Creating Our Own Space

The news sent a shockwave through the lower league social media world. Some zealous Wikipedia editor was tagging all the Gulf Coast Premier League clubs’ pages for deletion. Big name regional clubs like AFC Mobile and Central Texas Lobos were being deemed ineligible for a Wikipedia entry due to their lack of appearances in the U.S. Open Cup (the rule was a carryover from English football). Up and coming club, Bugeaters FC (soon to join the GCPL) was also on the list. The backlash was aggressive and outspoken from all over lower league twitter, but the ingenuity of grassroots soccer also led some into taking a more creative approach to the issue.

For Bradley Deimar, the solution was in the synchronicity of the story and his own frustration with Wikipedia’s editing approach. “It happened to be the same day a major edit I had made to the Stockade FC Wikipedia page had been removed over a formatting error (I put in the entire 2019 roster only to have it taken down). I was frustrated about both, but I also wanted to find a solution to this problem. Making a wiki devoted to lower league soccer just made sense.” And with that, Bradley began work on creating the Lower League Soccer Wiki.

The Wiki will serve as a place for fans, supporters groups, coaches, players, anyone really, to give the nuts and bolts view of a lower league soccer club that a site like Wikipedia simply can’t handle or support. “How I’ve explained it to a few people is to compare Wikipedia’s page about the Simpsons to the Simpsons Wiki. On Wikipedia, you’ll get the details about the big characters, maybe a little info about the main writers and producers. On the Simpsons Wiki, there’s a page for every episode, minor character, writer, producer, etc.” So the LLSW will serves as a place to get the real texture of a club, from lineups, background information, club lore, local stories, etc.

The LLSW page for Kingston Stockade. For the record, Deimar is a member of the club’s SG.

For what it’s worth, Bradley didn’t create the LLSW out of hate for Wikipedia. “I understand Wikipedia’s take on it. Wikipedia tries to keep high standards on what they allow on the site especially when it comes to sourcing articles. And in terms of notability, some of the clubs may not be “notable” to the general public.” But he does think he site could fill the obvious gap of notability. “This is where we provide something Wikipedia can’t. Not every detail about smaller teams can be found on a website (ie. the only roster you can find is on a game program) and not every club will play in a “national cup”. But, this makes it even more important that we give these clubs a way to tell people about themselves.”

At this point in the site’s development, the big need is information - the site needs content. The best part is YOU can help! “Right now, the big way to help is just to get pages out there. We’ve seen a good response so far (10+ pages in the first week) but there are still plenty of leagues, teams, and supporters groups out there who need pages. Our wiki is hosted on Fandom, and the site is very user-friendly and has a tutorials page for those who need help learning the basics. If you’re not sure where to start, just take a quick look and see if the club you support has a page and make one if it.”

The creativity and activist approach to fandom by grassroots soccer people is always inspiring. It takes a crap situation and turns it into gold. Bradley idea of a Lower League Soccer Wiki is just more of the same positivity, and what it yields will be a permanent home for hundreds of pages on lower league clubs - safe from deletion! “I’m hoping the outrage many felt when the original Wikipedia story came out can be made into productive use.”

If you want to get involved, visit the wiki and make a page for your local club!

You can also keep track of the work being done by following the wiki’s twitter account.

- Dan Vaughn

Lower League Club Wikipedia Entries Tagged for Deletion

Wikipedia is an amazing resource. An open source website created and continually updated solely by volunteers. Anyone can take part in creating and editing the vast encyclopedia. It is usually the first, go-to reference source when searching for more information about a world of topics.

A topic gets a page if someone decides it’s worthy enough to put in the sweat equity to create it. The site does have schemes called WikiProjects (again, volunteer-run) that area group of contributors who collaborate on writing, improving and cataloging articles in their given areas of interest. WikiProject Football (often just called WP:FOOTY) is the WikiProject for soccer. WP:FOOTY comes up with standards of what articles fall under the soccer umbrella, templates for a variety of soccer topics, style guides for articles and notability guidelines to determine if an article deserves to be on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia pages for GCPL teams including Nebraska Bugeaters, AFC Mobile, Tallahassee SC, Biloxi City FC, and Central Texas Lobos FC have all been flagged for deletion.

If a soccer article is created on Wikipedia that does not meet WP:FOOTY’s notability guidelines per an assigned administrator, the page may never go live. Also, if a page has already been created in the past and is live, at some later date, that WikiProject’s volunteers might tag it for deletion and, after some deliberation, delete that page.

This week a Wikipedia editor tagged most of the teams currently in the Gulf Coast Premier League for deletion. The assertion was that the articles do not pass WP:FOOTY’s notability guidelines for clubs. The general notability guideline (GNG) for sport which says that a topic needs significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. WP:FOOTY requires clubs to meet the GNG and, as a guideline, notes that a team generally meets GNG if it has played in their country’s national cup. England gets a specific guideline that a club meets GNG if it has played in at least level 10 of the English system or in one of four national cups.

Beyond the somewhat overzealous editor choosing to, overzealously, implement a general guide as an immovable rule, the bigger issue is that WP:FOOTY’s notability guideline for clubs doesn’t really work for US clubs. The number of clubs that can qualify for the US Open Cup’s First Round (yes, qualification doesn’t count under WP:FOOTY’s GNG guideline) has not remotely matched the relative number of notable clubs that have formed during the modern soccer explosion. In addition, clubs outside of the three pro Divisions have no competitive access to leagues with automatic entries into the USOC so their path to so-called “notability” is severely hindered by the very structure of US soccer.

While a relatively small issue in the grand scheme of the sport, a lower league club’s worthiness to have a Wikipedia article, is a practical example of the impact that US soccer’s top-down structure that overly prioritizes the worth of higher-level clubs over the vast number of grassroots clubs. Having most of the resources and easier access builds in notability while lower-level clubs must jump over unreasonable hurdles to gain that sheen of notability.

The debate has already begun on Wikipedia.

While that is the practical description of what is going on the most popular source of basic information on EVERY subject, where this issue goes from this point almost certainly heads in a dark direction for lower league soccer fans. The work of one persnickety volunteer Wikipedia editor may lead to a host of significant clubs without exposure on a very important public website. It’s clear Wikipedia needs to expand their definition of significance to take into account the wave of clubs joining the American soccer landscape. However, trying to get an organization prone to long-winded debate to change their mind quickly enough to save these entries might be too much to ask.

- Dan Creel