Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/War of Empires

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Would someone please explain what caused three different editors to all want to delete this page within a few hours after it had existed for quite some time?

How much or what sort of an assertion of importance is needed? The game is a unique creative work by an author. The game is played 24/7 by over 2000 players from all around the world. It is text-based, free and playable through an ordinary web browser, making it accessible to a large fraction of those who have a computer. The game interface has even been translated into other languages. It is a complex and unique strategy game containing elements of growth, economy, combat and an interactive market place where players may buy and sell commodities. The creator listens to player feedback and activity modifies the game to improve play. This is less akin to the corporate style of managment and development of other games, and more akin to the early development of Linux. All these things combine to make it an important and notable milestone in on-line gaming.

At the end of the day, yes this is just a game. I have looked at the pages of other games, pages that are not under threat of deletion, and I do not see the clear difference that might explain this move for deletion.

So would you please give examples of what is lacking? 05:44, 24 January 2008 64.229.228.64 (Talk) (2,073 bytes) (undo)— 64.229.228.64 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. The preceding unsigned comment was added at 05:45, 24 January 2008 (UTC).

I'll see if I can explain. "Unique creative work", "complex and unique", etc, are statements of personal opinion. "Over 2000 players" is not particularly incredible for an online game. Even if we accept that there is an assertion of importance, we still need to show that the subject is notable. Notability is, generally, how much independent coverage it has received from reliable, third party sources. Reviews or interviews from magazines would be a good start. WP:N is our guideline for this.
You mention that you've compared them with articles for other games. Were those rated as good or featured articles? All the articles on browser-based games are pretty terrible. There's only Runescape which appears to be adequately referenced. Marasmusine (talk) 09:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


I see. May we please have longer than 5 days to find the independent coverage from third party sources that you require. I am only a player of this game, and a relatively recent one. I had taken it upon myself to update the War of Empires entry in Wikipedia and now it seems my actions have triggered this review after the article had been in existence for a considerable period. I note that no one has yet explained what caused 3 editors to suddenly want to delete this page. I will post in the forum and find those sources and have them added to the description. You must understand, the game has just concluded an age and many long-time players who would know about such references to War of Empires in other media are taking a break. Further, please note this game is not a corporate creation so there is no paid marketting staff working 40+ hours per week writing or pestering for or even paying for reviews and 'independent' coverage from 'reliable' 'third party sources'. Sorry if I am jaded but I have written papers and articles, from scientific journals to trade magazines, and worked with marketting people and I know the politics, compensation schemes and motivations behind them. Therefore the few reviews we may find will be far more deserved and honest than most hype generated around commercial ventures. It is my opinion that what amounts to hype generated by a corporate entity has little to do with the importance or notability of the underlying concepts. It is my opinion that the most important of these in this case is accessibility. It is a concept that Wikipedia also has. I hope if you examine and consider the merits of these underlying concepts, you will grant us an extension to find the external references you require. 64.229.228.64 (talk) 13:30, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Notability is an inclusion criterion based on encyclopedic suitability of a topic for a Wikipedia article. The common theme in the notability guidelines is the requirement for verifiable objective evidence to support a claim of notability.--Hu12 (talk) 13:58, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

We are currently working to meet the required criterion. Do we still have 5 days before this article is deleted? If so, would you please review the article again at that time.209.151.133.226 (talk) 16:11, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

My request still stands for additional time to revise the article to meet the required criterion. Does anyone have the authority to directly answer this request? 209.151.133.226 (talk) 16:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

" I note that no one has yet explained what caused 3 editors to suddenly want to delete this page." - I can only speak for myself; I regularly check articles for video games in the online/browser category. My proposed deletion was merely routine and not "triggered" by your edits.
With regards to "extra time", that will be down to whichever administrator checks this discussion after the 5 days is over, but it's not a problem either way. If you think you have found coverage which satisfies WP:N and the article has been deleted as a result of this discussion, either let myself or any other administrator know. The article can be restored and the new material added. I hope this helps, Marasmusine (talk) 21:01, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
If you want, you could also create an account, then you copy this page to your userspace. Once you have a fully sourced article, you could recreate the page in mainspace -- RoninBK T C 00:24, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Question, Who is.."We are currently working to meet the required criterion"[1]?--Hu12 (talk) 01:05, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

