Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Queen's University Chess Club (second nomination)

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 as a non-notable club/organisation, WP:BIO refers. (aeropagitica) 23:23, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Queen's University Chess Club

First nomination was closed yesterday as keep, but is being brought here directly (rather than going through DRV after discussion with the closing administrator. The problem with the first AfD being closed as keep was that none of the editors who opined keep offered a valid rationale per WP policy or guidelines. In sort, having notable members, being involved in a notable game or competing in notable tournaments does not make an organization notable. The organization itself (not its tournaments, members or game) must have been the subject of multiple, independent coverage in reliable sources and this organization has not been. JChap2007 01:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Weak delete, but I'm not sure. The vast majority of chess clubs are not notable. I would say that a chess club is notable if a historic chess event took place there, or if a world-class grandmaster played there for several years. On these criteria the Marshall Chess Club in New York City would qualify, but all we have about it in Wikipedia is this line in Frank Marshall: "In 1915 he opened the Marshall Chess Club in New York." Look at the pages in Category:Chess clubs, and you will see that the notability of most of them is highly questionable. A particular offender is SKSamobor. So I think the article under discussion should be deleted, and the other chess club articles should be reviewed, perhaps in CfD. 129.98.212.143 02:35, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but clean up. This Club is old and has been involved with various notable chess people and events. Comment on above - we do not decide whether to delete articles or even review articles by discussing whether to delete the category they are in. Note that this article is not even in the Category:Chess clubs, but it should be. --Bduke 02:53, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, this reasoning isn't based on the applicable notability criteria. JChap2007 03:15, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which reasoning? The main keep recommendation or the comment? The problem with this article is that it needs cleanup. I came across it by chance. I am not a chess player and I am not from Canada. "the oldest traceable recorded Canadian correspondence chess game" seems to meet notability guidelines, except I can not find the reference on the URL given. Outside verification is likely for much of this article, but has not been found. Much of the article should be trimmed out. Instead of trying to delete interesting but unverified material, we should at this stage be trying to find verified sources. Maybe in the end this will have to go, but I do not see it has to go now. --Bduke 04:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The keep recommendation. Which notability guideline does "the oldest traceable recorded Canadian correspondence chess game" meet? It seems like another version of "This number is big." JChap2007 04:23, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'm not sure where it is but something that goes back with a continuous history of 160 years is very frequently considered notable. Age for schools for example is used as a criteria. Both the Club and presumably corrspondence chess have such a continuous history. Stuff in my country that goes back to the 1840s is certainly considered notable. Remember we are using guidelines. If something is interested and can be verified we should ignore guidelines if we have to and keep. However I grant you that this article needs work, and I guess it will not happen over the Christmas holiday period. I'm going to leave to others now and sort out my holiday period. --Bduke 06:34, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Notability guidelines are guidelines. There is no need to cite one when recommending keep or delete. You are even free to say that you think the article should be kept, despite the guidelines. Your opinion is still valid. The guidelines are simply a refection on what the community tends to view as notable etc.: they are descriptive not proscriptive. Some of us think notability is pretty useless as a criterion anyway.--Doc^g 09:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete per plenty of precedents of student societies being not notable by definition, or per WP:ORG. Quite frankly, this is not one of those exceptions which proves the rule. Don't be fooled by the smoke and mirrors, the article tries to give the impression of things which were not the case, by including some verbose POV text, tenuous links and assertions. It seems to be written in a specific attempt to avoid deletion, with too much padding not of direct relevance to the club. Some examples, the QUCC's origins within the Kingston Chess club are tenuous at best; QUCC was founded in the 1950s, not 1841!; Larry Melvyn Evans was already American champ when he played at the tournament at QU, and was not a member of the QUCC. A complete re-write will show this up clearly, but I don't see it worth the effort unless it's the only way to convince the community of the delete conclusion which is staring me in the face. I was equally surprised at the keep verdict, for the reasons given by the nom. In addition, this poorly written, excessively linked up article is a real turn-off. But then, I suspect that's also part of the smoke and mirrors. Ohconfucius 09:14, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Ohconfucius who sums up the article well. Nuttah68 11:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete. As the nominator of the first AfD, I based the original nomination on the precedent that university clubs are generally non-notable, with few exceptions. After re-reading the article based on Ohconfucius's statements, I must agree with his sentiments. The article reads to imply that the club was founded at the same time as the university; however, I'm about 99.44% certain that this is not the case. Andy Saund e rs 13:14, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete - per above and vast community consensus on student clubs. Claim to notability is misleading, group is unencyclopedic. -- Chabuk ^{[ T • C ]} 13:26, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete student club at a single school. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep Reference to student clubs as an overall category is misleading. This is a club with international connections, mentioned in the article, and clearly a definite, if closely defined, notability. If it is thought that the clear and uncontested notability of some players who belong to the club does not confer notability to the club, then so be it; but in chess, the players ARE the club. Arguing admittedly by analogy and not by official policy, in WP:MUSIC a band is notable if it contains a notable member. Why should a chess club be different?--Anthony.bradbury 19:45, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment True, a band is notable if it contains a notable member. But this argument by analogy turns, I think, on two different senses of the word "member." A "member" of a club is merely someone who has joined the club, whearas a band is defined as that particular group of musicians. To put it another way, if the most famous member of a chess club left it, the club would still continue. The same may not be true of the most famous member of a band. Charlie 20:40, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Not notable. - Aditya Kabir 20:42, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Delete per Ohconfucius, unless the article can be cleaned up.Charlie 20:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep interesting and its a notable university and a search turns up a lot of hits. Not sure why we have to keep having AfD's until it is deleted. --64.230.127.234 21:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, google turns up 22 hits including wikipedia[1] Bwithh 20:09, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- Comment It seems like Wikipedia's AfD system is badly flawed. If an AfD fails it comes here. If it fails here it way goes back and gets re-nominated, usually many times over until finally a minority get the verdict they want (delete). There is also POV with this delete from the original mover, he says no keep voters offered rational and that clearly wasn't the case. Anyway I vote for delete (not noteable) but can't login from here so its anon - --155.144.251.120 02:55, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep plus a good cleanup. 03:04, 22 December 2006 (UTC) Without going into too much detail, I support the notion of keeping this article per the reasoning of the first AfD debate. However, the article needs improvement in terms of style, organization, citations, etc. --Jay(Reply) 19:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
General question for the people commenting "keep and clean up": what would a cleaned-up article would look like? It would just be a shorter version of the current article: a disconnected list of tournaments and matches. This is because the club itself has not been the subject of multiple, independent reliable sources, which would enable us to write a good article on it. Also, does anybody dispute Ohconfucius's analysis of the true age of this club? "It's old" was a reason offered for keep in both AfDs. Also, WP:INTERESTING is not a valid rationale for keep, nor is the connection to something else (Queen's University) that is (definitely) notable. JChap2007 19:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Nothing encyclopedic about this school club. Agent 86 21:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and cleanup, there is nothing more notable in the chess club world than this club, read its history, amazing! if this is not notable, then 3/4 of the chess articles in general will have to go under the same criteria. really, go read the article, it's notable under wp:org. --Buridan 03:38, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Buridan, please read Ohconfucius' comments above regarding the history of QUCC and get back to me. Andy Saund e rs 04:12, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Buridan, your claim that "there is nothing more notable in the chess club world than this club, read its history, amazing!" is extraordinary - can you back it up with reliable evidence? Bwithh 20:11, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

