have created it. As already can be seen there is a question over whether it belongs in the club article or the history article. By definition duplication exists between club and history articles, there is precedent for a degree of duplication where it provides context to the subject of the article. Please assume good faith before passing summary judgement, you could not possibly have fully reviewed both articles for 'sufficient mention' in 1 hour. MickMacNee (talk) 04:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• Of course I could review both articles in an hour, I think it's you that perhaps needs to assume a little good faith. Yes, some of games in the first Keegan era were entertaining. But there is mention of this in the main Newcastle United F.C. article, to what I consider is sufficient detail in relation to other periods of the club's (or any other similar club) history. That's without even going to the sepearate History of Newcastle United article (which is horribly recentist in my opinion) where there is a couple of paragraphs relating to the period in question. If the relevant information already exists in two places, why start setting it out a third time? Sorry, but I see no need, no need at all, for a stand-alone article. So, not even a merge !vote, still a Delete, now verging to a Strong Delete. - fchd (talk) 08:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• I've never seen any mention of the term recentist in any policy. By the very nature of Wikipedia you cannot and should not impose equal weight to each period of history, determining that X number of characters per decade is 'sufficient' coverage. The only relevant test for any notion of sufficient coverage is notability and verifiability. And if you want to compare the issue of duplication against other club articles, review the list here for toher examples where club history's are covered in 3 places, for very obvious reasons. MickMacNee (talk) 13:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete Much of this article constitutes original research or point of view material about the attacking nature of the team and of certain players. The main factual thrust of what's being said can be adequately covered in History of Newcastle United F.C., with a summary of the period in Newcastle United F.C. and Kevin Keegan. Robotforaday (talk) 22:22, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• The attacking nature of this collection of players is quite easily verifiable and is not original research. MickMacNee (talk) 04:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete - mostly a POV essay masquerading as fact, and unnecessary dupllication. A (more) neutral account of the club's history already exists and so this is totally unnecessary. A single sentence in that article can suffice for mention of "entertainment" if need be. Qwghlm (talk) 00:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Would you say the same about the Invincibles article about your own team? In the context of football it is hard not to take any view such as 'a single sentence would do' as not being POV. MickMacNee (talk) 04:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not terrible fussed about that article to be honest. There is a crucial difference is that being unbeaten in a season is an objective fact, while the question of entertaining is subjective. Qwghlm (talk) 12:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

