Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paris Parisians

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. Nominator withdrew after a good source was found, which also answers the other objections. DGG ( talk ) 21:18, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Paris Parisians (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Orphan article that fails WP:GNG and WP:ORG. A baseball team is not assumed to be automatically notable. —Bagumba (talk) 05:43, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment Forgot to mention in nomination that the article was de-prod with edit summary of "Professional baseball team".—Bagumba (talk) 05:46, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Baseball-related deletion discussions. —Bagumba (talk) 05:49, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

• Delete - But first it would be nice to notify the article's creator/primary editor that this page needs reliable sources to prove notability. Then if they can't come up with any in a reasonable amount of time (say a few days or so?) the article will be deleted. What do you think, or have you tried any of these things? MsBatfish (talk) 06:02, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

The article creator is the one that deproded the article and has not added any new sources, nor was any intent to add any sources in the future expressed. Past attempts at discussion with this editor to add sources in other articles has been well chronicled. Under the circumstances, an AfD, unfortunately, seemed to be the best venue to identify sources. Per standard procedure, the article creator was notified of this AfD. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 06:16, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

• Sounds fair to me :-) MsBatfish (talk) 03:15, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. —Bagumba (talk) 06:19, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

• Keep contrary to the opinion of the nominator, a professional baseball team is assumed to be automatically notable. Spanneraol (talk) 14:05, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
  • WP:NSPORTS says to use WP:ORG for teams: "It is not intended that this guideline should apply to sports clubs and teams; for these the specific notability guideline is WP:ORG."—Bagumba (talk) 18:03, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
    • In the past we've always accepted articles on minor league teams as having legitimacy.. I would hate to think that this is going to lead a wave of delitionists trying to get rid of those articles. In any event, sources should exist on this team.. though they may be off-line sources being that the team last played in the 1920s... so it may be difficult to obtain them promptly. Spanneraol (talk) 01:47, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
      • The fact that they only played one season way back in 1908 and they were a minor league league team swayed me to nominate. Offline sources are fine if they can be identified and more than trivial mention. No prejudice to re-create later either.—Bagumba (talk) 03:01, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• Plus there are no references given in the article to prove any of this. Something is not notable just because someone says it fits notability guidelines, there actually has to be proof that it does, by way of reliable sources. The only reference currently cited is a list of Paris, Illinois Minor Leagues, which gives no information about the Paris Parisians other than their name and it specifically states that the list may be inaccurate. MsBatfish (talk) 03:15, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• I don't think they're a notable team, but they certainly did exist. I do have proof that the Parisians existed, per a reference in The Sporting News's paid subscription-based archives from 1908. It is hard as hell to find references that far back, especially with TSN paper scans being really faded up until a certain point in the 1920s. The search engine managed to find a few references showing that they at least played two seasons in the league, per standings posted on July 4, 1907 and other dates through sometime in 1908. From what I gather, they turned down an offer to join the league, but midway through the season they joined up anyway and started playing games. Oh well, I'm not voting, but the team isn't a hoax. You can always just assume I'm a liar even though I spent practically 15 minutes going through like 50 sources that remotely had words that might look similar to Illinois or Paris according to TSN's search engine on garbled scans. Agent Vodello^{OK, Let's Party, Darling!} 18:30, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• I don't think anyone's claiming that the Parisians are a hoax, let alone assuming you are lying :-) I think the issue isn't whether or not they exist, but whether or not they are notable enough for an article. And the article needs to show the sources for this notability. MsBatfish (talk) 07:17, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Delete as failing WP:ORG. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:02, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
• Keep. The link in the article to baseball-reference.com verifies that this was a professional baseball team that belonged to what was then known as the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (and is now known as the Minor League Baseball). All teams in these leagues received significant coverage in the annual Spalding and Reach Guides. (Examples of the Spalding Guides are available on-line at the Library of Congress . Though their collection doesn't cover the 1908 baseball season, I've viewed the Guides for those years on microfilm. According to WP:N, "Sources are not required to be available online.") I think there's also a strong presumption that local newspapers also covered the team; when I've researched other minor league teams from that era, I've never run across one that wasn't covered by local newspapers. Although sources may not be available online, I'm fairly certain that they could be found at a good research library. (I'm not able to get to a good library this week to look up the specific references.) BRMo (talk) 04:51, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• I can confirm that during the period that this team was in existence, Paris, Illinois had a daily newspaper, which is available on microfilm. The newspaper almost surely provides significant coverage of the team. Next time I get to the library, I will try reviewing the newspaper. BRMo (talk) 06:08, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment: Well it looks like this discussion has prompted some people to do some research on this team and hopefully there will soon be enough reliable sources referenced in the article. If that happens within a reasonable time frame I will change my "delete" stance to a "keep". This is exactly what these kinds of discussions are for :-) MsBatfish (talk) 07:17, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to point out the article also covers the 1923 KITTY league version of the team from Paris, Tennessee. Spanneraol (talk) 16:17, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The two subjects should be disambiguated into separate articles (if notable), unless it can be shown they are the same franchise. By analogy, we wouldn't combine all John Doe's in the world to create a super article about independent non-notable subjects that share the same name. There are currently no sources in the article for the Tennessee team, which itself is another minor league team, albeit existing for two years (1923–1924) instead of just one.—Bagumba (talk) 16:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Keep Fully professional baseball team. I don't want a precedent to be set by the deletion of this article, and it will be a very dangerous precedent. Alex (talk) 11:00, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

