Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Valhalla legends and BNLS

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 of the debate was delete. — FREAK OF NUR_xTURE (TALK) 04:19, Feb. 5, 2006

[edit] Valhalla legends and BNLS

These were previously AfD'd at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Valhalla legends(delete) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/BNLS(redirect). Taken to WP:DRV there were concerns over the Valhalla legends debate and an observation of the close relation between the two articles. The feeling of the debate was the Valhalla legends should be restored and re-AfD'd, and that BNLS should be considered alongside it. I've reverted BNLS to it's pre-AfD state for this purpose. A split outcome may be necessary. -Splash^talk 01:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Could you please clarify what concerns these were and where the discussion about this can be found? DreamGuy 02:22, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete nn gaming clan. Wouls probably be a borderline speedy candidate too. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 02:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment

The concerns were brought by Harrym at WP:DRV, however, the content of the deletion reviews seem to have been purged and updated since, and I am unable to locate an archive for those discussions. If someone more familiar with the system here is able to unearth that discussion, that would be extremely helpful, but in its absence, I'll try to summarize it briefly - anyone else who remembers what was said there is welcome to fill in any blanks I leave behind.

The core of the argument was that Valhalla Legends is a programming and software development organization and not one based on gaming. The problem with the original AfD nomination was that the outcome appears to have been based almost entirely on votes cast which were more or less irrelevant to the issue of whether vL should or should not be deleted; this can be in part blamed on the niche which the organization largely occupies.

I believe the general concensus of the deletion review was to restore the page and give it a chance to be updated to better reflect notability and verifiability, then be relisted for a more informed discussion. The second part of that chain seems to have been skipped over, however.

Finally, I don't want to be overly critical, but the delete vote issued above by is exactly why the original AfD result was challenged and overturned. Valhalla Legends is not a "gaming clan;" attemping to have it deleted based on that reasoning is not going to be productive, in my opinion, and will likely simply to lead to a repetition of the deletion review that caused this relisting if more such votes are filed.

Zakath 04:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I feel silly - the discussion can be found in the WP:DRV history if you go back to around 1/29/06. Zakath 05:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• BNLS: Keep. 350,000 logins per day must surely exceed the nascent Wikipedia: Notability (software) guidelines. -Ikkyu2 06:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Valhalla.net: Merge and redirect into BNLS. -Ikkyu2 06:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete both. I reviewed the DRV comments and can see the concerns raised insofar as fragged out clancruft doesn't cover BNLS. But the question of notablity still pertains and neither of these meet threshhold, imo. I note Ikkyu's point but since the existence of the software is inseparable from its single-application use, the notability should be considered jointly. Eusebeus 07:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm not quite sure I understand youur comment on my point. As I understand it, the software lets users play some historical (no-longer supported) Blizzard games in multiplayer mode, without having to use the company's Battle.net servers (which were shut down years ago). Whether or not that's notable, 350,000 logins per day seems to document that the software has well in excess of the 5000 users needed for notability, and that's what I based my opinion on. -Ikkyu2 08:43, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete both, and hopefully also we can have the anti-deletionists at WP:DRV cleared out so we don't have to vote on everything multiple times. It's bad enough that the standards for deletion consensus are extremely high and that delete and redirect votes are counted separately instead of realizing one should default to the other in a conflict versus keeping, but then we also have to satisfy some people overturning votes on flimsy reasons. This is getting ridiculous. DreamGuy 18:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• Perhaps when pages stop getting deleted on flimsy rationalization, those decisions will stop getting overturned. Zakath 18:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Delete Valhalla legends. This Gaming clan cruft, plain and simple. BNLS I could go either way on. No opinion.--Isotope23 18:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• I have to say I find this point of view confusing (and this is not the first time a similar opinion has been posted). If BNLS is a notable achievement (and it seems that you are conceding that it might be), how can it be argued that the creator of that service has not achieved notability? You can't have BNLS without Valhalla legends, but Valhalla legends would be what it is whether or not BNLS had ever been released for public consumption. Essentially I find it difficult to separate the product from the product's creator; perhaps I am misunderstanding how notability applies to different kinds of subjects, but I feel that if a product is a notable achievement, the creator of that product by definition has done something notable. Zakath 19:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• I wholly reject the assertion that creation of a notable product confers notability back to the creator, particularly in respect to Wikipedia. Take the article on Dr. Pepper for example, even though the creator of Dr. Pepper is wikilinked in the article, it is a redirect back to the Dr. Pepper article. The product is of far greater importance than the creator; he is almost a footnote to the product itself. I don't concede that "BNLS is a notable achievement"... I have no strong opinion on that either way. Valhalla legends has no strong claim to notability in my estimation. A mention in the BNLS would suffice if that article survives the AfD. My vote stands.--Isotope23 18:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: People are apparently not even taking the time to READ the comments that people familiar with this topic are making. Valhalla Legends is not a gaming clan. It has no relation to gaming other than that some of its members play games. That is not its goal, nor is it the reason for its foundation, nor is it rational to state otherwise. I believe I laid out a good case at the DRV for keeping both of these articles. I included links to support my argument as far as possible. I feel strongly that people who are considering voting for deletion should at the very least read these arguments and attempt to rebuf them before casting their vote. Harry Metcalfe 20:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• Should that be the case, how about you rewrite the article to state said facts, instead of insulting people. I vote Delete until such a time as the article is rewritten. --Agamemnon2 08:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep: As Harrym alluded to, people are dismissing this out of hand and it is frustrating. To comment at Agamemnon: we don't have the opportunity to rewrite the article, and when we do, we are told that we are not verifiable because many of us interested in keeping the article are primary sources, which means that the claims are not verifiable.