As below, the entertainers tag applies to a specific media usage, so any subjectivity is down to their interpretation, which is perfectly fine to be reflected in WP, even if it was wrong or subjective. MickMacNee (talk) 13:52, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete or Merge - As mentioned, a History of Newcastle United F.C. article already exists. Pairadox (talk) 03:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• Merge is a default keep vote MickMacNee (talk) 04:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not a vote at all, it's a discussion. But if you insist... Pairadox (talk) 04:40, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• Further procedural objection - Expanding, stated reasons for nomination are invalid, premature in the extreme (1 hour), ignore all established discussion avenues, and as it transpires look to have been made in bad faith as per these statements [1] and [2] by the nominator. Afd page header: "For problems that do not require deletion, including duplicate articles, articles needing improvement, pages needing redirects, or POV problems, be bold and fix the problem or tag the article appropriately." Additionaly, I do not belive Afd is a fair, usefull or even a common sense starting point for a discussion on neutrality when it concerns a topic such as football. Requests to merge are in fact default keep votes, not delete; the article subject is modeled on those listed here as definitive entities, distinct from club or history articles (even though merging is an invalid Afd topic). MickMacNee (talk) 04:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm not going to let these almost slanderous comments lie without a right of reply. Whatever my feelings on Newcastle, that was never my reason for nominating it for AFD. I simply don't see how they deserve such an individual entry, but I feel they are worth mention within a combination (if not all) of Kevin Keegan, Newcastle United, and History of Newcastle United. You can look through all my combinations, and you won't find any of my edits based on anything than a neutral POV. I put my feelings aside when I'm editing. This is nothing but an afront on my character. I don't need to provide examples, but I will. As a Bradford fan, I'm not the biggest Leeds fan in the world, not at all. Yet I didn't just support the Leeds United A.F.C. seasons but actually helped get it to FL through a lot of hard work and difficult debate. My reason for nominating, whether correct or not, but that's why I brought it here, were in total good faith. Peanut4 (talk) 23:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Then perhaps next time you won't leave such blatant contradictory and incriminating comments in discussions about a listing you are about to make. Rest assured any offence you feel in having your own comments pointed out, from a discussion you don't even see fit to alert me to before dumping the Adf listing and sodding off, is more than made up for in bad feeling from the hassle you have caused me. If you can't see that raising an Afd 1 hour after creation of what is a decent work with references and precedents elsewhere, without first placing any of the more appropriate tags on the article or even opening the talk page, then I suggest you review the deletion policy, the header at the top of the Afd page, and the general policies behind discussion, and how your actions effect other editors in what is an effort to represent information, not a contest for how fast you can destroy articles. MickMacNee (talk) 23:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
      • You were alerted to the AFD by a bot something like 16 minutes after I nominated it, as happens anyway. And as I've pointed out my comments were absolutely nothing to do with my reason for nomination. Whether incriminating or not. Maybe I should have tagged the article rather than create the AfD. The bottom line is I still don't see how this is relevant but this debate (not my own individual feelings) will decide that. Peanut4 (talk) 00:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The article is not a word-for-word duplicate (which is what AP:AfD is referring to). As for POV issues - if an article is inherently POV in its title or outlook, making it impossible to provide a neutral point of view, then deletion discussion is a valid option. Qwghlm (talk) 12:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• Delete or Redirect to History of Newcastle United F.C.#The Keegan Revolution (1992 - 1997). No need for a separate article here. BLACKKITE 07:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Delete per Qwghlm. пﮟოьεԻ 57 09:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Keep seems to be a notable term used in RS. There's no reason why this article shouldn't remain, as it passes our notability criteria. It can and should be linked using the {{main}} template from the club's history article/section. --Dweller (talk) 11:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Comment There is a parallel to this - the extremely notable term "The Invincibles", referring to the The 1948 Aussie cricket team. In that case, the term (if it wasn't a disambig) would redirect to the main article because there should be only one article on the subject and they exactly match, without overlap. This is, in my opinion, noticeably different, in that there is no such exact match. This article should contain information about a specific, defined period of Newcastle's history and should do so in more detail than either the main article or History of Newcastle United F.C. should do. As such, it's a totally legitimate fork, based (as I said above) on a verified sobriquet. --Dweller (talk) 13:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment ah, now then, the Invicibles were a precisely defined set of people who achieved a precisely defined set of results. The Entertainers here are a group of players (who some may say are more or less entertaining than others) who played during an undefined period (the 1990s) who some commentators, including me, found "entertaining". It's a little subjective for my liking, despite the obvious notability of the term. I believe anything useful here should be merged into the main article or a history of NUFC (should one exist)... The Rambling Man (talk) 13:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Hmm. I see your point. The article could simply take as its defined parameters the period of Keegan Mk I, but that is a little POVish, as initially they weren't particularly entertaining, any more than any other bunch of players languishing in mediocrity. --Dweller (talk) 13:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
      • Exactly, I specifically tried to distinguish when the notariety came about separate to Keegans return i.e. he started out with a very bad squad, with arguable Cole and Beardsley being the start of the process (but not necessarily a chronolgical start point) for the use of the term. Also, the term also covers part of the Robson era, and Keegan MkII (III?) era. MickMacNee (talk) 13:52, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
      • And I object to phrases such as "The notable attacking players in The Entertainers teams included..." - who says they're notable? Why? What's the objective measure of "entertainment"? The Rambling Man (talk) 13:29, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
        • Verifiability determines notability, it would be quite easy to provide articles and sources for every player mentioned being associated with the term The Entertainers teams. One objective measure of the term entertainment would also be the many citations that could be made, some I already provided in this initial draft. Dumping a whole article into Afd because you are concerned about one or two sentences is not exactly a fairly weighted response is it? This is what tagging and talk pages are for. In fact, the sentence is attacking players, not entertaining players. There are no redlinked player articles, so I think notability of players themselves is already established. The Entertainers tag comes from a media label, not my own POV of what is or was entertaining. MickMacNee (talk) 13:36, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Response to merge. I am have a hard time visualising how this article fits neatly into a merge with the 1992-97 section of the history article for the following reasons:

