Talk:The Game (mind game)/Archive

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

2004 VfD discussion

Contents

Page protection

Why is this page semi-protected? ~ PseudoSudo 06:41, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Posted a request at WP:RFPP. ~ PseudoSudo 03:53, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Unprotected by Stifle. ~ PseudoSudo 16:28, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Spoiled

You know, the constant bickering about The Game on this site has really killed the fun it for me. Is it a Meme? Is it not a Meme? Is it worthy of Wikipedia or was it created by persons unknown simply to put in Wikipedia? Who cares anymore? Thanks for killing the buzz. I can no longer be bothered to play properly and am doomed to a life of cheating through indifference. Theaardvark 13:38, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm with The Aardvark. I can read this article without it even occuring to me that I've lost now. Thanks for spoiling it obsessive game maniacs and article deleters. Tom Michael - Mostly Zen Image:Baby_tao.jpg (talk) 15:23, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Cool, shall I delete it now? Guy 15:28, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Um, no. Timrem 20:17, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

AFD notice

I have restored the normal AFD notice to the page. There is no indication on the AFD page that it is closed, and users are still editing it. The custom notice also gives the impression that the decision is only up to administrators. the wub "?!" 16:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

The discussion period had ended, all we were waiting for was an interpretation of the result. Liken it, if you will, to the jury being out. Stifle (talk) 22:27, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

The Game (game) Game

I have a new game: guess how long it will be before someone nominates this for AfD #7.--Isotope23 20:14, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:The Game 10th nomination pool? Kotepho 20:23, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
I'll take that bet, seeing as the continued existence of this article is clearly a sad indictment on the pathetic state of Wikipedia. "No consensus" must not be allowed to become de facto keep; if there is no consensus, there should be further discussion until there is a consensus. Kinitawowi 21:13, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
There will not be consensus on this article if debate were to continue. Take a look at the AfD; there's a lot of harsh language going on in there, and people need to simmer down. If anyone wants to start an RfC or an RfAr on this article, let me know and I'll help prepare it. I think there's a compelling case to be made here for ArbCom intervention. Mangojuice 22:21, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
All that's going to happen with more discussion is a bigger flood of meatpuppets, vague emotional terms, and general nonsense incompatible with building an encyclopaedia. I could put an RFC out on this article, but the ArbCom virtually never rules on content matters. Stifle (talk) 22:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Heck, there's still an old RfC listing up for this article, about sorting out all of the junk that was in it prior to the March AfD. WarpstarRider 22:50, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
WP:BEANS, Kotepho :( Stifle (talk) 22:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Everyone loves pools. Even the trillion pool was kept by MfD. Kotepho 01:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I lost the Game damit! Smart194 19:39, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Recent edits

Regarding my new edits, I am aware that for the time being they are classed unverifiable, but I figure that since the article has, by hook or by crook, been deleted before (along with all the information it contained) the least we can do while its here is to have a vaguely good article. Quibbling has meant that instead of an excellent article with verifiability problems (but which everyone seems to admit still exists) we now have a paltry article with a paltry source. Great work team!

My friend, a psychology major, says that he has read a university Psychology dissertation analysing The Game, and stuff to do with it. Assuming we can find it again (you must have all noticed that this thing is incredibly hard to search for) would that count as verification? Jdcooper 22:21, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It would certainly help. I've placed a banner stating that the article needs more references - I think that's a decent tag for the time being. Stifle (talk) 22:23, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
That would be excellent. JoshuaZ 22:25, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
I did some poking around on WorldCat and couldn't find anything. Does your friend remember anything else about the dissertation? It would probably be a wonderful addition to the article. As for adding unverified information... there's really no reason why we shouldn't treat it as we would any other time. It will either be reverted or tagged with {{citation needed}}, depending on how nice the editor is feeling. —Seqsea (talk) 00:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
He just remembers that he read it, he's going to ask around his coursemates and other people to see. This is so infuriating, how can something so widely-played be so under-documented. Well I suppose that depends how you define documentation, but does the fact that it doesn't have a name mean that it is automatically unencyclopaedic? That is the real issue here as far as I'm concerned. If people don't know what to call it (outside of "the game" which is as good as not calling it anything for practical purposes) then how can they write about it in any way we can find to source? Its very nature makes it unsourceable, if not "unverifiable". In exceptional cases like this, we should improve the encyclopaedia as best we can... Jdcooper 00:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