— Note to closing admin: Alexsautographs (talk • contribs) is the creator of the page that is the subject of this XfD. —Bagumba (talk) 16:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Alex, that is no different than you said when you removed the prod. When an article is nominated for deletion, you are supposed to show evidence to back up your opinion that it should be kept. For example, reliable sources that support what is said in the article, proof of notability, quote Wikipedia policy, and so on. Merely saying "professional baseball team" doesn't tell us anything or even prove that that is true. (You can click on the words in blue for more details). I noticed that a lot of articles you have created have been proposed for deletion so perhaps it would be very helpful for you to read these pages, and also keep these things in mind when creating articles. Thanks. MsBatfish (talk) 11:18, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I have added multiple references that fulfill WP:GNG. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexsautographs (talk • contribs)

Note: I made above comment by Alex (talk · contribs) a separate entry per WP:REDACTED.—Bagumba (talk) 18:40, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The sources added to-date do not meet WP:CORPDEPTH, which notes to exclude items such as "the season schedule or final score from sporting events" and "passing mention, such as identifying a quoted person as working for an organization". The article Cantillon's Acquisition is more focused on the Washington team than Paris. I am confident you are familiar with WP:ROUTINE and in-depth coverage, as you have referenced them in past discussions. Thanks for the updates.—Bagumba (talk) 19:17, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Thank you for making an effort to add references to the article. It's great to know there's a free viable search engine for baseball players and teams from 1885 to 1920. This will definitely help my search in finding references for future AFDs on players from this era. However, the references added were either WP:ROUTINE, or one sentence passing mentions. I do not think this is enough to pass all the guidelines the delete votes above have cited this article is accused of failing. I still don't have a vote for this, but hopefully this search engine can help avoid bringing notable subjects to AFD in the future. Agent Vodello^{OK, Let's Party, Darling!} 00:59, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

• Alex, please refrain from changing your comments after people have already replied to them.

As for the current references in the article:

1.Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball: Second Edition - I don't have access to this one so I'm not sure what exactly it says

2. "A League Expands". Sporting Life. - All it says is "the other members of the league were... Paris..."; presumably referring to the town Paris, but doesn't call them "the Parisians" or provide information about the team.

3. "A Year's Work". Sporting Life. - This says "Illinois League... Paris played..." (as above)

4. "Cantillon's Acquisition". Sporting Life. - Says there was a "Paris Illinois team", doesn't specify Parisians.

