Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sonic fangames

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 delete both per WP:NOT and WP:V. The problems mentioned by the nominator have not been addressed despite the heated arguing going on in this AfD discussion. --Coredesat 05:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sonic Robo Blast 2 and Sonic: Time Attacked

These both have been to AFD previously, approximately a year ago. In those AFDs, users claimed that these projects are "massive," "important," and "among the best-known video games of its kind." However, it's now a year later, and nobody has seen fit to come up with any proof, or make any effort whatsoever to meet WP:SOFTWARE or any effort to verify any of these peacock claims or even add them to the articles. How long do fan projects get to advertise on Wikipedia? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Previous AFDs: Time Attacked, Time Attacked 2, Robo Blast

• Completely fail No original research, Verifiability, Notability, Reliable sources, What Wikipedia is not, and Neutral point of view. Delete forthwith. --Slowking Man 08:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep on both accounts. The last time SRB2 was due up for AFD (four months ago or so) it was proven that the article needed some work, but was far from advertising. Googling "Sonic Robo-Blast 2" turns up 30,000 results, and several people have worked towards adding more information to the article to help prove it's notability (mentions in magazines, for example). Sonic: Time Attacked I'll give you - 470 results on Google. But I really like the fangame, and the website for it isn't even up anymore - how does that even constitute advertising if there's essentially nothing to advertise? Time Attacked is one of my favorite fangames, and, well, that's good enough for me. Here's a thought: If you're so worried about "peacock claims" (man I hate Wikipedia Slang), edit the article to remove them rather than jumping on the delete button. BlazeHedgehog 09:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Can you direct me to some notable mentions of the game in popular magazines? The only thing I can find is [1], which is on the Talk page, not the article. A couple fleeting mentions in single issues of publications don't exactly constitute notability in my view—neither do your subjective views of the game. I also don't see any information in the article supported by reliable sources. --Slowking Man 09:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Reviewing those scanned articles, these are really trivial mentions. One mention is one sentence and a screenshot, another is a screenshot and a caption, and one is a three-paragraph capsule that doesn't say much more than "This is a Sonic fangame using the Doom engine." They're not really substantial, and not sufficient material for an article. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, WP:RS is a concern which may be able to be fixed, but WP:V, WP:NOTE, WP:OR, WP:NPOV (to a degree) and WP:NOT cannot be. Daniel.Bryant 09:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete We've given these plenty of time to gather non-trivial reliable sources, and it hasn't happened. Delete, and if and when either of them make the cover of EGM or something, we can revisit the issue. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 13:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete It's a fangame. End of debate. Danny Lilithborne 13:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Decline to vote - just a note, in regards to fangames, will every article and this category: Category:Fanmade computer game remakes and sequels have to be put up for deletion? --tgheretford (talk) 19:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • My word, I wasn't even aware such a thing existed! And yes, it probably does deserve a good cleaning-out. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 21:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Not directly related, but Category:Free, open source puzzle games likely needs some ... erm ... pruning, too. Serpent's Choice 14:13, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Daniel.Bryant. No reliable third-party sources. The Kinslayer 19:21, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep received an overwhelming keep vote before [2], why change it now? --Oscarthecat 20:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - Because it was kept due to it supposedly being cleaned up. Over a year later and it hasn't been touched to provide the links required. That was more than enough time, so here we are. The Kinslayer 20:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. TJ Spyke 20:48, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Holy crap, you guys are like an inconsiderate, rabid pack of wolves! At the very least, keep SRB2. What might not seem notable to you might be very notable to somebody else, and the article has quite a bit of information on it. Besides, it's worth noting that Gamesmaster is actually a fairly popular gaming magazine in the UK, if I recall properly. BlazeHedgehog 21:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Notability is not a opinion, something is either notable or its not. TJ Spyke 21:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Bullshit. What's notable to you is might not be very notable to me. You think stuff about Wrestling is notable, so much so that you seem to support there being seperate articles dedicated to various WWE events and outcomes. That's not notable at all, to me. BlazeHedgehog 22:34, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
