Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GameFAQs message boards

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was KEEP. -Splash 01:42, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] GameFAQs message boards

Message board cruft, describing the layout of, well the message board hosted by GameFAQs. This should be redirected to GameFAQs and any useful content (if indeed there is any) merged. Dunc|☺ 12:34, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

• Keep, Most of this was already spun out of the GameFAQs article...the board system is one of the largest on the internet. Cruft would be subjective.The Slashdot subculture could be considered cruft in some circles. Toffile 12:47, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. It's not "cruft" if the board is mentioned on sites like Fark and Something Awful with any degree of frequency. The board has a reputation that's relatively far-reaching, so I see no reason why we need to get rid of the article. imdwalrus 9:19, 12 August 2005 (EST)
• Keep, More than 3 million people have used this message board community.--Darkspym7 16:23, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
• What Toffile said. Keep, or delete all the Slashdot cruft. One or the other. - Randwicked 13:33, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
• keep, Its a perfectly valid entry on an enormous online community. The GameFAQs message boards are very well known for being something of a world into itself.--68.233.141.149 13:03, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Only registered users may vote. Ashibaka (tock)

• Delete. Useless cruft. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Martg76 14:26, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Delete. A notable website should be known to people outside its fanbase. Fark is well known to everyone online, and Something Awful is featured in news stories, but the GameFAQs boards are not notable for anything. It is indeed a "world into itself" that has no relevance to the outside world. Any notable information about the forums should be merged back into the main GameFAQs article. Ashibaka (tock) 16:25, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Either way, there it still impacted more people than other people/events that have Wikipedia articles.Darkspym7 16:35, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Okay, that's something to go on. Please describe how the GameFAQs forums have impacted the lives of their members. This also might be a good thing to include in the article itself. Ashibaka (tock) 16:41, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I'd argue that the GameFAQs forums are notable in their infamy and their place in the culture of video game fandom. On the other hand, they're inextricably linked to GameFAQs, so I'm voting merge with GameFAQs.

• Keep, notable within its fanbase. Kappa 16:39, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
• Comment - I am relatively new and don't know all the vagarities of the rules, but is "notable within its fanbase" a valid argument? I know this is part of a larger debate on whether every episode of every TV show is worthy of an article, and even whether every public school and small town mayor should have a page...but isn't "notable within its fanbase" sort of the opposite of "encyclopedic"?
  • How is it not encylopedic? It would fit perfectly into an encyclopedia of GameFaQs. Kappa 22:17, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
• Remerge, for whatever reason this article has been split off and merged a number of times. Whatever notability this may have should be remerged with GameFAQs. K1Bond007 17:56, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
• delete or merge back. Take someone notable, say, Elizabeth II of England, her right leg would not on its own be notable or suitable for an article, although I am sure one could amass some information about it. Why split off the message boards from the main article? They are its "right leg". --Tim Pope 19:02, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
  • If Elizabeth II of England of England's page was too long, it would have to be split up, probably in a more sensible way than by body part. Kappa 22:18, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, this is a useful little reference, especially for people who have questions about the board. I know I've used this page to link to on MBH if I don't feel like answering n00bs' questions. - the0nemanband
• Keep or Re-Merge with GameFAQs This is a good collection of information about a site that is widely used. Wikipedia was one of the resources I used to familiarize myself with the site when I first joined. I would argue that GameFAQs is the most prominent gaming website on the web. The message boards themselves have hundreds of thousands of active users; this entry is as notable as other of the miscellany contained in the Wikipedia. This page should, however be re-merged with the entry for GameFAQs. Mrbort 21:09, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, they're rather large forums and have spawned more than a few Internet memes. I'd say they merit their own article. Crovax 23:06, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep per Toffile and Randwicked. Nifboy 23:16, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
• Merge with GameFAQs. GameFAQs is a notable site, but giving the forums their own article is just nuts. Nandesuka 23:56, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. The forums are pretty notable and may in fact deserve their own article. But not this one. Marblespire 01:34, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Do you mean that the article should have a different name, or just that it should be improved? Both of those are easy to do, and would only be obstructed by deletion. Factitious 23:17, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
• keep The audience reach of the boards alone is astounding. lots of issues | leave me a message 05:44, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. It's notable. Absolutely no disadvantages in keeping this information on Wikipedia. Factitious 23:17, August 13, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. This should be covered in the website article. Purely a result of video game fan over-representation. / Peter ^Isotalo 01:39, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. These boards are much more than trivial video game discussion. Too much info to merge (similar to the Something Awful Forums page). ArcTheLad 02:21, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
• Merge and redirect and cull excess. -Sean Curtin 06:31, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and edit mercilessly. GameFAQs is a long article, not much under 32K; merger will produce an excessive article. Septentrionalis 13:15, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: There was no need to bring this to VfD to perform a merge, much less to suggest one. A merge does not affect the edit history. If there was need to attract wider opinion to persuade the regular editors, that's what surveys are for. Septentrionalis 13:15, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable enough. -- A Link to the Past 19:48, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. I found the information on this page useful when trying to decipher a GameFAQs "meme" - Stoph 00:29, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep or Merge. This is useful information for anyone searching for information on GameFAQs' board system and in its present state is to big to be merged with the main GameFAQs article. If GameFAQs is allowed an entry, then its boards (as a major feature) need to be explained as well. I think (ignoring some vandalism...) this entry does a decent job of introducing the boards and gives a nonuser of the system a decent understanding of what it is like. However, much of the information could be stripped out if necissary to maintain an elitist standard for the encyclopedia... with the rest merged with the main GameFAQs article (which should then be marked for a significant cleanup to better integrate all the data.) Simply deleting it outright would be a disservice. - Mr1bh 04:36, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Delete or Merge with GameFAQs. The site is notable; the forums are not. The details to the forums should already be self-contained within their own community. --Madchester 05:59, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

• Strong Keep' - If Something Awful boards have their own separate page, then GameFAQs should as well.
• "The details to the forums should already be self-contained within their own community" Which does nothing for people outside the community such as the typical users of Wikipedia. True, these forums are not notable enough to deserve a page in their own right. However, Wikipedia makes provision for secondary pages to be made for content that does not fit within the main article. As it is right now, the GameFAQs forum entry is to large to merge with the GameFAQs article, and the GameFAQs article itself is not written well enough to cleanly facilitate a merge. Something needs to be mentioned about the forums as they are a major part of GameFAQs. Tt seems there are two issues at hand 1) The existance of a second article for the forums and 2) what should be mentioned about them. I suggest first editing the current page to the Wikipedia community's standards, and then considering whether or not the data will easily merge with the main article.Mr1bh 22:24, 16 August 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.