5. BR Minors - this one does say "1908-Eastern Illinois League-Paris Parisians" but gives no other information and says that it may not be accurate.

6. "Chronology" - This says, "1924.. the Paris Parisians... take second-half honors." Don't think that's even the same team and it's only a passing mention.

7. "Major League Alumni" - Doesn't say anything about either team.

I'm sorry, but I just don't think any of these meet WP:Notability guidelines. (See also the guidelines cited by Bagumba above). They are not "significant coverage" in "reliable independent sources". In fact, I don't think that some of them even meet criteria for inclusion in an article. Unless the Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball is a way better source with much more information than any of these others, which I doubt, I still say Delete. MsBatfish (talk) 21:30, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - I'll note that prior to the 1920s, references to baseball teams in the press usually did not include a reference to the nickname or mascot. So the failure of sources from that era to call them the "Parisians" is not surprising; even for major league teams, articles of that era would typically refer to them just by the name of the city (or the city and league, if there were teams from two leagues playing in the city). While I agree that the references available online don't provide significant coverage (though I argue above that there are other sources available in libraries that can estalish notability), the absence of the nickname "Parisians" is not relevant to the question of notability. BRMo (talk) 06:21, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

• Well, I think it might be in this case, since all the sources are such minor passing mentions, (which in itself means they don't meet the notability guideline), I don't know whether we can even be certain they are talking about the Parisians. I don't know a whole lot about baseball, but are we to assume that any mere mention of the existence of a team called "Paris" is enough to be certain they are talking about the Parisians? Only one source says there even was a team called the Paris Parisians and doesn't give any other information than the home state and one year 1908. (I assume the 1924 team is a different team, and the Paris Parisians article says that it is). If you want to look for better sources at the library then that's great. As I said, I will easily change my "delete" to a "support" when there are some sources that meet notability :-) MsBatfish (talk) 11:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

It seems as if one of the arguments against this article is that the team played only one year in a relatively unknown league. However, a club of the same name did play in the KITTY league in 1923-1924. The KITTY League was not an unknown, obscure league - rather, it existed on-and-off from 1903 to 1955, a span of over 50 years. Sufficient detail has been added to the article concerning the 1923-1924 squad to make the article notable, as well as other information gleaned about the 1908 squad.

It also seems rather...unfair...to apply "modern" keep/deletion criteria to extremely old subjects, because old subjects are less likely to have the same prolific number of news articles on the Internet as modern subjects. Just because the 110-year-old subject does not have news articles on the 'net does not mean articles do not exist - it is just difficult to track them down. How many of us have Sporting Lifes from 1908 laying around? It seems wise to err towards thinking the articles do exist (and therefore the article should be kept), they just need to be found elsewhere.

Remember that almost every single modern newspaper, big and small, is on the Internet, delivering millions and millions of potential sources for any modern subject imaginable. It's safe to say most older newspapers and other sources are not on the Internet, drastically limiting the number of those readily accessible, with many of the most desirable ones (like Sporting News) costing more than anyone seems willing to pay to access.