    • BlazeHedgehog is succinct at the very least. The assertion "Notability is not a [sic] opinion, something is either notable or its not," is so far off the radar that it touches the edge of psychopathology. Who would make such a self-centered statement except for a mind that exists in a universe of one or someone trolling for a bit of agro? Malangthon 01:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
      • BS yourself. You may not like wrestling, but articles like SNNE ARE notable. I couldn't care less about things like Dora the Explorer, but they are notable. These fan games also fail WP:SOFTWARE. TJ Spyke 22:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
        • TJ Spyke not only seems to have missed BlazeHedgehog's point but is now actually making Blaze's point and refuting the one TJ made earlier. I strongly suspect mere trolling for the sake of starting a heated exchange. Notability is in the mind of the beholder unlike the lunacy about absolutes asserted here. Some people need to review what they write before entrying the fray in such a defenseless state--if their goal is to contribute and not subvert the process of discussion. Malangthon 01:17, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
        • Again. Gamesmaster isn't exactly a small, trivial publication publication. To quote it's Wikipedia article; "GamesMaster is the biggest selling multi-format video games magazine in the United Kingdom, even outselling its critically acclaimed rival Edge." So the largest videogame magazine in the UK isn't notable enough? Might as well get rid of it's Wikipedia article, then, eh? And get rid of articles like Metroid Prime 2D, and, well, every other game featured in that Gamesmaster article (most, if not all of which, have Wikipedia articles, and, no doubt, Gamesmaster found them through Wikipedia). Infact, let's torch all homebrew software completely! I mean, have you ever seen Cave Story printed in a magazine? I haven't! Get rid of it! It's full of weasel words! I mean, "the game has received praise from gamers worldwide."? There's no way to prove that! BlazeHedgehog 22:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
          • You might want to try reading WP:SOFTWARE, trivial mentions don't count. 1 sentence and a small picture is a trivial reference. Also, pointing out another article that shouldn't exist is NOT justification to keep another that doesn't. If you see an article that you think shouldn't exist, nominate it for deletion. TJ Spyke 23:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
            • But I won't nominate it because I know it's notable. You see, I was being facetious. If I nominated it for deletion? A million Cave Story fans would come forth and smack me down, telling me "No, we like this game and it's notable". I'm sure SRB2 fans would likely do the same if they knew it was up for deletion, but guess what? I can't tell them otherwise I'll get accused of sock puppeting or whatever the hell it is you guys call it. And you don't consider that the slightest bit unfair? BlazeHedgehog 23:07, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
              • I'd take on a million Cave Story or Halo Zero fans if I didn't already know about the substantial coverage of those games in game publications. If you went and found sources that could be used to write this article, then sure, I'd change my tune in a second. Until then, you're unlikely to convince anyone with handwaving. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
                • And Google results suddenly mean nothing towards popularity, now? They seemed to mean quite a bit four months ago when SRB2 was up for AFD. Infact, I am quite certain that had SRB2 been put up for AFD on it's own (instead of being lumped together with a long dead project under a blanket term), the result of this vote would be pretty much identical. BlazeHedgehog 10:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
                  • What matters is sources. The long-dead game is pretty much a non-issue; most of this discussion seem to be about Robo Blast, which is apparently somewhat popular but about which there isn't enough verifiable content to say anything. Come up with that content. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 11:02, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
                    • I just find it confusing that, here at Wikipedia, whether an article like this gets kept or deleted depends soley on which side of the bed you guys woke up on that particular day. What was a nearly unanimous keep turns sharply into a unanimous delete for what seems to be absolutely no reason whatsoever. It's like a roll of the dice, and unfortunately for SRB2, this roll came up snake-eyes. BlazeHedgehog 23:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
