The result was redirect to Central Midlands Football League. I'm going a little bit WP:IAR here, and if anyone wants to take the close to DRV, please feel free to do so without consulting me again. Whilst consensus is to delete these, I do not see any reason why the teams themselves are not reasonable redirects to the league they play in. Furthermore, redirecting them would enable the articles to be easily resurrected should any of the teams be promoted. Black Kite (talk) 10:18, 7 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Just looking through the new teams being added for the new season that have reached level 10 for the first time and have found many new club articles being made in the Central Midlands League at level 11. The articles have been contributed by I mostly edit and create articles about UK television and radio but also edit articles about roads and railways, rugby and non-league football, and York and the surrounding areas of North and East Yorkshire.
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Thoresby and Welbeck have both been subject to a previous Afd here.
I had a previous article deleted on the grounds that it was too low in the footballing pyramid. I did think about withdrawing my efforts at that time but decided to take it on the chin on the grounds of being new to this and having not previously been aware of the football notability rule due to the team in question playing in a local(ish) league and for some reason it has been decided that clubs at this level are not worthy of articles which to me goes against the grain of a project whose goal is to produce an online encyclopedia which is as comprehensive as possible. The CML is not a local league as it covers a significant area of both the North Midlands and Yorkshire.
To explain why I decided to write the CML articles in the first place despite them being at level 11. First I had not previously been aware of the level 10 rule. However, I had seen that a number of CML teams had articles written about them, albeit in a few cases just a couple of sentences with no external references. None of these articles seemed to pose a problem so I nievely assumed that users would welcome someone taking the time and effort to, as far as possible, complete the set assuming that enough material could be sourced to produce articles which were deemed to be acceptable. Clearly I am wrong in this assumption despite me ensuring that all the articles had external references which could be checked should people see this as necessary. Therefore, I cannot prevent these articles being deleted should it be decided that I have intentionally broken the notability rules even though others have not been punished in the same way.
That aside, we are talking about many hours of time, effort and research over the last month to produce articles of a good standard and I suddenly log in and find that all of this work may well count for nothing as people want these articles deleted. Nobody is forced to write these articles and it is hardly an insentive for anyone to do this when they are 'rewarded' with their articles being deleted en masse. I have noted that the user proposing my articles being deleted described me as "obviously an able wikipedian" but I think most people would be upset to see that it seemingly is the desire for this amount of time and effort to count for nothing due to the proposal of the deletion of the overwhealming amount of time and effort I have put into the website over the past month. Therefore, I have concluded that if these articles are deleted then it would be inappropriate for me to continue contributing to wikipedia, not least because anyone looking at my contributions page will just see a list of deleted articles and I would feel very embarassed knowing that this failure could be viewed by anyone using wikipedia to read about non league football. I would therefore want the removal of everything else I have contributed so that wherever possible all traces of my efforts is removed from wikipedia to remove the embarassment of people being able to see that almost all of my efforts have been deleted. As it is my talk page is dominated by deletion propsals and that is bad enough but for almost every article that I have written to be deleted would be all the more humiliating and upsetting which is why I would want everything that I have ever done deleted should it be decided to remove all these articles. Hopefully my efforts will not be scrapped and I shall follow this discussion with interest.(Rillington (talk) 09:18, 23 June 2012 (UTC))[reply]
It is worth stating that I did not enter into this looking for any credit and praise. It wouldn't have bothered me if nobody had ever contacted me or thanked me for my efforts. My motives were probably similar to the vast majority - to try to make this project more thorough and comprehensive and I saw a way to do this through finishing a job already started re the CML both through creating new articles and expanding on those already there given that the CML is a regional league rather than a local/single county league as some level 11/step 7 leagues are. After all, surely a regional league covering almost the same area as the league it feeds into (although yes I do appreciate that the league was recently split into North and South divisions) should be considered notable and even moreso given that the reorganisation saw the entire league now playing at the same level whereas for many other leagues, and also previously the CML, only the top division plays at step 7. Also, it would have given non league football a bigger presence here and as one non league fan to another, surely anything which can raise the profile of non league must be a good thing.
I note you have summed up some of my arguements for retention, and it is worth underlining that all of those articles contain references to at least two independent sources and that alone should be a major indication as to whether an article covers the requirements for inclusion as well as underlining whether the subject matter is notable. It also proves that the articles are properly written and researched and not just added for the sake of it. I often see articles being flagged up as having no independent sources and that is not the case with anything I had produced. as most would agree that articles merely consisting of a basic single sentence along the lines of the name of the club and the league that club currently plays in is not satisfactory. Again this is not the case with anything I had written and is also not the case when clicking on the articles from the page you refer to. It's also worth stating that to anyone looking in that it would seem odd that some teams in this league have articles whereas other teams do not which could lead some to suggest that some clubs are more notable and worthy than others and that is an unfair judgement to make on teams which play at a decent level of English football.
