Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dave Gilbert (game designer) (3rd 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 keep. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 12:31, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dave Gilbert (game designer)

Dave Gilbert (game designer) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

A prior AfD keep closure and its follow-up have been overturned at deletion review after the first closer brought in new information which on review turned out to be from a single source. The decision at DRV was to give this another round at AfD to allow full consideration of the new source. This is a procedural nomination, I have no opinion. ~ trialsanderrors 03:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep seems to meet WP:BIO if he was the subject of media coverage: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]. --Infrangible 05:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • According to the deletion review, this is the same Reuters story carried by different news outlets. ~ trialsanderrors 05:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I agree that the Reuters articles are all duplicates of the same thing. However, there are other completely separate articles about him and his work. For example, I found: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060926/hawkins_01.shtml GamaSutra is a well-regarded publication in the game development industry. I've updated the page's references accordingly. Tarinth 08:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Fails WP:BIO. Not only are the so-called sources merely a reprinted Reuters article, even that article does not prove notability, as Dave Gilbert is not the primary subject.
  • Splitting hairs. I don't know how you can separate the work of an individual, independant developer from the developer (the artist) themself. Tarinth 16:17, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Andre (talk) 06:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep Game designers who have created notable games are like any other artist and are thus notable. In addition to the Reuters coverage there are other stories as well (see the Gamasutra link above). Satisfies WP:BIO on that basis, and would also meet WP:CORP if one treats him as equivalent to the "publishing business" that released the game (since he appears to release games directly). Tarinth 08:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • This Gamasutra link's primary focus is not Mr. Gilbert either. We agree that The Shivah is notable. The contention is that Gilbert himself isn't. Andre (talk) 13:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
    • If a company published The Shivah then there wouldn't be any question of having an article listing them as a video-game developer; if an artist had been noted to the same extent by the media, we'd be including an entry for the artist and not simply thw work. I don't see how this is any different whatsoever. Tarinth 16:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep award winning game designer who has had plenty of media coverage... if this is deleted I will quit wikipedia, because its clear no one gives a rats ass about worthwhile content.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 12:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Honestly, that's ridiculous. The man's a minor adventure game maker. Miyamoto, he is not. Andre (talk) 13:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Your opinion that he's "minor" is purely subjective and not at all relavent; he's been noted by the media as an innovative indie game developer. Tarinth 16:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep for now. Border-line notability, and per the Gamasutra link provided. Also he was featured in the various sources as said above (although not independent). --Nearly Headless Nick 13:27, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, but add something of substance to the article or we will be here a 4th time Alf photoman 14:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, for the two reasons mentioned by Alkivar, but do think it needs some rewriting. JN322 14:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep his mention in numerous non-trivial and important sources certainly allows the topic to pass WP:BIO TSO1D 16:00, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per above. Meets WP:BIO, etc. ~ EdBoy^[c] 21:43, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been added to the list of CVG deletions. PresN 21:39, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Per above. Seems notable enough in my eyes. Havok (T/C/e/c) 22:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• keep per sources. — brighterorange (talk) 22:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep CNN report makes him notable enough. --Duke of Duchess Street 02:25, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep: Looks notable enough to me. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 03:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Duke --BenWhitey 05:01, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• Strong delete The CNN report (Reuters story) mentions him in passing, he's not remotely the primary subject of that article, and it's even hard to say that the article itself is nontrivial (it's just a couple paragraphs about the video game). If six instances of the same Reuters story is multiple independent works, then JK Rowling is the author of hundreds of different books (by counting separately all the UK, US, hardcover, paperback editions, etc. of the Harry Potter series, to say nothing of the foreign translations. The criterion is independent of each other which means they can't all stem from the same origin). Subject is also not the primary subject of the Gamasutra article either: that article is about several different games, and he gets some mention the section about the game that he worked on. George Lucas is similarly not the primary subject of an article about the Star Wars movie that mentions him, but he is the primary subject of something like this.
  Wikipedia is not a publicity agency, we are not here to plug anybody's games, this biography subject absolutely fails to meet the consensus-developed WP:BIO guideline based on the documentation presented, and people should stop looking for ways to to pretend that he is. Either come up with better documentation per WP:BIO or justify a departure from the guideline on some reasonable grounds. Otherwise delete. 67.117.130.181 14:57, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Perhaps I'm just not looking at it in the correct light, but if seperate news agencies/publications choose to run the same article, doesn't that still make the subject noteworthy? Talk radio, for example, frequently uses AP wires as a base for the stories they air, does that the coverage (for example) of a forrest fire originally covered by one agency mean that other agency coverage doesn't exist? Or does an organization such as CNN have to take the time to re-write the Reuters article for it to count as coverage? JN322 15:34, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
    • According to WP guidelines, since all of these (including CNN) are reprints of the same Reuters article, they are considered one source. However, this is all irrelavent since there are additional, totally unrelated sources that easily push this subject over the minimum bar. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tarinth (talk • contribs) 16:44, 31 December 2006 (UTC).

• • • Multiple works means the pieces are independent of each other. If the subject is really notable, more than one person would have sat down to write something about him/her (e.g. Reuters and AP might have written separately). There should be no need to resort to multiple recyclings of the same article. See WP:BIO#fn_5 for what this is all about:

All of these criteria are in fact simply special cases of the general primary criterion of multiple non-trivial published works from independent sources. A person who is "part of the enduring historical record" will have been written about, in depth, independently in multiple history books on that field, by historians. A politician who has received "significant press coverage" has been written about, in depth, independently in multiple news feature articles, by journalists. An actor who has been featured in magazines has been written about, in depth, independently in multiple magazine feature articles, by magazine article writers. An actor or TV personality who has "an independent biography" has been written about, in depth, in a book, by an independent biographer.