                      • Frankly, I think it's the ramping-up of WP:V. Four months ago I wasn't seeing it anywhere NEAR as strictly enforced as it is now. I swear, it's simultaneously the best and worst thing to happen to the website; I can respect it keeping genuine non-notable drivel off the site, but lately it seems that people have been applying it to various things that absolutely nobody had any problem with before. --Shadow Hog 05:19, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
      • Of course everything in the world is going to be "notable" to somebody. We don't guess whether something will be notable to anyone in the world, we use objective criteria such as those outlined in WP:V and WP:RS SubSeven 03:22, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Japan-related deletions. -- Chacy 23:06, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Cave Story is different. A PSP version is being created, and a homevrew DS version has recieved the blessing of the game's creater. TJ Spyke 23:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Oh, so, if SRB2 was ported to the PSP and the DS, that would make it okay? It's already been ported to the Mac, Linux, and there was, at one time, ports for GPX2 and Dreamcast were in the works. BlazeHedgehog 23:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
      • IF Sega allowed them (which I doubt would happen) to and they could find a publisher willing to to it, then yes. TJ Spyke 23:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I don't think that really means a whole lot, seeing as I doubt the PSP version will really get off the ground, and the DS version's mere homebrew. How is THAT particularly notable, then? The article I'm reading doesn't cite many, if any, major sources about its notability, and using ports of the title as notability seems pretty tenuous at best. Maybe we should nominate it, just to prove a point. --Shadow Hog 05:19, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Whispering
• Keep You do not know how popular SRB2 is. The forum has 1,607 members as of edit time. That number grows every day. And if Time Attacked goes off Wikipedia, it will virtually have died. I'm gonna save the ZIP right now... --Blah2 23:53, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
  • 1600 members is not impressive. Also, WP is not fro advertising, if something wouldn't exist without an entry on WP then it's not notable. Also, popularity is not the same as notability. TJ Spyke 00:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Whoa, Blaze, what about your own fangame? --Luigifan 00:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
    • What about it? I already told you that the project isn't anywhere near notable. If G4TV dedicates a segment to TFH once it's done, as they did with my MarioWeen, then maybe it deserves an article. But right now? Nope. BlazeHedgehog 00:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been added to the list of CVG deletions. -- moe.RON ^{talk | done | doing} 00:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. These desperately need some evidence for their notability, which - if they're actually notable - should be trivial to provide. We'll also need to take a closer look at Category:Fanmade computer game remakes and sequels at some point in the future, as I imagine many of those articles are similarly without sources demonstrating notability. Daveydweeb (^chat/_patch) 01:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete due to lack of sources. SubSeven 03:09, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as fails WP:V, WP:RS. Wickethewok 03:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Woof. The nominator says it all. WP:SOFTWARE, WP:V, WP:RS.. No sources, no outside claims of notability, etc. --Kunzite 04:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Daniel.Bryant's all-encompassing rationale. Garrett^Talk 07:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Shouldn't the articles be marked with {{subst:afdx|2nd}} as it say in Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Renominations_and_recurring_candidates? Logan GBA 19:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

  That's not a MUST DO kind of thing, just a way to use a special template to automatically create a "second nomination" AFD page, that's all. I've linked and mentioned the old AFDs, and made it clear that this was a renom. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:04, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom, as fails WP:SOFTWARE Timkovski 22:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete both as per nom. Andre (talk) 00:17, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment First off, I'll save the zealots the time in stating that this is a single-purpose account and I am involved with the project. Honestly, I don't give a damn whether or not there is an article or not, but it just doesn't make sense in the internet age to immediately delete anything that doesn't have a specific licensed publisher for a console. I've met two random freshmen that came onto my college campus that knew about the game, one even playing it frequently, without me or any of my friends mentioning it. If the word of mouth is that strong, I simply do not see how it isn't notable, despite not being all the rage at Gamestop in bringing in the pre-orders.