don't need to, find a comparable chess club in wikipedia. the history in the article, if cited and verified makes this club notable. how so you ask? if i were on a high school chess team and looking to go to a college with a chess club, this is the sort of chess club that would strike me as having accomplished some things in the chess world.--Buridan 13:41, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Buridan, the point we're trying to make here is that the history of the club as presented in the article is incredibly misleading to a reader. It needs to explicitly say when the club was founded, and provide a source saying that the club was founded in that year. Right now, it makes a misleading claim that implies that the club was founded in the same year as Queen's University itself, which I'm pretty sure is false. This goes nothing to say that the precedent set by other discussions around here that says that "student clubs are generally NOT notable", and I don't particularly see any internationally famous grandmasters that played chess at this club. Andy Saund e rs 15:34, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Buridan, you may not need verifiable, reliable sources (not to mention straightforward claims) in order to believe this club is the greatest chess club ever, but Wikipedia does Bwithh 17:40, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That means it needs cleanup not deletion, if they do not have sources, which I bet they easily do given the documentation of chess history, that is a different story, but to me they meet the notable test, they just need cleanup to be verifiable. I agree, student clubs are generally not notable, that is why they put the word 'generally' in there. there are exceptions to the rule, this seems to be an easy one.--Buridan 05:04, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since you think the reliable sources will be easy to find, perhaps you can come with some? All of the hits (which aren't solid hits anyway) in Google Books relate to the Irish, not Canadian, Queen's University[2], I notice. And there's no club website on the university domain[3]. And very few google hits generally[4]. Of course google is not everything, but where do you think you will find your reliable, verifiable sources? Bwithh 09:32, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History if more often found in books, and no, i'm not going to cleanup the article. what i suggest is that you tag it with cleanup, describe what needs to be cleaned up, and if no one cleans it up in a year, you put it up for afd after a year. --Buridan 22:03, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep an club where some people or events are notable by association. Mukadderat 18:12, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete: Broad failure of core non-negotiable policy WP:V I second User:Ohconfucius and the nominator's arguments. Dubious, unreferenced notability at best, which still fails WP:V. The smoke and mirrors count against the article e.g. a lot of the names dropped seem to have no direct relationship with the club at all e.g. a player's father was professor at the university but it is not asserted that the player was a member of the club; some players were contestants at a tournament held at the university, which may have been their only contact with the university ever. There also seems to be an unspoken and unsubstantiated assumption that if a chess player attended the university, they must have been part of this club - but for all we know, there may be more than one chess club on campus and they preferred the other one or perhaps they preferred attending an off-campus chess club or perhaps they preferred playing outside of a chess club Bwithh 20:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Bduke.It's notable but the article could use work.Akanksha 18:11, 24 December 2006 (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.