In short we're looking for enough published documentation to support a real biography. There is no depth in the biographical coverage of those articles.
Looking at WP:BIO again though, I can see a case for the Gamasutra and Reuters' pieces counting as multiple reviews of an author's work (I had remembered a requirement that the author have multiple published works that had been reviewed, but either it's changed or I was confused. It does seem lame to me that someone writing one published/reviewed book results in two WP articles (one about the book and another about the author)). I'll back off on "strong delete" to just normal delete. I'll confess to still being in reaction mode over the against-consensus "keep" closing of this article's first AfD. 67.117.130.181 17:14, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

• • The Gamasutra article spends 3 out of 5 pages either discussing his work, as well as an interview with him. If the article had ended at that point, we'd still consider it to be a good source; the fact that it continues on to some other subjects does not detract from it. And I don't regard the Reuters coverage non-trivial. As for comparisons of J. K. Rowling or George Lucas, I'm not sure what point you are making with that. The fact that they are notable does not mean that other individuals needs to reach their level of notoriety to be considered for Wikipedia. WP:BIO sets a relatively low bar for notability, one which the individual described in this article easily reaches. If you think WP:BIO should be a lot more stringent so that you have to be Lucas or Rowling to get included, that's not a debate for this AfD discussion. Of the 1.5M articles on Wikipedia, surely this one is more notable than most? Isn't there a better way we can spend our time? Tarinth 16:41, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
    • The point of JK Rowling is we don't count multiple editions of the same novel as multiple works, and we don't count multiple publications of the same Reuters' article as multiple works. The point of mentioning that book about Lucas is that he's the primary subject and it says so right in the title. If you show either the Reuters or Gamasutra piece to someone and then ask them what the piece is about, they won't say "it's about someone named Dave Gilbert", so Dave Gilbert is not the primary subject of those pieces. And spending 3 of 5 pages discussing Dave Gilbert's work is not the same as spending those pages discussing Dave Gilbert. We already have a separate article about his work--why do we need 2 articles? If really are additional, totally unrelated sources as you say, then great, let's see the cites (and no, that web forum discussion linked from the article does not count). As for why this matters, see this email about the amount of publicity seekers trying to wiggle their way into Wikipedia and WP:BIAS for why having external influences warp our article selection isn't good. We already have enough unavoidable bias from our editors' demographics, we should definitely resist more bias resulting from people with financial incentives to get documented here. 67.117.130.181 17:14, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

• Refer to my point above: the inventor/creator of a notable work is essentially indistinguishable from the work itself. Just as we have articles on musicians who are primarily known only for having created a notable song, or entries for videogame companies that are effectively unknown aside from their notable games--I don't see any difference here. As for bias or an individual's desire (or lack thereof) in being listed, again, that's a discussion regarding overall policy that really has nothing to do with this specific case. Tarinth 17:30, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

If the inventor/creator of a notable work is essentially indistinguishable from the work itself, then we should not have separate articles about the work and the creator. I'd be ok with inserting a biographical paragraph about Dave Gilbert into the article about his computer game. It just boggles my mind that one Reuters article is supposed to generate two Wikipedia articles (and therefore two separate sets of extlinks generating pagerank: ka-ching!). I don't know how you get this concept of indistinguishability though. If someone seriously told me I was indistinguishable from my works, I'd be pretty annoyed.
Yes, the same thing happens all the time with musician articles and I don't like that either. We have ridiculously weak coverage of the Wilhelmshaven mutiny, a genuinely important historical topic, while we fill the encylopedia with music-industry marketing junk. I usually just roll my eyes and keep quiet by now. As mentioned above, I made an exception for this afd because of the bad closure of the first one. 67.117.130.181 17:41, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

• Sorry, but I can't think of many worse arguments in favor of deleting an article you don't like than "other important articles aren't good enough yet." Tarinth 18:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

That part only says we're spending our time on the wrong things. Why we should not have so much marketing is explained at WP:NOT, WP:COI, the Brad Patrick letter I linked to, and elsewhere. Any article topic whose notability results from somebody's marketing efforts (whether on-wiki or off) and whose inclusion in Wikipedia is likely to result in someone selling more of some product (video game, music CD's, or whatever) should be assessed with rigor and skepticism and held to a high standard. Wikipedia is not a shopping guide. 67.117.130.181 19:41, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

You're right that we're spending time on the wrong things. This AfD, for one. Tarinth 21:39, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep In the Reuters article it credits him directly, and he is featured prominently in the Gamasutra article and as such the page fits within WP:BIO Da Big Bozz 21:34, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I am curious, what about this article from an adventure gaming website that I included in the links part of the page? The interview focuses more on Gilbert and his choice to enter the field than his projects. http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,699/ JN322 03:35, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Good one, and should probably be referenced in the article. Tarinth 14:48, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I referenced it, but I'm not very good at this sort of thing, so someone else may want to revamp it. I also added references for his AGS awards. But if they're unnecessary, someone please feel free to delete/edit or whatever you do. JN322 15:25, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

• Merge - To The Shivah, this seems to be the only notable game he's done. There's not really much information on him outside of the context of this game. Wickethewok 19:53, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Merge per Wickethewok. Borderline notable, and only really for To The Shivah. He can have his own article when he becomes independently notable. --Alan Au 19:28, 2 January 2007 (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.