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.
Comment. So the whole fifth level of football in Turkey is unnotable according to WP:FOOTBALL regulars, the same people who consider individual clubs at the tenth level in a smaller country (England) notable? The level of systemic bias in this project is simply incredible. Here are 13,500 potential sources that should be examined before a decision is taken to delete this. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:53, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. This League contains teams such as Zonguldakspor that plays in Group 13. Zonguldakspor played in the Turkish Super League from 1974-88. There is evidence of Zonguldakspor playing in 1994–95 Turkish Cup and other years in the 1990s with reference to Turkish Wikipedia. The ground capacity of Zonguldakspor is 13,795. This evidence demonstrates that there are teams in the Turkish Regional Amateur League that are clearly notable. If a league contains notable teams then surely the league itself should be considered notable. (League Octopus (League Octopus 09:36, 20 March 2012 (UTC))[reply]
The underlying issue here is that so few clubs (72) are allowed to enter the Turkish Cup. This leaves a distorted situation where a fifth tier Turkish league which caters for clubs with properly enclosed grounds (some with a capacity of more than 10,000), stands, terracing, floodlights etc. is excluded from English Wikipedia - which really is a nonsense. Yet at the same time we (myself included) fully support the inclusion of village leagues in England such as the St. Edmundsbury Football League (Level 18 and 19) where we play on park and village pitches, some which do not even have changing rooms. The standard reply I know is - WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. Would it be helful to defer this one and properly debate league notability on WP:FOOTY or am I just going over old ground? (League Octopus (League Octopus 12:45, 20 March 2012 (UTC))[reply]
Attack of the WP:FOOTY Groupthink, Part XIII (at least as far as the first few comments goes). The briefest of glances at the articles of those teams we have articles for at this level suggests that this level of the Turkish pyramid (not a single league) suggests that there are enough big teams (in terms of stadium capacity if nothing else) to suggest that secondary coverage will be sufficient here to build an article on the subject. It's certainly not excessive to suggest that a country of nearly 80 million people might have a fifth tier which is notable in itself, even if all of the teams at that level aren't. The big problem is a lack of English-speaking editors familiar with the subject. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:56, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Does anyone know any Turkish-speaking editors? In its current state it cannot be considered notable, I'm afraid. If some sources/notability can be found then I'd be more than happy to reconsider my viewpoint on the matter. GiantSnowman15:17, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The notability of a subject is not predicated on the current quality of its article. While editorial discretion may support a merge in the short term simply to improve the average quality of our coverage of the subject, that's orthogonal to discussion of the subject's notability. That's important to establish in case an editor subsequently comes along to improve the article and a well-meaning editor party to this AfD goes and speedies it as G4. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:29, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The clubs themselves may not be notable, and certainly not the players, but it seems to me rather bizarre that a fifth level league in a country where football is as important as Turkey could be deemed not notable. And 169,000 Ghits suggest this is the case. Plus WP:FOOTYN is not a valid reason for deleting as it's an essay and has never been accepted as a policy or guideline. Number5717:12, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I agree with Number 57 that WP:FOOTYN is just an essay. However, the article in its current state reference-wise doesn't satisfy WP:N, which I think is the main issue. – Kosm1fent17:17, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Notability does not depend on the current state of the article, but on the sources that exist. I provided a link to thousands of such sources above. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:51, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Clearly notable as per WP:GNG/WP:N. There are enough reliable sources with regards to the topic to warrant keeping the article, see Phil Bridger's comment. Also, the nom stating that this league does not meet WP:FOOTYN is wrong since the article clearly meets WP:N. We are talking about the league here, not the clubs involved or the players involved! Straighforward KEEP ! TonyStarks (talk) 21:24, 21 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I think, as the fifth tier football league in Turkey, it satisfies WP:N and the article can be improved more. Besides, I added League Status and two references from Turkish major news websites.Hcagri (talk) 09:00, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. It's clear from the google results linked above that sufficient coverage of this league exists to pass WP:N. Obviously it would be better if more of the information contained in those results were incorporated in the article, but that's a problem inherent in writing articles on the English Wikipedia about subjects (in any field, not just sports) with little English-language coverage. It's an argument for improvement, not deletion. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 09:52, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy close as keep Reluctandly, as I am still not really convinced about the notability of an amateur league. But the article is now better sourced and it seems that even more sources are on his way. I give it the benefit of the doubt and reuqest speedy close as keep. Night of the Big Windtalk13:23, 22 March 2012 (UTC)as said before, I'm not Don Quixote[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.