Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/F.A.T.A.L.

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was delete. CDC (talk) 22:03, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] F.A.T.A.L.

I do not think the article should be deleted. However, neither should it be a whitewash. While a new edition of F.A.T.A.L. may remove many of the things which were criticized in the 'Atrocities Review', there can be no doubt that the initial verison did contain such items, and such criticism was warranted, if not embraced by the game's designers. I have just edited the page to be more neutral, and hopefully this neutral text will not be removed by anyone who wishes to erase history. Lest anyone doubt the veracity of the Atrocities Review, there are many copies of the original version of F.A.T.A.L. in circulation, and anyone can see for themselves that accusations of misogyny and rape, whether true or untrue, were entirely warranted taking into account the game's initial meaning and its content (both art and text). Comment made by 66.88.223.126

F.A.T.A.L. is little more than some guy's home made roleplaying game. As other such amateur project are not deserving of an encyclopedia article, I fail to see why F.A.T.A.L. does. Currently, the article reads like a press release. Unless Wikipedia has become free space for advertisement, it should be deleted. Comment made by 69.201.34.195

Response to previous comment: It is worthy of an entry not because it is someone's homemade RPG, but because it created a firestorm of debate in the RPG community. The entry should be less about the game and more about the phenomenon, perhaps, but it should not be erased from history. Edit (and if necessary, prevent it from being re-edited to read like a press release), but do not delete.-aeon Comment made by 66.88.223.126

• Delete Non-notable. Comment made by Gmaxwell

Either it should be deleted - because other folks' homebrews don't usually get their own pages - or it should document the controversy, which is noteworthy. The page as it stands is a wholly one-sided account of that controversy that glosses over the serious accusations that have been made against it. If you look at the page's talk page, you will see that I have provided a laundry list of things I see as incredibly non-NPOV about the page as it stands. It was also asserted on said talk page that the review I added the link to was full of lies and statements taken out of context; if you read the author's own rebuttal you will see that in fact only two things are described as out of context, and no clarifying context is provided.

Thus, the current article needs a thorough rewrite or to be deleted. teucer 00:14, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

DeleteFirestorm of debate? Lots of things cause a firestorm of debate within a spoecific community. If this were an RPG-specific encyclopedia, there might *might* be merit to it. But to the world at large, it is not even a worthwhile footnote. Someone wrote something offensive. People took offense. That guy and a few supporters and sock puppets fanned the flames. This is just business as usual on an internet forum. Comment made by 69.201.34.195

Keep One might say that entries such as Scree-Fice are also not worthwhile footnotes to the community at large. Like F.A.T.A.L., that originated on RPG.net, and apparently warrants an entry. If that's worth keeping then I'd wager this is too. aeonite

Delete It is obvious to me that FATAL's developers are going to remain determined to corrupt any attempts at a neutral article. Given that the game itself is largely insignificant to the RPG community as a whole, but for a spat of flame wars it developed, I see no reason why it even needs an article. Especially since keeping it NPOV seems to require a constant 24 hour campaign to ensure that users like Almafeta don't persist in using the article, and Wikipedia, as their own personal advertising venue.

Too much effort, for too little value. JArcane

• Strong delete. Executive summary for vfd types: So it's an excerable 900 page self-published PDF role-playing game full of rape and misogyny that attracted much understandable derision, and little to no following I can track down. Sample sentence: "Should any anus be stretched beyond the limit as determined by the table below, which differs from anus to anus, the orifice will rip to accommodate the incoming object. First, consider all relevant modifiers, then roll percentile dice and proceed to the following table." I'm still an inclusionist, but I couldn't in good conscience support keeping this without saying we should have articles on any given post on alt.sex.stories. No Alexa rank for fatalgames.com. Samaritan 03:38, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Delete This is Oddsod and I agree with JArcane. It is clear that any attempt at presenting FATAL's history on a freely editable Wikipedia article will be rewritten by employees of that development group. It is difficult to seem neutral on the topic, I agree - but then it is difficult to discuss the content of FATAL (such as recurring references to excrement, the excretory and reproductive systems of men and women, frequent misogyny and rape) without seeming biased. I do not believe Wikipedia should serve as advertising space. Comment made by 24.176.81.196

Heaven knows we cover harder things on Wikipedia, so potential bias shouldn't be a reason. But a self-published online shock game with no real following is not remotely encyclopedic. Samaritan 04:54, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is not that the game itself is anything noteworthy in terms of shock value - humanity is endlessly inventive at this sort of thing and history is full of it. It is more that the people who wrote the original game, or their current employees, are actively trying to suppress the facts about their creation's subject matter. At the same time they are shamelessly lying and accusing everyone who presents a factually neutral opinion on that game while trying to turn the Wikipedia article into free advertising space. I do not believe that Wikipedia really needs articles that cause this much needless trouble. - Oddsod.

• Delete. No Alexa rank. Not notable. Zzyzx11 | Talk 05:02, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Response to previous message. Whether Scree-Fice should have an entry is not important to the issue at hand. (and may be the logical fallacy Two wrongs make a right) But if it would make you happy, by all means, put Scree-Fice up for deletion, too. And any other entry you can think of to avoid this kind of ground shifting.

• I don't think the article should be deleted. I think it should be rewritten so that it is more objective. I was the original writer of this article, and I attempted to report it in such a way that would briefly describe the system, and explain why it had such infamous animosity in the RPG community. I'm thankful for the people who were more informed on the system and who could provide more information, but I feel people should try and leave value judgements out of it.

Yes, we may feel strongly about the game. But let's keep that to the forums, and provide an impartial description here, okay?

• Delete. Non-notable. Controversy about the wikipedia article doesn't make the game inherently notable, especially when there appears to be essentially zero interest in the game aside from the controversy which the game creators clearly courted. Just because something is really ugly, that alone doesn't make it encyclopedic. If someone wants to write an article about misogyny in gaming and use F.A.T.A.L. as an example, go ahead, but F.A.T.A.L. itself is non-notable. Quale 21:20, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Further comment on the notability of this article. Investigation of the FATAL_Creations Yahoo Group reveals a whopping 11 members, only 2 of which are regularly active, with another three or so contributing periodically, among them Almafeta. Whether Almafeta was indeed an official employee remains unclear, however her contributions were responsible for a number of major changes to both the game mechanics, and the game's marketing. As such I would suggest that said user remains of questionable NPOV in respects to authoring the article. JArcane

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.