I can see why you would suggest that I am throwing all the toys out of the pram over this but anyone looking at what I have done through looking at my profile will see it being dominated by articles I had written being deleted - just a slight contrast, for example, to your talk page. That will stay there for as long as my account 'exists' and I don't want that embarrassment or reputation as someone whose articles keep getting deleted which is why I probably will throw all the toys from the pram and request the Courtesy Vanishing after these articles have been deleted because once I have 'gone', this will no longer reflect badly on me as a individual and I'd just put this down to experience and move on and hope that maybe in the future people won't be quite so tight and harsh and argueably even mean to a new user whose only intention was to try to make wikipedia that bit more comprehensive.
Finally, I had intended to do similar for rugby league's National Conference League but I don't want to experience the same humiliation with that effort as here with the CML clubs, nor do I want to spend lots of time creating and expanding articles only to have everything deleted. Who would? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rillington (talk • contribs) 11:13, 24 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I do understand that this is a learning curve - everything is - and it took me a few goes to actually get used to how the software works as I didn't want to submit an article which was not correctly formatted. However, we're still talking the overwhealming majority of my time and effort being completely deleted, articles which as far as I can tell, have no faults, are properly sourced, researched and referenced and do not breach anything such copyright. Also there are/were other CML articles which stood for a long time and have not been deleted. It's hardly encouraging to someone who is relatively new to have almost all of their efforts deleted and it doesn't give me any encouragement to want to continue in case yet another huge swathe of my contributions fall foul of another petty rule as this would always be in the back of my mind.
I have noted your point about editing the talk page.(Rillington (talk) 16:04, 24 June 2012 (UTC))[reply]
I've just come across the page about the WikiProject English Non-League task force and I noticed that the Central Midlands League is one of the three level 11/step 7 leagues which is mentioned in the Categories section and presumably one of the leagues which is part of this project. Therefore, if this is the case, it would seem odd to delete all of my CML articles when it seems as though I may well have, unbeknown to me at the time, been contributing to the wiki non league project.(Rillington (talk) 19:09, 25 June 2012 (UTC))[reply]
Comment I have kept an eye on this discussion even though I have made no comment for the past week or so and I'd like to thank you for the suggestion Doctree. Obviously I do not agree with having my nine articles deleted but based on that suggestion, and despite everything to still try to be helpful, I've copied and pasted the templates of these CML articles and put them in my Sandbox should these teams be considered 'notable' at any time in the future. I'm still considering the Courtesy Vanishing option after the nine articles have been deleted so I'd suggest that these templates are backed up in some form sooner rather than later because once they're gone, they're gone.
I hope at people see that from this action alone that I was a genuine editor whose intentions were always good but to have the overwhealming majority of my time and effort - altogether 10 out of 15 articles - deleted was just too harsh, severe and deflating for me to want to continue which is why, apart from contributions to this discussion, I've made zero contributions since I first read of the intention to delete my nine CML articles. It is worth reinforcing the point that I very much doubt that anyone else would have had almost all of their efforts deleted and certainly not so many articles deleted in one go and I think the majority of those who have had this happen to them would have reacted in a similar manner. Clearly, and sadly to me, my efforts have counted for just about nothing so when the nine CML articles are finally deleted I shall be gone.{Rillington (talk) 15:47, 5 July 2012 (UTC)}[reply]
Leaving emotion aside, please allow me to make one more appeal to save my nine articles. It is worth stating that whilst I accept that it was decided probably a long time ago that all step 7/level 11 leagues, including the CML, are not 'notable,' the CML is different the other step 7 leagues due to the massive geographical area that it covers. All the other step 7 leagues are single county leagues (although a couple are made up of teams from two counties) and they are basically the top tier of local football in England so I can see why the line was drawn at this point. However, the CML has teams competing in it from six different counties - its primary catchment area of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire plus teams from East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the parts of West Yorkshire which border onto South Yorkshire. This gives the CML almost the same geographical footprint as the NCEL, the next step up from the CML, thereby almost by default making the CML division 2 of the NCEL. This is hardly a non notable area in terms of area covered and due to the CML being a regional league rather than a local league I'd suggest that this league is more 'notable' than almost all of the other step 7 leagues, thereby justifying individual articles for all the teams that play in this particular league and not just those teams which have been relegated or played in a national Cup either recently or many decades earlier.{Rillington (talk) 19:47, 5 July 2012 (UTC)}[reply]