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. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:07, 14 September 2019 (UTC) reply

California Gold

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Non-notable team. Played in the fourth level of American soccer and lacks the coverage needed to meet the GNG. Coverage is either about people associated with the team or routine sports reporting. There is no significant independent coverage of the team. Sandals1 ( talk) 01:47, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Football-related deletion discussions. Sandals1 ( talk) 01:47, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions. CASSIOPEIA^{( talk)} 03:09, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. CASSIOPEIA^{( talk)} 03:09, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep We've already merged Stanislaus County Cruisers into this article, and the article already passes WP:GNG with the articles referenced. It's a difficult search term, but they played the Earthquakes in the US Open Cup in 2000. Don't really understand this nomination. SportingFlyer T· C 04:58, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Merging article A into article B means A is not notable, not that B is notable. An average attendance of 246 indicates even locally it wasn't very notable. I don't see evidence that "the article already passes WP:GNG with the articles referenced." Here's my take on the sources given:

1) article is about a local who coached the Cruisers for 14 games before being demoted and quitting and is now at a division 3 school. Doesn't make the Cruisers or Gold notable.

2) Quotes by non-MSL GMs about playing MSL teams. Passing mention at best.

3) Article about BYU soccer team and their loss to the Gold. Routine sports coverage.

4) Local coverage of a Utah team beating the Gold. Routine sports coverage.

5) List of attendance for lower level U.S. soccer teams. Passing mention.

Not a single source that is significant independent non-routine coverage of the team. Sandals1 ( talk) 12:29, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• All of the coverage is independent and there's more out there. This was a professional soccer team which performed in the country's top cup competition and was clearly covered by media. The fact Stanislaus County was merged into the article just means you have to do more of a before search than normal. Also, the attendance thing is a red herring - in their best year, 1999, the team averaged over 2,000. SportingFlyer T· C 17:14, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

The Lamar Hunt Cup is open to all levels of U.S. soccer so competing doesn't seem to provide automatic notability. Of course the tournament is covered by the media, so are many sporting events. Even 2000 fans is not much--many high school football teams draw far more and they're not notable. I didn't say the coverage wasn't independent, just that it wasn't significant. Sandals1 ( talk) 21:32, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Competing in a cup doesn't provide automatic notability, but WP:FOOTYN implies teams which partake in the later rounds of the cup are generally notable. This was a professional third division team - it's not as if it's just some random amateur team. I've added an additional recent source to the article as well. An archive search of the Modesto Bee shows this clearly passes WP:GNG: [1] SportingFlyer T· C 22:12, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

All the Modesto Bee articles in the world would only count as 1 source, even if you overlook the fact that every pro soccer team on the planet is going to receive coverage from the local paper. Sandals1 ( talk) 23:09, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Happy to disagree with you on whether over eight years and 300 articles worth of sources count toward WP:GNG, especially since you only contribute to deletion discussions and don't have any vested interests in creating or maintaining content. SportingFlyer T· C 23:46, 6 September 2019 (UTC) reply

My editing habits don't impact the validity of my arguments. If anything, it means I understand those policies better than most. Quoting WP:GNG: "Multiple publications from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability." Quite willing to agree to disagree. Sandals1 ( talk) 14:17, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete per nom. Fourth tier in the US is really, really low, and the media coverage reflects that. Clarityfiend ( talk) 19:49, 7 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• The team was in the third division for the first five years (as Stanislaus County), most fourth tier US teams pass WP:GNG, and as I've noted, there's plenty of sources behind a paywall. This could be a class C article if all of those get incorporated. SportingFlyer T· C 00:15, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related deletions. Giant Snowman 14:23, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep - played in national cup competition which is the standard bar of notability for soccer clubs. Needs improving, not deleting. Giant Snowman 14:26, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply
• Redirect to the league page USL PDL per WP:PAGEDECIDE. I'm not seeing GNG met (see discussion above). The team played in the 3rd tier for the first few years with an average attendance under 1,500, then 4th tier with an average attendance under 500. Our article gets less than 5 views per day on average this year [2]. "Needs improving" is easier said than done. The sources we have will only support an article of the kind we have now: a sheer recitation of their statistics... in such-a-such a year, they had such-and-such a record, and in this game on this date, so-and-so scored this many goals. The article is a statistics table in prose form, and that's because the only sources we have are statistics tables and game reports. An encyclopedia entry about a team should answer some more substantive questions like: who owned them? What changes did they have in management and coaching? How did they manage their roster? What strategies and tactics did they employ? What formations did they favor? How did they compare with other teams in their league over the years? Who were their rivalries? Where did they recruit? What was their scouting operation like? Why did they change their name and drop down a league in 2002? We don't have the answers to these questions. There's no significant information we are presenting in this article that isn't already presented in the season-by-season articles at USL PDL–that's the best place to present the historical statistics for this team; it'll be presented in the context of the season. If someone finds some good GNG sources in the future, the redirect can be expanded back into an article. – Leviv ich 18:33, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Page views are irrelevant to notability. As I've shown, there's lots of coverage from the Modesto Bee over a long period of time that would answer all of the questions you're asking, but I don't know how to access those articles since they're behind a paywall. I thought the "why did they drop down a league" question had been answered in the article already, but I just added it to make it clearer, there is significant information in this article that's not already in the league seasons article, and even if there wasn't, the club still easily passes WP:GNG, and having the information organised under the club's name still helps the few people actually looking for this article. SportingFlyer T· C 18:51, 8 September 2019 (UTC) reply
    • I'm not arguing notability, I'm arguing redirect per WP:PAGEDECIDE. – Leviv ich 19:01, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply
      • So basically you're not even going to comment on notability, you just don't want the article? Why? Because WP:IDONTLIKEIT? Because WP:NOBODYCARES? Those aren't reasons. Smartyllama ( talk) 22:21, 11 September 2019 (UTC) reply
        • The first eight words of WP:PAGEDECIDE are "When creating new content about a notable topic ..." – Leviv ich 03:40, 12 September 2019 (UTC) reply
• Comment I've finally gone ahead and applied to a couple newspaper archival resources with the Wikipedia library card in an attempt to save this article from deletion, since I know (and have demonstrated) there are paywalled sources which definitively show notability. May be a few days before I have access, though. SportingFlyer T· C 23:34, 9 September 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep Passes WP:FOOTYN, and with the sources, passes WP:GNG as well. Smartyllama ( talk) 17:36, 10 September 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep Passes WP:FOOTYN. Pharaoh of the Wizards ( talk) 22:35, 10 September 2019 (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.