Further, dismissing this article out of hand as gamercruft is obnoxious. It's not a gaming organization, as stated repeatedly. I understand what the term means.

To correct the factual inaccuracies on this log, BNLS is not a matchmaking service like Bnetd was. It provides the client-side authentication measures to connect and authenticate to Battle.net. This enables third-party clients to connect to the official service and emulate the somewhat odd authentication schemes implemented by Blizzard with ease. As noted in the BNLS article, there are alternative libraries and implementations of this service, each with varying degrees of popularity. However, if the 350,000 users per day is accurate, but there were less than the cut-off of 5,000 users, that would mean each user would need to connect to BNLS 70 times per day. This is clearly (I should say, clear to someone within the niche) improbable, as a Battle.net Chat Service (the community name for the protocol) connection is fairly stable as long as it is not violated, and can last for multiple days if not abused. When one considers that Battle.net even allows up to seven connections from a single IP address, maxed out, that means that every single user would be permitted up to ten connections per day to reach this number. Still, this is highly improbable.

Also, many of these third-party clients do not actually play the games produced by Blizzard, but merely emulate the communications protocol involved in the connection. This protocol is extensively (and originally) documented at BnetDocs, as Harrym pointed out in the deletion review. This collection of information also includes information on multiplayer game information, although very few bot developers target this particlar subset of functionality.

The most particular notable distinction that this community has made is that it has been a sustaining force for Battle.net. There is no question that Starcraft is an immensely popular game. Developers have made bots for a plethora of reasons -- simply to chat, to log channel activity, to moderate meetings, to host tournaments -- the list goes on. Valhalla Legends has been a highly reputable source of information and services for this niche for some time.

Simply because you are not part of a niche does not give you the right to dismiss its members (by which I mean members of this particular niche, not this particular clan) out of a derogatory term. I understand the implied meaning behind "gaming clan cruft, plain and simple." It is unfounded. Robert Paveza 02:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. No one is dismissing its members with a derogatory term. They are dismissing the notability of this subject, and I agree with them. —Cleared as filed. 13:09, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I have to agree with Rober Paveza here. "gaming clan cruft" is not a complimentary term, and using such terms completely avoids the substance of the argument, which is whether or not the subject meets notability requirements. The nature of the subject is not what is under debate. Valhalla Legends is not a gaming group, and no matter how many people misinterpret it as such, it will not alter the fact that it is not. I have yet to see a single person actually rebuff the arguments that caused an unchallenged reversal of the original deletion vote. While at present I would agree that the article has little to recommend it, Harrym presented a very persuasive defense of the subject, and I think that if the article were rewritten to better reflect the information he provided, it would be a worthwhile addition to WP. That issue has thus far been ignored by every single poster to file a delete vote.

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.