• This is not an article about historical facts in the same way, it is an article describing the use and existance of a particular term, how it specifically came about, and it's usage over time. This is distinct to general historical facts such as those included in the history section. You would not preclude separate documentation of aspects such as the stadium expansion, just because the facts are mentioned in the history article.
  • But isn't this an encyclopaedia rather than an almanac? The Rambling Man (talk) 13:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• Similarly, this article is about a notable group of players, and their achievements. Had I had the chance to see people's perceptions of it before this nomination, I could have easily reformatted it into a list of players and results, with a historical timelime or narrative as a footnote, if included at all. Specific dates are not even necessary in the sense of describing the subject, whereas the history article is a date listed narratiive.
  • Define their achievements quantitatively. They were "entertaining". The Rambling Man (talk) 13:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• This article contains general facts and events that are not relevant to the history of NUFC in particular, such as the details about BSkyB and success of other clubs such as blackburn, but which are relevant to the article at hand.
  • It would easily fit in a subsection of the NUFC article. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• This article contains a list of players notable by their association with the article subject, howevere these players were signed at different times, therefore any grouping of this nature is confusing and counter productive if placed in a narrative timeline.
  • You chose that list. What criteria did you apply? The Rambling Man (talk) 13:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• The article covers sections of information in more detail than in the rest of the history article, which would mean inclusion in that article without dilution would become unbalanced and difficult to read. This however is not against any policy if it satisfies notability and verifiability on its own, as presumably the similarly supposedly duplicative articles such as the busby babes, crazy gang and the invincibles etc.
• The article actually covers 3 different periods in the club history, Keegan, Robson and Keegan again, and ignores sections of the history irrelevant to the article subject. There is no way you can keep the concept of the article by splitting it across 3 places with irrelevant info in between, such as the Doug Hall or Ruud Gullit controversies.
• On the general issue of duplication, as can already be seen there is disagreement over which article this content would actually belong in if merged, the main club article or the history article, I think that demonstrates there is not simple consensus over the general 'this does not need to exist, it belongs here', idea.
• I have serious concerns over the impartiality of anyone claiming an NPOV stance over the importance/relevance of this article, as per the original nominators bad faith, and the issue that all early participants are project football members, without sufficient distance from the subject at hand (again, this would be an NPOV issue which is not meant to be addressed in Afd as a first point of call), although the likelihood of sufficent numbers of impartial voters seeing this in the 5 day period is also a concern, to settle what is a merge debate (again not an Afd subjsect).
• Finally, I have real objection to having to discuss these points about what is a first revision of an article, it goes against all principles of article development in WP, and is why talk pages and requested move procedures exist. I accept the article may have issues and need revision, but to start that process in Afd is extremely irritating, hard to structure to gain consensus, and against all common sense. I re-iterate the original bad faith and extremely quick nomination as well, I don't think anyone would be happy at having to have this debate in Afd before they have ever discussed the article anywhere else. In my experience Afd discussion is not usually an in depth debate about content issues, and are usually summarily closed specifically ignoring content discussion, therefore it should be closed as bad faith and not listing valid reasons for deletion. MickMacNee (talk) 13:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• • Well I tend to agree on this point, it wasn't a bad article, so the AFD was premature in my opinion. However, now we're here, there's no time limit so let's discuss it in a centralised location. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Can you point to discussions about this subject prior to the creation of the article? I don't see anything at the history or main team article nor at the project page, and I find the calls for discussion after the fact (and "concerns" about POV, and trying to get this closed on procedure) to be a bit disingenuous in that light. Pairadox (talk) 13:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

There is no policy that requires prior pre-approval of article ideas drafts before an article can be created, what there are however are definite policies on how and why you list an Afd, and how you resolve issues of content, such as POV and duplication. MickMacNee (talk) 14:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

In other words, no.