It just seems iffy that we have minor league baseball player articles (that otherwise would likely not be notable had the subject played in the 1950s) who, due to the subject playing in the Internet age, have sufficient coverage that would be "kept," while an entire, fully professional team that did not have the benefit of playing during the Internet age (and therefore does not have as easily accessible sources) is being considered for and may be on the verge of deletion. Alex (talk) 14:27, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment The efforts to improve this article to date have masked the lack of notability by bombarding the article with trivial references that do not directly address the subject of the article.—Bagumba (talk) 17:43, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
• Comment The article lacks a main subject, with notability masked by indiscriminately dealing with two non-related Paris Parisians teams, one in Tennessee and the other in Illinois.—Bagumba (talk) 17:43, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
• Comment Does anyone have a proposal for a date by which it can reasonably be concluded with reasonable certainty whether or not sufficient significant, not trivial, sources exist for one of the Paris Parisian teams (do not combine into one article). This would be the most efficient use of everyone's time.—Bagumba (talk) 17:43, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
• Keep - primarily per BRMo regarding off line sources for the Eastern Illinois team and if anything, the KITTY league team is even more notable. However, I do think this title should be disambiguated to cover each team separately. Rlendog (talk) 19:35, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
• Comment - If the 1908 Paris Parisians were the same franchise as the 1907 Paris Colts (which is strongly implied by the "A League Expands" reference in the article, which does not list Paris as an expansion franchise and consistent with the tendency 100 years ago for even major league teams to change nicknames much more frequently than today), then this book has significant coverage as well. Rlendog (talk) 19:50, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment The articles notability is being further masked adding sources for for any team from a city named Paris in either Illinois or Kentucky. Until its determined that the Colts are related to the Parisians, it might be more appropriate to place text regarding history of teams in Paris, Illinois such as the Colts into the Paris, Illinois article.—Bagumba (talk) 20:28, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
    • A newspaper article already referenced states that before the 1908 season. 2 teams were added to the Eastern Illinois League. It also says that "the other members of the league are Mattoon, Charleston, Paris (emphasis added), Pana, Shelbyville and Taylorville." There was only one Paris team in the Eastern Illinois League in 1907, which was then nicknamed the Colts. So while I concede that there is a slim possibility that the new Paris Colts team folded sometime between the end of the 1907 season and February 1908, a new Paris team was founded in the interim, and this newspaper article chose to ignore the new Paris team when describing the new Eastern Illinois League for 1908, that seems like grasping at straws. And even if that was the case, the establishment of a Paris franchise in the Eastern Illinois League during the prior season would still be highly relevant to the 1908 "new" Paris franchise. Rlendog (talk) 20:45, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
      • Agreed the Colts are worth a mention in this article, but not three sentences on the Colts history. This is a Parisians article. I propose the details be merged into Paris, Illinois or spun out to a standalone article if notable. While I agree with the induction you are using about possible relationship between Colts and Parisians, reading between the lines is not suitable for inclusion in WP.—Bagumba (talk) 21:13, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
        • I don't know. At worst there is 2 sentences worth of material on a related team, that readers who come to the (Illinois) "Paris Parisians" article would likely be interested in. At best, and in the most likely scenario, the information in those 2 sentences is highly relevant to the Parisians. I am not sure how easy it will be to definitively resolve the relationship between the 1907 Colts and 1908 Parisians. Teams changing nicknames was pretty common in that era (see the Dodgers, Braves and Indians) and it was not uncommon for multiple names to be used, so even an official name change may not have attracted much attention. Maybe those looking into the microfiche will find something to definitively connect or disconnect the Colts and Parisians. In light of the possible ambiguity, however, it may make sense to change the name of the article to "Paris (Eastern Illinois League)" rather than using a specific team nickname (of course "Paris Colts" and "Paris Parisians (Eastern Illinois League)," or whatever names are used, would redirect there). And then there would be no problem with treating the Colts and Parisians in the same article. It would not be our typical way of handling team nicknames, since we would normally use the most recent nickname used by the franchise, but if we are not comfortable with the ambiguity over whether these teams actually represent the same franchise, that seems like an appropriate solution. Rlendog (talk) 01:18, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
• Keep If it was a professional baseball team at any time, then it would've gotten coverage in the newspapers of its area as well as the communities it played its away games at, plus elsewhere. Dream Focus 21:15, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
  • If that is the case, getting consensus to add to an SNG like WP:NSPORTS would avoid these discussions. Until then, WP:GNG needs to be demonstrated for each article upfront.—Bagumba (talk) 21:25, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
    • This is the first time this has come up where someone has attempted to delete a professional team.. Previous consensus has held that professional sports teams are notable. Should be added to NSPORTS in any event, we cover seasons and rivalries on there I don't know how we overlooked teams when that was set up. Seems like an oversight. Spanneraol (talk) 22:28, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
      • There was an earlier discussion in September at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(sports)/Archive_9#Clubs_and_teams, which resulted in a note in NSPORTS to use WP:ORG for teams.—Bagumba (talk) 02:01, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - Since when does anything get automatic notability status solely for existing? We still need reliable sources that are referenced in the article which contain significant coverage of the topic by name. It is not enough to say such sources probably exist somewhere, or that it's unfair to apply notability policy to things that existed a long time ago. Off-line sources are acceptable, they just have to provide significant coverage of the specific topic. How long do people want in order to find and reference such sources? I agree with Bagumba, we need a deadline. MsBatfish (talk) 01:30, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

