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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 keep. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:58, 11 January 2017 (UTC) reply

D.C. United Academy

AfDs for this article:
D.C. United Academy (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
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Resubmitting this article for deletion discussion. My first suggestion that this league was a youth league was proven wrong, fair enough, it's an academy league. But I honestly do not believe that a 4th tier, amateur-level US soccer/football academy league meets WP:GNG standards on its own. Here are my arguments against this:

  • 1) Per Wikipedia:Notability (sports)#Teams, all sports teams must meet Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) requirements, so my following points will discuss those aspects.
  • 2) Notability is not inherent. Arguments against this deletion often stated that "the consensus was that academy teams/leagues are notable." Per policy: "If the individual organization has received no or very little notice from independent sources, then it is not notable simply because other individual organizations of its type are commonly notable or merely because it exists" Practically all sources given for this academy team are local in nature, not regional nor national.
  • 3) Notability is not inherited. There is not an argument that this academy team is indeed affiliated with its respective notable parent club D.C. United, and it may have indeed produced notable players, but that does not, by definition, make the academy club itself notable.
  • 4) Fails depth of coverage. Multiple, independent sources have not been cited to establish notability of this academy league. Again, sources are local to the team.
  • 5) Fails local unit notability. Direct quote from this rule: "the individual chapters of national and international organizations are usually not considered notable enough to warrant a separate article - unless they are substantially discussed by reliable independent sources that extend beyond the chapter's local area."

Now, I can agree with the opinion and would even support a Merge of this content to its respective parent club page. But on its own, this page fails. SanAnMan ( talk) 19:33, 3 January 2017 (UTC) reply

  • I'm perfectly willing to believe that this academy might not be notable, but the fact that the nominator refers to it repeatedly as a league, when it is clearly not a league, doesn't inspire confidence in the nomination statement. 86.17.222.157 ( talk) 21:35, 3 January 2017 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Washington, D.C.-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple ( talk) 13:50, 7 January 2017 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Football-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple ( talk) 13:50, 7 January 2017 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple ( talk) 13:50, 7 January 2017 (UTC) reply
@ Coolabahapple, WP:NSPORT specifically states that it does not apply to sports teams, so your excerpt from the lead is inaccurate. - SanAnMan ( talk) 05:04, 8 January 2017 (UTC) reply
me bad, trout please Coolabahapple ( talk) 05:27, 8 January 2017 (UTC) reply

Notifying others who participated in the previous AfD for this article: Quidster4040, Smartyllama, Jo-Jo Eumerus, ArchieOof. I'm assuming the nominator already notified them, but just to be on the safe side. CUA 27 ( talk) 18:47, 7 January 2017 (UTC) reply

Keep — I did a quick search and sound several reliable sources, and I've added just a few (Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Washington Post, Orlando Sentinel, Soccer America) of the several that I found. This article pretty clearly satisfies WP:GNG. CUA 27 ( talk) 19:15, 7 January 2017 (UTC) reply

(I'm also pasting a relevant post from the previous AfD, which the nominator failed to mention or address: "I see a lot of reliable secondary sources covering this organization, within a general Google search, a Google News search, and even a Books search. I feel that means it easily passes WP:GNG ArchieOof.)" CUA 27 ( talk) 18:59, 7 January 2017 (UTC) reply
@ ArchieOof, the sources you mention simply either mention the existence of the club, or, in two of your cites added, the fact that a particular person was once a member. Just because the club exists does not make it notable, see WP:ENN. And again, the fact that it has produced notable players does not make the group notable. None of the cites provided nor the searches given meet the significant coverage requirement of GNG. - SanAnMan ( talk) 05:04, 8 January 2017 (UTC) reply
Who are you responding to? And for the ESPN, Washington Post, and Soccer America articles, the DC United Academy is the principal subject of the article. I don't know how you missed that. The article now has 14 references, 11 of which are from independent reliable sources; but the cites currently in the article only scratch the surface, as a google search for "DC United Academy" shows over 15,000 results. CUA 27 ( talk) 02:07, 9 January 2017 (UTC) reply
@ CUA 27, again, almost all the cites you have added and the others mentioned in the search results are about players who have been affiliated with the league. And as proven earlier, these articles basically just mention the club, not anything about its notability, and the notability of the players is not inherited to the club as per WP:INHERITORG. Your argument continues to prove my points. So far, out of all the cites you have listed/added, only three so far are about the club itself. And adding cites from the club's website does not prove notability either. - SanAnMan ( talk) 13:48, 9 January 2017 (UTC) reply
WP:GNG requires multiple sources with significant coverage, but the signficant coverage aspect states that the topic "does not need to be the main topic of the source material". Here, we have an article with more than 10 independent reliable sources; with several of these sources the DC United Academy is the main topic of the source. This more than satisfies the requirements of WP:GNG.
Also, you may want to make sure you have a good grasp of the facts here. The article we are talking about relates to an academy that develops players, not a league as you have again referred to it. And, contrary to your claim, I have not added any cites from the club's website. CUA 27 ( talk) 02:52, 10 January 2017 (UTC) reply
We can agree to disagree on this subject. Your quote about the significant coverage aspect is correct, but the same area also states "Significant coverage addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention". The cites and articles you have added and/or mentioned, for the most part, do not address the academy as a direct, detailed source and only mention the academy in passing. As for my usage of the words "academy", "league", and/or "team", it seems you are getting caught up in the semantics of the terms. I appreciate your passion and defense of the topic even though we see the GNG on this subject from differing viewpoints. - SanAnMan ( talk) 15:35, 10 January 2017 (UTC) reply
Note: This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of association football-related deletions. Spiderone 22:05, 7 January 2017 (UTC) reply
  • Keep - plays in PDL, top level amateur league in US/Canada - needs improving, not deleting. Giant Snowman 22:30, 7 January 2017 (UTC) reply
@ Giant, that still doesn't explain how it meets GNG, can you elaborate please? - SanAnMan ( talk) 05:04, 8 January 2017 (UTC) reply
There is an assumption that clubs or players playing at a certain level meet GNG - hence why comment it needs improving. Giant Snowman 09:11, 8 January 2017 (UTC) reply
@ Giant I'm going to avoid the obvious "assume" joke here, but can you actually cite this in policy? As per the comment below, some people do not consider PDL to be a upper-level league. - SanAnMan ( talk) 13:48, 9 January 2017 (UTC) reply
  • Keep - PDL is not a top-level league anywhere on the planet, but the club meets GNG based on the sources. Walter Görlitz ( talk) 05:38, 9 January 2017 (UTC) reply
  • Keep - we've always considered USPDL teams notable. Not sure why this would be any different. Nfitz ( talk) 19:54, 10 January 2017 (UTC) reply
@ Nfitz, because the academy does not actually have a team in USPDL (the article info on this is incorrect). Also, the article is about the entire academy, which is now mostly amateur-level. - SanAnMan ( talk) 20:07, 10 January 2017 (UTC) reply
They used to have a team in the USPDL, see 2015_PDL_season. We don't delete articles for former USPDL teams. Appears to meet WP:GNG too. Nfitz ( talk) 21:01, 10 January 2017 (UTC) reply
The former PDL team has its own article, D.C. United U-23. This article is now strictly about the academy which is amateur-level only. - SanAnMan ( talk) 21:45, 10 January 2017 (UTC) reply
Then why is the nomination full of discussion about the league then?!? Honestly .... though given the articles appears to meet WP:GNG it's moot ... Nfitz ( talk) 22:19, 10 January 2017 (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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