Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timeless (demo)

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 merge and redirect to Thomas Pytel. – Avi 01:07, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Timeless (demo)

Delete, extremely NN software. - CrazyRussian talk/email 13:52, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. One of the defining demos of the PC era. A quintessential piece of code. // Gargaj 22:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
  • how does it meet WP:SOFTWARE please? - CrazyRussian talk/email 00:27, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
    • See C2. Otherwise, if not keep then Merge per Viznut. // Gargaj 11:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
• Merge into Thomas Pytel. As a demoscener, I hate to vote something else than keep when a demo regarded as classic by some has been nominated for deletion by an outsider. However, in this case, even subculture-specific criteria don't seem to provide enough proof of the notability. I think there's room for maybe fifty demos in Wikipedia (we currently have 12), but it's questionable whether Timeless could be one of them. Let's see:
  • Awards: not applicable, since this demo never participated in a competition. (Americans didn't have their own demoparties yet in 1994)
  • Google web test: "Timeless by Tran" 11 hits, "Timeless Tran" 17 hits, "Tran Timeless" 34. The Linux port is called "SDL_Timeless"; the search with this keyword gives 25 hits. I would say that the infamous Google notability test failed.
  • Hornet charts final (1998, a ranking of PC demoscene productions based on public vote): not included in the "top 40 demos" list. Note that most demos in this list were rather new at the time, and the slightly older ones seem to be those who have a more lasting value (e.g. Second Reality and Dope).
  • MindCandy volume 1 is a famous 2002 DVD compilation containing 42 PC demos, 20 of which are supposed to be "oldskool" classics. Timeless is not included.
  • History of demoscene by year from Spaceballs' Scenery project mentions Timeless as one of the 12 significant PC-based releases of 1994. However, this doesn't rise it to the all-time top fifty.
  • In Talk:List of demos by year we were trying to establish some criteria for including demos in the list of demos by year. Timeless seems to have hard time even with the initial criteria suggested by Vossanova for the list (only ***+ rating in Hornet Archive; just barely passes 30 votes in Pouet; monostep and scene.org listings are not applicable because 1994 is too old for their coverage)
  • Google groups search limited to comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos, a major discussion forum for the PC demoscene in the 1990s. The search group:comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos timeless tran gives 38 hits. Comparison with some "definitely notable" PC demos of the same era: Second Reality by Future Crew 228 hits, Unreal by Future Crew 189 hits, Dope by Complex 90 hits, Crystal Dream by Triton 85 hits.
  • Conclusion: not "top-fifty" material even in the demoscene context, so I'm not going to vote for keep. --Viznut 09:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
• Merge into Thomas Pytel. I still believe WP:SOFTWARE can be proven, but as Viznut pointed out, it's difficult to justify keeping this article when there are still many demos, much more notable, without articles. The lack of articles linking to Timeless (other than the defunct List of demos by year) doesn't help either. Besides, the Tran article could use some more material. --Vossanova ^o< 15:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
• Merge to Thomas Pytel. Doesn't seem "notable" enough for own article but possibly enough so for the subject. Yanksox 00:46, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
• Merge (to Thomas Pytel), seems a good optio to me Muzzle 15:58, 20 July 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.