Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gareth Davies

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 See below. If it's a hoax, it needs to be deleted. If it's not, it needs to be moved since this is not the primary topic. I'm going to go and move the DAB page to this primary page and restore some proper DABby content. If it turns out there is a rugby player who's notable enough, it can be recreated--preferably not with a copy-paste job from this history. Drmies (talk) 18:36, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Gareth Davies

Gareth Davies (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Appears to be a hoax. No player named Gareth Davies has played for the England national rugby union team. References are all copied from Tom Wood (rugby union) with small changes, such as substituting "Wood" with "Davies", club names, or making the dates from the 1990s to match his career span.

Gareth Davies was originally a disambiguation page, changed to this version in March 2013. The article is now the primary topic, listed at the top of Gareth Davies (disambiguation) (which has 16 articles). A revert and merge may be required rather than deletion, if determined to be hoax. Jevansen (talk) 12:37, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

• Speedy delete as hoax - you can see what they did to manipulate the references, to make it seem like the article about Wood was actually about Davies. (fake URL)—Мандичка^YO 😜 14:59, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
• Well, if all that is right (and I don't know but it looks so to me) it certainly shouldn't be deleted but should be changed to a redirect to Gareth Davies (disambiguation). Thincat (talk) 16:19, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
• If this is a hoax and is deleted, the edit history prior to 02:22, 23 February 2013 should be kept as part of the disambiguation page history. older ≠ wiser 10:26, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 12:52, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Rugby union-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 12:52, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 12:52, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

• Cautionary comment - It is unclear to me whether this is a hoax, a poorly written cut-and-paste job from another player's article, or a non-notable lower division rugby player. That said, I did find this article, "Cup on parade at Barkers Butts," Coventry Telegraph (7 May 2004), which seems to substantiate that a rugby player of this name did exist, and did play for the Barker Butts. That should be enough to to stop any speedy delete until we have (a) done thorough search of available media to substantiate/disprove facts in the article, and (b) if the person exists, then go through our usual notability analysis, which the person may or may not satisfy. No rush, folks -- let's do this right. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:10, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

That can't be the same person. That article is from 2004, and the subject of this article was supposedly active from 1990 to 1995. --MelanieN (talk) 17:25, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

@MelanieN: He would have been 32 in 2004; I don't know if it's true, but it's plausible. There were some awfully funky links in the footers which have not been explained though. I've been ignoring this discussion for the last few days, but I'll make a deal with you: if you spend 30 minutes looking for rugby player "Gareth Davies" in the next 24 hours, I'll do the same, and we can put this AfD to bed one way or another. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:32, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:01, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

• Comment If it is deleted, then the page Gareth Davies (disambiguation) should be moved to the primary page. Boleyn (talk) 16:24, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
• Speedy delete as hoax, and then move the disambiguation page to this title as there is no apparent Primary Topic. Comment: Note that the content was added in a series of 36 edits by 2.222.68.189 (talk · contribs) on 17 March 2013 (though the "access dates" of the references include 1991, 1993, 1995, ...). That IP made six edits the same day to another rugby player, Neil Back, which seem to have had the effect of replacing an image with a non-existent (or since deleted) image and were revertd a few hours later. That IP appears to have made no other edits. PamD 14:19, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
• The net result should be to delete this phony biography, but I'm not sure how to do it. Basically we need to move Gareth Davies (disambiguation) to this title Gareth Davies, leaving a redirect, and possibly doing a history merge. If we didn't care about the earlier history, we could just delete this and move the DAB page here, but there is quite an extensive history at this page, covering its time as a DAB page prior to the page being hijacked - as noted above by older ≠ wiser. --MelanieN (talk) 17:32, 29 May 2015 (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.