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. Some sources were presented here, but failed to convince the other discussants that neither WP:GNG nor WP:ORGCRIT were met. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:27, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Roc City Thunder[edit]

Roc City Thunder (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Appears to fail WP:GNG. They attempted to join a couple of leagues, but ended up playing independently against other non-notable semi-pro teams. I was not able to find any non-self published game coverage. Reliable non-primary sources are significantly lacking as well as a severe lack of significant depth of coverage. 99% of media coverage (most of it local) was only about the announcement of the team, which might also run afoul of single routine announcement. Yosemiter (talk) 19:31, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's a misapplication of WP:ROUTINE. Nonetheless, I'll concede that the coverage largely lacks depth, but I see at least two sources in the article that seem to satisfy under the GNG. Powers ^T 19:57, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@LtPowers: I did say "might" run afoul, mostly because the first line in routine is "Per Wikipedia policy, routine news coverage of such things as announcements,..." and it is certainly mostly covering the announcement of the team. But WP:routine in general is very subjective. If they had played a game against a notable team or two, I would likely never have nominated it. I added all the references I could find (it only had one dead one before I came across the page and it is still there as I could not find an archival source for it) and it does not appear to meet WP:GEOSCOPE. Which two sources specifically would you say meet GNG? Yosemiter (talk) 20:25, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That would be the Reporter and the Finger Lakes Times articles. They're thin, but sufficient IMO. Powers ^T 13:30, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sports-related deletion discussions. MassiveYR ♠ 19:54, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. MassiveYR ♠ 19:54, 22 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 20:47, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Sources: [1][2][3][4][5]. From nl.newsbank.com, "AMERICAN INDOOR FOOTBALL New arena team coming to Roc City". WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 20:42, 23 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • @WikiOriginal-9: I already saw all those (look at the edit history of the page, I actually added them when I nominated). The problem I see is that the only coverage is of the announcement that the team was formed, but never any coverage of them playing. They never launched in the AIF and they apparently played independently against semi-pro teams but got no coverage. So they only had coverage over a their announcement, so it lacks continued and diverse coverage. Yosemiter (talk) 14:17, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
• delete looks pretty weak either way. We're not talking about an individual here but a group. It could be worthy of an entry in the league article, but it just feels like too much of a stretch for me for a stand-alone article. I don't believe it passes WP:GNG although others may interpret that it does or that it might... so instead I'll just go with ignore all rules for my reasoning simply because I think including this article does not improve Wikipedia.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:53, 26 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree it's marginal, but I err on the other side; I think it's useful to record what information we have on a team that represented a good-sized community in a professional sports league. Powers ^T 01:55, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • @LtPowers: Correction: they never played in any league, professional or otherwise, so they could not have represented any community in a league. It was an independent semi-pro team (likely anyways, we have no sources for their pay) filled with former non-notable high school level players that played other non-notable semi-pro teams in a non-notable university rec center (a nice student rec center is still just a rec center) for one season before being replaced by another pro team in an actual league. I fail to see how your argument that WP:ITSIMPORTANT with that combination makes anything close to important or useful. Yosemiter (talk) 00:48, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 09:10, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment WP:UNOPPOSED comes to mind -- An unopposed AFD is really like a PROD.--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:10, 2 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Sorry for not being clear, but I do oppose deletion. I think the available sources are barely sufficient. Powers ^T 17:46, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nom and his subsequent comments. The team never played in a proper league as far a see no claim of notability. I don't think any of that coverage is GNG level in that it is neither in depth nor persistent, and is all about saying this new team is coming...even though they never really did. WP:NOT#NEWSREPORTS applies. ClubOranje^T 04:28, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just for the record, they did play games. They just weren't in American Indoor Football when they did so. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 15:57, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And none of those games even appear to have been covered in their own local media. Only records I ever found were posted on the Thunder's social media pages. Yosemiter (talk) 16:08, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nom. The team seems to fail WP:GNG, when even local media doesn't address it. Ifnord (talk) 17:44, 16 October 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.