My ID on the WoE forum is NPsi. I apologize in advance that the original author of the article has not come forward to explain how they overlooked these requirements originally. We can only work forward from where we find ourselves now. I am new to contributing Wikipedia content. I thought I was signing up for some simple updates, then as soon as I touch the page we get this PROD thing, and being the last one to touch it, I feel duty-bound to address it. Unfortunately the creator of the game works for a company whose gateway IP address has been blacklisted so he cannot do anything here on Wikipedia. It is too big of a job to both become an expert on Wikipedia, all its rules, AND research the references requested -- we are informally delegating. There are those reading your rules. To avoid accusations of "meat socking" or whatever -- a Wikipedia term someone on the WoE forum brought to our attention -- no one else is posting here unless they find a good reference that puts this problem to bed rapidly, or they feel I am not effectively representing the group concensus. If an editor visits the discussion section of the WoE forum, they will find we are working cooperatively in good faith to try to collect the references that have been requested and meet this deadline that has been imposed. Once we have a number of references, I or one of our other players will update the article. Again, you may find me on that forum as NPsi. Creating a new pseudonym for Wikipedia does not seem especially useful because either we will collect sufficient reference material and update the article and the PROD will pass, or we won't and it will be deleted. Either way, my field is not the social sciences so the semantics of authoring for an encyclopedia and this time-limited review process are not satisfying to me. I would prefer to direct my future energies to submitting scholarly articles to scientific journals and the publications of professional organizations which I find much easier and will bring me more direct benefits to my CV. The concept of notability is completely foreign in my field -- research and findings are either new, unique and potentially useful, and suitable for publishing, or they are not. If one were to take the current human population of the Earth and divide by the number of Wikipedia articles, one would end up with a number of people significantly smaller than the number of players currently playing in WoE. This is not a proof of notability, a reference, or a resort to "whats the harm", it is merely logic that might allow editors, in good faith, to justify allowing this page to remain a little more than 4 more days, while we, in good faith, work to meet the requirements that have been brought to our attention less than 24 hours ago. Thank you for your patience. 64.229.228.64 (talk) 03:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

PS. 192.151.133.226 = 64.229.228.64 (which is a dynamic IP) = NPsi on the WoE forum. 64.229.228.64 (talk) 03:20, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Please do not edit out parts of the discussion, it is considered vandalism -- RoninBK T C 08:40, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
    A large part had been moved to the discussion page, for clarity I guess. Marasmusine (talk) 17:03, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Discussions which are general and unrelated directly to and not in response to Keep or delete !votes are better served on the talk page--Hu12 (talk) 21:29, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I am the current updater for the War of Empires article, NPsi as found on the WoE forum. I have added a number of references, approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of what we are gathering. The process is incomplete, however, please accept this as a token of good faith on our part, prior to the expiry of the original 5-day PROD, as we work toward meeting the Wikipedia standards of importance, notability and references. More will be added as I have the time. 64.229.6.202 (talk) 22:31, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry but none of the ones which are cited establish any notability, at most only the first one is even suitable to be used as a source at all, and that one's pretty borderline. All these online game directories aren't reliable, it needs to be reviews from established review sites rather than blurb pieces on sites like Crimson Games. If the ones you are coming up with are more of the same, please don't add them - they'd have to be deleted even if reliable sources were found. Examples of suitable sources would be reviews like this Time of Defiance one on Gamers Hell, or this Kdice review on Jay is Games. Someoneanother 00:52, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I know these are not reviews of the variety you cite. May I ask if any of the editors know of any reviews of this type for any independent games similar to WoE? The rankings do measure the game against other games of its type. Either all games of this type are unnoteworthy by definition (which is not what the editors are saying I hope), or the ones that rank well consistently must gain some small quantity of notability simply by ranking well against their peers that are eligible for notability. I know there is only one #2 rank in the list but that must say something about notability. I had considered these numbers the easiest to compile and that is why we have done them first. The remainder of the references we are organizing are scholarly references that do not cite WoE directly, but do speak to properties or features that WoE does have to support the article's future statements (i.e. the unsupported statements are not there yet) speaking to notability and importance. So with regard to the references so far, would the editors please comment on whether all games of this type are automatically unnoteworthy, or if some are noteworthy, then citations giving rankings against peers are of some contributory, perhaps not sufficient value? 64.229.6.202 (talk) 02:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Similar to WoE.. I don't know of any reliable sites specifically catering to MMOGs of this type, though some sites do once they become popular. For instance The Escapist had a 3-page feature/interview about Urban Dead, Jay is Games do misc independent games, Joystiq and Kotaku could possibly have articles about them, ditto Gamers Hell. There is no rule against games like WoE having articles, quite rightly, but the vast majority will never be covered in enough depth by reliable sources to qualify for articles. For things like videogames, notability isn't about 'being noteworthy', it's about enough reliable information being available to actually write an article, WP is a tertiary source and if there aren't secondary sources there's nothing to draw upon. As far as the other sources go, am I reading you right in that they aren't actually about this game? If that's so they're probably not usable either, WP:SYN. You could post a few here for a look? Someoneanother 03:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)