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. bibliomaniac 1 5 01:04, 14 April 2020 (UTC) reply

M. O. Smith

M. O. Smith (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)

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He coached three (or four, even the one source about this doesn't agree on the number [1]) games where his college, from Nebraska, played against other colleges from Nebraska only. So this is not even at some national level, but state level only. A total lack of reliable sources about him [2], which is to be expected considering the short and local career he had. But this means that he fails WP:BIO and WP:NSPORTS. Fram ( talk) 11:08, 20 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. Fram ( talk) 11:08, 20 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. Fram ( talk) 11:08, 20 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Nebraska-related deletion discussions. Fram ( talk) 11:08, 20 March 2020 (UTC) reply

• Keep we typically keep articles (even stub articles) on college football head coaches. Failing to see why the sources in the article are not "reliable" as the nominator asserts. It's not shocking that there are not many sources (and some confusion among them for the record) on the internet for a college football coach from 1903.-- Paul McDonald ( talk) 13:35, 20 March 2020 (UTC) reply
  • "No reliable sources" was written too much in shorthand. No reliable indepth sources is what I mean: the one is a database listing, the other is a college publication from his alma mater, not the kind of publication we normally accept as reliable or indicating notability (as it isn't independent either). What we typically do is of little interest, every article has to make its own case (and probably many other similar articles should be deleted as well). The typical claim for every article on a non-contemporary subject explaining the lack of sources is not really convincing either: I very often write articles about long dead people, and if they have any lasting notability, then there are sources about them online (and probably more offline as well). In this case, we don't have even one article about the person. Probably some routine coverage about him exists in local newspapers from the period, but that as well wouldn't be considered sufficient to establish for anyone living now, so why would it be different for people living in 1905? Fram ( talk) 14:09, 20 March 2020 (UTC) reply
• Delete. Completely non-notable coach from a tiny school with no extensive coverage. Fails WP:GNG, WP:NCOLLATH. Ostealthy ( talk) 15:19, 20 March 2020 (UTC) reply
• Keep Per Paul McDonald. There are some sources. ~ EDDY ^{( talk/ contribs)}~ 18:15, 20 March 2020 (UTC) reply
• Delete Why we would keep articles on all college football head coaches, even for teams which never get any coverage is not explained. The idea is beyond ludicrous and one of the reasons Wikipedia is flooded with unnedded sub-stubs. There is absolutely no reason to have articles as a default on any college football head coaches. Yes, I suspect we could find adequate sourcing on most, but as an alumni of Wayne State University I would argue that their college football head coaches are not notable, and I think that applies to a lot of college football head coaches in the NAIA and NCAA Division II and Division III. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 01:10, 21 March 2020 (UTC) reply

  Before you throw around terms such as 'ludicrous', you should acquaint yourself with the fact that neither the NCAA nor the NAIA existed in 1903, the year in which Smith was the coach of a college football program. Also, I think you'll find that we don't have an article for every college football coach at every level. Please avoid this strawman in the future. LEPRICAVARK ( talk) 22:57, 2 April 2020 (UTC) reply

  • And you should stop trying to take 21st-century levels of college football coverage and use it to force us to accept articles from the late 19th-century with passing blurbs in local papers. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 13:55, 3 April 2020 (UTC) reply
• Comment The hallmark of Wikipedia is verifiability. Unless you can find good, reliable indepdent sources on a subject we must delete it. Period. End of subject. No amount of handwaving that something is too old to find sources on the internet will change that. Otherwise we end up with hoaxes on 19th-century pirates. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 01:13, 21 March 2020 (UTC) reply
  • response verifiability has been exceeded.-- Paul McDonald ( talk) 19:13, 21 March 2020 (UTC) reply
    • This is still a case of hyper local coverage that I do not think rises to the level of notability. John Pack Lambert ( talk) 16:17, 23 March 2020 (UTC) reply
      • Local coverage is adequate for information being verified, it's just that the source needs to be trustworthy. That standard is met.-- Paul McDonald ( talk) 15:11, 24 March 2020 (UTC) reply
• Keep Enough sources available to pass GNG, which makes any SNG irrelevant. Smartyllama ( talk) 19:19, 25 March 2020 (UTC) reply

• Keep per Paul McDonald and Smartyllama. Woerich (talk) 17:52, 5 April 2020 (UTC) reply
• Keep per Paulmcdonald and Smartyllama. Ejgreen77 ( talk) 18:26, 5 April 2020 (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.