One of the reasons for deletion include "content forks," which this arguably is. There's certainly enough editors here who feel that it is, hence the recommendations to merge content. Pairadox (talk) 15:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Arguably not true under the headings Related articles, Articles whose subject is a POV and Article spinouts - "Summary style" articles of things that are not Content Forks. MickMacNee (talk) 23:42, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion

After a discussion on my talk page, I am coming round to an idea on how to proceed: An admin closes this Afd with no prejudice as a redirect, and dumps the current version on my talk page. I will then stubbify the article to establish it's basic facts:

• Title
• Media coinage of term
• Basic eras (Keegan I, Robson, Keegan II)
• Players
• Notable results
• Keegan quote

and re-create it with all statements sourced. I don't know how long that could take, hence the need to close this Afd with no prejudice, and let me draft the stub in user space in my own time. Then, if anyone wishes, they can Afd the new article to achieve consensus on whether it should exist at all, In the mean time I will leave a note detailing this decision and a statement of intent not to expad until consensus is reached, and the article stays or goes. I am averse to even attempting to get the nominators permission as alluded to, given his comments about his general opinion of NUFC. Any admins willing to do this please make it known, or be bold and just do it. I make this suggestion in good faith and out of an unwillingness to debate for 5 days irrespective of the final outcome, when I should or could be contributing elsewhere. MickMacNee (talk) 14:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support a good compromise. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

That sort of thing is usually called Userfication. Pairadox (talk) 14:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Aware of that, thanks, but I'm just saying it's a good compromise! The Rambling Man (talk) 14:52, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, that was meant for Mick. Pairadox (talk) 15:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If the article does get re-created further down the line, it needs a new title, as "NUFC" means nothing to a non-football fan...... ChrisTheDude (talk) 15:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• Support of course. I'd be even more keen on the idea if you welcomed input at your userpages from some of the skeptics. --Dweller (talk) 15:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
• I still don't see why this can't be properly dealt with in the History of Newcastle United F.C. article, but it's your userspace, so feel free to work on it there if you think it's worth it. Robotforaday (talk) 22:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

For all the reasons stated above and more - it deals with 3 different time periods, with subjects not appropriate for a history article (and the reverse), contains related wikilinks you would never find or expect to find in an NUFC history article, contains a player list that would not be appropriate for a history article, is not necessarily an article that needs a chronological format at all (which the history article rigidly is), covers a subject that has precedent with other football club articles for being split from main club and history articles, and has as a subject that is probably recognisable as notable to a whole generation of sports fans, who care not a jot about reading about jackie milburn (no offence to the man) and not read the history article. It's a no brainer to me, but then I have been forced to think about this way too much now because of this nomination, literally my original justification was obvious notability and basic precedent, so get it done and put it out there to be commented on and developed, I thought I had done a good enough job to be able to prevent an Afd tag after 1 hour straight off the bat. MickMacNee (talk) 00:13, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

• Delete without prejudice and userfy, as per above suggestion and agreement of nominator [3] —Preceding unsigned comment added by MickMacNee (talk • contribs) 12:35, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I totally agree. Cos I still don't see why this article shouldn't just be in the History of Newcastle United with other mentions at Newcastle United and Kevin Keegan. Peanut4 (talk) 23:00, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I feel I've given adequate explanation above as to why this deserves an article, and why it is not appropriate for the history article. All I will say then is, if you can't agree with those points, then why do you think the same can't be said for any article listed in Category:Nicknamed groups of soccer teams? I know it's a golden rule not to point to the existence of other articles in Afd, but I've always thought that was nonsense in a case like this. It is frankly not justifiably to discriminate against this article and not those, without applying a POV. Anyway, the agreement I refer to above is the agreement to userfy and delete without prejudice (i.e not dis-bar recreation, as outlined under Suggestion above). MickMacNee (talk) 00:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

• Delete. Not a great reason to nominate but the article still is poor. Agree with proposals to userfy as an option. Stifle (talk) 11:14, 5 February 2008 (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.