Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Missing seasons

Introduction

Let's go, it's an empty slate! What are the options for handling articles for seasons not played in college football?--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:25, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Topic Library

Feel free to add to the library any proper links or discussions

I have no preferences. I can live with whatever is decided. Not sure if any written reason of a cancelled season is worth keeping an article...…Pvmoutside (talk) 16:27, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

AFD Library

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1918 Montana Grizzlies football team
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1943 VPI Gobblers football team

Other articles/essays library

• Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Season articles campaign
• Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Yearly team pages format
• 1889 California Golden Bears football team

Proposal 1: no empty season articles

Guideline

Season articles for college football teams in years that are skipped will not be created. Such information can be maintained in a team master article. A redirect to the master article is recommended, such as 1943 Tennessee Volunteers football team.

Discussion

Enter discussion here for Proposal 1:

• Support as original author, I support this guideline.--15:59, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support the proposal to skip articles for seasons in which the team did not play, however I oppose redirects, and would rather just have it noted in the lead of the team's overall article, or noted in the list of their seasons (ex. 1943–44 at List of Virginia Tech Hokies football seasons). PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 16:47, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Additional comment: The example given for redirecting non-existent season pages is 1943 Tennessee Volunteers football team; this redirects to Tennessee Volunteers football, which gives one mention to the lack of a team in 1943 (in the table listing the team's captains for every season, the 1943 entry is accompanied with "No team"). Other than this, it seems that not a lot of attention is being given to the team's choice not to play that year, which, in my mind, makes it a poor choice for a redirect. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 16:52, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Good point.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:35, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Support. I agree that season articles for teams that did not play should not be created. On the topic of redirects, I do not think that a redirect to the top of the team article is helpful. Nor do I think a skipped season is notable enough to be mentioned in the lead for these articles most of the time. Ostealthy (talk) 16:58, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

• Support with caveat. I generally agree with the proposal. However, there may be rare cases where the cancellation of a particular team's games is the subject of in depth coverage in multiple reliable sources. In the case of WWII, many, many teams cancelled there games, so these seasons do not warrant stand-alone articles. Cbl62 (talk) 18:11, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I can easily agree to that. 1940 Summer Olympics comes to mind as an example.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:35, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support proposal, but delete redirects That way we don't have somebody who wants to create 2015 UAB Blazers football team one day and we'll have it explicitly stated that they shouldn't exist in any form unless they played. (In the case of Tennessee with 1918, or Alabama in 43 those are exceptions, but see my response below.)-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 19:12, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Proposal 2: navigation skips seasons

Guideline

Wikipedia navigation tools including team templates and infobox navigation tools will work around skipped seasons as follows: A) Season navigation templates such as Template:Tennessee Volunteers football navbox (shown below) will have the skipped seasons listed in a lighter font but not linked to any article.

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B) Season infoboxes that use the yearly season navigation tool should skip any unplayed years, as shown in 1942 VPI Gobblers football team (see infobox below):

1942 VPI Gobblers football
Conference	Southern Conference
Record	7–2–1 (5–1 SoCon)
Head coach	Sumner D. Tilson & Herbert McEver (1st season)
Captain	William James
Home stadium	Miles Stadium

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Discussion

Enter discussion here for Proposal 2:

• Support as original author, I support this guideline.--15:59, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support – I see no problems whatsoever with this; these seasons for a particular team are not encountered by the reader because they did not exist. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 16:48, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support this seems to be the norm in 99% of cases and I support standardizing this practice. Ostealthy (talk) 16:59, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support. My only clarification is that when there is a series of years during which football was not played, each year should not be listed separately. Rather, the general practice is to use a dash to connect the series of years. E.g., Template:Columbia Lions football navbox, Template:California Golden Bears football navbox. Cbl62 (talk) 22:30, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I agree with Cbl. PCN02WPS (talk | contribs) 22:45, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
• Support and agree with Cbl, one issue I have would be with non-varsity teams such as 1918 Tennessee, or 1943 Alabama. I believe that these articles should be kept but maybe linked elsewhere within the navbox. The links on the infoboxes IMO should link to varsity seasons only.-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 19:14, 15 March 2019 (UTC)