Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gator Football Ring of Honor

:{{la|Gator Football Ring of Honor}} – (View AfDView log{{int:dot-separator}} [http://toolserver.org/~snottywong/cgi-bin/votecounter.cgi?page=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Gator_Football_Ring_of_Honor Stats])

:({{Find sources|Gator Football Ring of Honor}})

I propose to Merge this article to Florida Gators football. While there is no doubt in my mind that the subject award is notable per WP:GNG, having received significant media coverage when it was started and with every subsequent inductee, this article lacks the substance of a stand-alone article and always will. The subject has been artificially separated from its natural parent article, Florida Gators football, and should be merged with a section-specific redirect thereto. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:22, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

:*Comment I agree, it makes the most sense to merge as a section in Florida Gators football, not sure why this wasn't done in the first place. Abroham1024 (talk) 17:42, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

::*The article was created by an enthusiastic Gators fan, and I won't fault him for that. Too often in sports-related AfDs, we focus only on whether the subject satisfies the specific and/or general notability guidelines while forgetting that notability is only the first step. For some subjects such as this one, it makes more sense to combine them with other closely related topics in order to provide the reader with a wider perspective on the subject area. There is a section of awards and honors for Gator football players in the parent article, and the description and list of honorees for this award belongs at the top of that section. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:56, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of Florida-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:07, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:07, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 02:07, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

• If it's conceded that the subject is notable, as Dirtlawyer states, then this really ought to be a merger discussion rather than at AfD. See Wikipedia:Merging#Proposing a merger. Cbl62 (talk) 21:49, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

:*Cbl, I considered using both an article talk page discussion and the proposed merger venue. The article has fewer than 30 watchers, and only two substantive (non-category, non-vandalism) text edits (one by myself included) in the last three years, and I fear that any talk page discussion simply will not attract any attention. As a practical matter, no discussion has closed at the proposed merger page in three months. I do not believe there is any policy that precludes using AfD to accomplish a merge, and as we all know the practical difference between a delete, a redirect and a merge is a pretty fine line. I also considered just doing it boldly myself, but I figured AfD would be the venue where I could get the most eyes on the article, probably with the most CFB expertise, in the quickest possible manner. AfDs are usually closed in 7 to 14 days, talk page merge discussions for minor articles never close (if they even attract any participation), and the merge page, well, it's currently running 90 days behind on non-controversial, unopposed merges. If this AfD strikes you as inappropriate under the circumstances, I will withdraw this AfD. Thoughts? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:29, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

::* I understand your thinking, but I am wary of using the AfD procedure on an article that admittedly satisfies notability standards. On balance, I don't think AfD should be used to expedite a merger discussion. Even if it is slow or unwieldy, merger discussions (where both articles meet notability standards) should be dealt with by the established merger procedure. Cbl62 (talk) 20:10, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

:::*{{Ping|Cbl62}} How about we keep this AfD open for a couple more days, and then transfer the whole discussion to the article talk page? You could then administratively close the AfD as "no consensus," etc., without prejudice to the talk page discussion . . . would that satisfy your procedural concerns? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:45, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

• Keep - While I appreciate that a topic like this might be best handled within the context of a section of the related team, in this case Florida Gators football is already a sprawling, nearly unreadable piece. It makes perfectly good sense for a detailed "subsidiary" topic like this to exist to help keep that root article from being even more overblown and cluttered. I don't think anyone would really argue that this is not a notable topic — or at least I don't hear that coming from the nominator. I suggest that a withdrawal of the AfD nomination might be appropriate here. Carrite (talk) 15:34, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

:*{{Ping|Carrite}} A quick review of the "sprawling" Florida Gators football article revealed two large lists within the parent article that duplicated existing stand-alone list articles (List of Florida Gators football seasons and List of Florida Gators football All-Americans). The duplicate/redundant text has now been removed from the parent article, with the insertion of brief introductions and links to the stand-alone articles now inserted. This is how article spin-offs are supposed to work: large sections that can provide the substantive content for stand-alone articles or lists are spun off with links to and from the parent article. In the case of this brief article for the Ring of Honor, you can readily see that it has a fraction of the content of these other two spin-offs. In fact, a couple of three- to five-sentence paragraphs of content from this article could appropriately be inserted and replace the section entitled "Retired jersey numbers," with no appreciable increase in the size of the parent article. Given that inductions into the Ring of Honor happen very infrequently (e.g., Heisman trophy winners, national championship coaches, Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees, etc.), this section is not likely to grow much any time soon, either. It's really where this brief award content belongs. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:06, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

• Merge per Dirtlawyer1. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:58, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

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:Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

:Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:46, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

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• Merge per Dirtlawyer1, as well. There's just not enough independent info to justify an independent article. Zeng8r (talk) 19:17, 22 July 2014 (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.