As I have said before, the article sucks. It keeps getting more and more fancruft added onto it every week, it seems, and its obviously subpar in terms of writing and setup. However, personally I'd consider that true on many articles about official parts of the Sonic series, and even worse, in many parts of the encyclopedia in general. Look at the article on Super Sonic. There's clearly an excessive amount of fancruft with no citations or any standard Wikipedia policy. I agree that passing mention in magazines is not assertion of notability, and neither is decent results on the Google test, however, if the main thing that decides whether or not something is notable at this point is whether a company made it or not, then Wikipedia has seriously dropped from its ideals. Whatever happened to good faith and old fashioned common sense? If policy is the only reason this article should be deleted, feel free, but please make sure to delete the rest of the fancruft swarming around the wiki, starting with the deletion of the articles on practically every video game character, feature, and backstory on here. They're clearly fancruft with no assertion of notability. I don't care if this article lives or dies as long as I see some consistency around here. -MysticEsper 09:20, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

• • I'll just respond to the last part. Believe me, we are trying. But as you can see here, it's not as simple as just nominating something. The fancruft is getting out of hand, and there a dedicated few patrolling trying to scrub non-encyclopedic content from good articles, but remember that pretty much everytime someone removes some cruft, two more people add some to other articles, making it an uphill struggle. Don't take this personally, as it's neither an attack on you or this game, it's about whether or not the article conforms to Wikipedia polcies, and some people think it does and others think it doesn't. The problem is that people seem to get hung up on one particular policy and ignore the fact an article fails on other issues besides that. (WP:N is a good example of one that people focus on exclusively whilst ignoring other issues.) The Kinslayer 10:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Policies? I thought most of them were just guidelines, including the ones cited for reasons this article should get the boot. BlazeHedgehog 19:30, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Honestly, I don't see why there is so much enforcement of WP:N to begin with. Obvious vanity needs to die, but simply because something isn't the biggest thing in the world shouldn't nullify as it as important enough for an article. The real incredibly problematic part of notability, especially with web content, is how incredibly difficult it is for even genuinely notable internet material to find legitimate press coverage, especially in areas that simply aren't as gigantic as others. Unless something is some kind of gigantic runaway hit such as YouTube or another similar phenominon and gets tons of press, I simply have no idea where I'd look to find sources. For instance, I have no idea where I'd find some press coverage, of, say, 8-Bit Theater, but I wouldn't imagine going and trying to delete it for notability, because it's clearly popular and well-known in many circles, but even it only has the official website and forums linked as sources. The issue is that I'm sure someone who doesn't read webcomics at all could easily come and find said article and try to delete it as vanity/fancruft because they simply aren't familiar with it themselves, despite being a very well-known website. Where would one draw the line between notable and non-notable on internet projects/websites? The entire system seems incredibly vague here, and it's obviously clear that even Wikipedia doesn't know, as something that was a complete blowout as notable one AfD is now a nearly complete blowout in the opposite direction, when honestly practically nothing has changed in terms of the article content (and in fact, I'd say it's vastly improved in structure since the first time it was put up on AfD). There really needs to be some kind of tangible way to determine what is notable and what is not that isn't based on anyone's opinion, and as far as I'm aware, that simply doesn't exist. -MysticEsper 05:11, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. It seems signifigant enough to me, and I don't get this "fangames must be Baleeted!" rule. This game always seemed pretty established, and to have a good fanbase, to me. Also, I thought it was a lot better than any official 3D Sonic game... Darien Shields 02:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per AMIB. Hbdragon88 21:50, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
• LOL. I can see how a fangame could be percieved as being better than an official product, seeing as Sonic Team's allegedly been doing a pretty poor job lately... --Luigifan 02:01, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
• KEEP Why would this page be deleted, when there are far less worthy things included in Wikipedia. Granted, this is the type of thing that wouldn't make it into Britannica, but isn't that the point? 206.165.137.194 02:48, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• Voting Keep by saying there are other things that shouldn't have articles is a weak argument. If you see another page that you think shouldn't be here, you can always nominate it for deletion. TJ Spyke 02:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
• It is a weak argument, which is why it isn't my argument for conservation. My argument is that this article is interesting AND something Britannica wouldn't include.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.165.137.194 (talk • contribs).
• Speedy Keep, renominate separately I disagree with the lumping of these two articles together, which is totally non-standard; this is going the wrong about deleting two separate articles. SRB2 is a lot more notable than Sonic: Time Attacked, but both were notable last time I checked. That aside, making the presumption that fan games are automatically non-notable is a fallacy of definition and is simply not correct. Can one prove unequivably that it something is not notable by lack of evidence? No. Can one prove unequivably that something can be notable? Possibly. I would've thought that 5,400,000 google hits [3] would've been sufficient for keeping, unless our standard of notability has suddenly risen to eliminate Qubit Field Theory, which only has 2,700,000 google hits [4]? The subject that these two articles cover is more notable than most articles on Wikipedia. --DavidHOzAu 02:58, 30 October 2006 (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.