• There is no deadline on Wikipedia, but in that same breath I don't think this article has much, if any potential for a team that lasted roughly one and a half seasons, regardless of what era the team played. Sources were found in The Sporting News and Sporting Life, but they were all either passing mentions or routine standings updates. I'm still not voting to delete since I don't want to green light the deletion of all minor league teams from that era, but it's a hard sell to say that because this team exists, it's automatically notable despite a ton of guidelines saying otherwise. Agent Vodello^{OK, Let's Party, Darling!} 01:53, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

• Every article proposed for deletion is discussed on its own merits and deleting this article would not "green light" deletion of all minor league teams from that era. It would also not prevent anyone from making an article on the Paris Parisians if and when substantial/significant information on them is found in reliable sources. I don't think that WP:There is no deadline (which is also an essay and not a policy) really applies here. We have timeframes set for the close of discussions all the time. What they're talking about in that essay is that articles are always a work in progress and generally don't have to be "perfect" by a certain date, and that Wikipedia will never be "finished". They are just trying to explain how it is different from a print encyclopedia or a magazine. It does not mean deletion discussions should go on endlessly. If you dislike the use of the word "deadline" I can explain it another way: it would be ideal if we could agree to postpone deletion for a reasonable amount of time in order to give people who want to do so time to look for sources that prove notability, but not indefinitely, and agree that if no sources can be found within a reasonable amount of time (which we should be a set amount of time, as "reasonable" is subjective) then the article should be deleted. Is that clearer? MsBatfish (talk) 05:17, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

• Putting aside the fact that per WP:N "Notability requires only the existence of suitable independent, reliable sources, not their immediate citation," and the fact that virtually everything in the article is cited, the Rube Foster book at least provides substantial coverage of the 1907 Paris Eastern Illinois League team. Plus it refers to substantial coverage in Paris' Daily Beacon, e.g., (one example of many) "A lengthy piece in the Daily Beacon announced the city's acceptance into the Eastern Illinois League, a Class-D association." So even if you believe that somehow the 1907 Paris Colts and 1908 Paris Parisians of the Eastern Illinois League were different franchises and that the Sporting Life piece referenced in the article about the league's expansion in 1908 neglected to mention that fact, at most we should be discussing renaming at this point (if no further coverage of the 1908 Parisians exists), not deletion. Rlendog (talk) 15:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

• Withdraw nomination I was able to find a source that definitively says the Colts were definitively renamed to the Parisians: Peter Filichia (1993). Professional baseball franchises: from the Abbeville Athletics to the Zanesville Indians. p. 173. ISBN 9780816026470. The AfD discussion was good to spur the identification of sources for what was far from an WP:IDEALSTUB, even if it became littered with trivial references that did not establish notability. Based on the non-routine sources found to-date, the fact the franchise existed for at least three seasons (one in Centralia, two in Paris) makes it likely that more non-routine sources exist offline. No prejudice to delete if those sources do not materialize in the article (six months enough time?) or at least on the talk page. For those with more expertise than I who believe that all professional baseball teams are notable, I invite them to add it to an SNG. Otherwise, WP:GNG and WP:ORG will continue to be the requirement for teams.—Bagumba (talk) 17:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

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.