RFC

An article RFC was posted concerning this article on 2006-04-20. Stifle (talk) 22:34, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Hmm, the RfC doesn't mention verifiability. Isn't another aspect of the problem whether The Game requires verification (since as was admitted, almost all the deletionists concede that it exists) or whether it is such an exceptional case that we can invoke the most important policy of all, which states: "If the rules discourage you from improving the Wiki, then ignore them and improve the Wiki anyway." As far as I can see, that has been what all the argument has been about, not the exact nature of the article? Jdcooper 23:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
The #1 problem with this article is the lack of verifiability from reliable sources. IMO, all other issues with it are secondary to that. WP:IAR has its place, but there is nothing exceptional or notable enough about the Game that it should get a free pass on WP:V. Something that is as pervasive as the Game supposedly is should have generated at least a minimal interest in WP:RS publications. I don't see any logical reason to trump WP:V here.--Isotope23 02:32, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
We have the Belgian article, so we do have WP:V for the basic game. I suspect a serious problem with finding sourcing is the name. Almost any reasonable search string for this (for example "The Game") will turn up millions of false positives. JoshuaZ 02:46, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree. However, most of the times that this gets AFDd you end up with floods of people saying "keep, because I like this". Stifle (talk) 10:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I attempted with no succcess to get people not to do that in the last AfD. My impression is that such comments produce strong deletionary feelings in other people looking at an AfD, including possibly the closing admin. It is understandable that they do, both as a matter of basic psych and also one of logic; if someone who really wants to keep an article can't come up with a better reason to keep it than that they like the article, the article probably doesn't have much reason to be kept. JoshuaZ 13:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it 'exists' at least conceptually. The belgian link is still somewhat spurious. But lots of other stuff 'exists'. Is there notability? Doubtful. Meme? only in the sense that putting it on wiki appears to be of great concern to the perpetrators/players - in other words, it is in the process of becoming a meme & will likely succceed in doing so only if it gets the help of wiki. - the perfect self-licking ice cream cone. I dislike it when wiki gets 'used' in this fashion. Plus the famous old WP:BAI self-promotion & vanity. Plus putting yourself back on in spite of having been failed AfD several times. Repeatedly. If you want to create a meme, you really should use more imagination.Bridesmill 13:26, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I think the game is stupid and inane, but I think it meets WP:N and WP:V. So...JoshuaZ 13:39, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
See, I don't know if I consider 1 article in a Belgian newspaper to satisfy WP:V for the game... especially since I can't actually read the article and see what it says (due to subscription; not because it is in Dutch). I think 1 article in a middle circulation English language newspaper would pose the same problem: if this is so pervasive, why is only one person in the entire world writing about it?--Isotope23 13:49, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
This is a phenomenon of ever-increasing notability. Less than a few weeks ago, people where saying things like "if this is so pervasive, why is no one in the entire world writing about it?" Kernow 14:14, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Ignoring all the reasonless votes, the only real dispute between the delete and keep voters is the article's verifiability. Although many delete voters refer to WP:V, none have quoted any policies which invalidate the De Morgan article. The main reasons given are the circulation numbers and that it's in a foreign language. The language that it's in is obviously irrelevant. Although the circulation is relatively small, it certainly doesn't invalidate it as a reputable source. As I said on the AfD, it's read by 1 in every 150 Belgians. If you look here, De Standaard has a circulation of 76,000 and is in the top five Belgian newspapers, which means that De Morgan is probably within the top ten. It is definately in most lists of Belgian newspapers I can find. My personal view is that, as these discussions have gone on for so long, many delete voters are unwilling to give up their attack on this article, even though a reputable source has now been found. Kernow 14:02, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

To Bridesmill:

"The belgian link is still somewhat spurious." - Why?
"Is there notability?" - Yes
"Plus putting yourself back on in spite of having been failed AfD several times. Repeatedly." - These article has been nominated for deletion four times. Two resulted in keep, one in no consensus, and one in delete. It says so clearly at the top of this page. Please think before you type, especially before you put the incorrect word in bold. Kernow 14:23, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
27 March 2006 keep deleted - 17 March 2006 Delete - 21 February 2006 Delete. In my opinion htat qualifies as 'several times'. I guess I didnh't bold the wrong word after all. I call the Belgian article spurious because I cannot access it - I speak dutch, so no problem there, but as the site won't let me in (nothing about subscribtion - just a blank page) it doesn't exactly exude the 'quality' of a reputable source. Finally, citing the game's own website as proof of notability is flawed circular logic. My website says I'm notable - means nothing.Bridesmill 17:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)



  • With regards to AfDs, the (sole) time this was successfully deleted, the closing admin stated that although there was not consensus, since AfD is neither a democracy nor a vote, hence why he was ignoring the "Keep because i like it" votes. I agree these were stupid, and should have been discounted, but then so should all the "Delete because i don't like it votes" of which there were many. The Game was called "childish" and "inane", but reasoned and unbiased statements like JoshuaZ's "Personally, I think the game is stupid and inane, but I think it meets WP:N and WP:V." were sadly lacking in the AfD forums. There was rather a lot of intellectual snobbery going around. At the end of the day, all votes that wern't supported by a WP suitable reason, or indeed any reasoning at all, should have been unbolded, if not removed. The Game itself is no more childish and inane than people voting to delete just because they want to keep their precious wiki confined to the traditional encyclopaedia articles, which would fail to put us ahead of Britannica et al. and which other encyclopaedias possibly do better, or at least just as well. This is exactly the kind of information that people come to wikipedia for, we would be doing ourselves a grave disservice by weeding it out. Jdcooper 17:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Bridesmill, the 21 Feb vote was about an article about The Game with a different name. It's deletion has nothing to do with whether or not an article about The Game should exist. I linked to the website because it provides a list of all the evidence, not because it is evidence itself. Is there actually any claims on it that you dispute? Unfortunately, I don't speak Dutch, but I managed to get to the registration page for the article's website, I'm sure you can work it out. Kernow 01:09, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Jdcooper, I agree that articles like these are exactly why Wikipedia is so popular. It's sad to see that people want to remove these articles simply because they don't like them, or believe that they're stupid, when really they do have a place on Wikipedia. TerrorBite 03:04, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Translation

I've moved the rough translation of the article here because of disputes over what info is verifiable. Kernow

The Game must be the simplest game in the world. It all comes down to: "the moment you think about it, you loose". Psychology for beginners: try very hard not to think about something and you will think about it.
In the US and UK the game is, mainly in schools and university, a modest hype. In Brazil, Australia and Japan, more and more youngsters follow. Nearer to us, the game starts appearing as well - slowly at the moment, but unstoppable all the same. The first rule determines that whoever knows of the game, is playing it - so there's no escaping it.
The player who loses the game by thinking about it, is obliged to state out loud that he lost. One version says that all other players in the vicinity lose as well, other versions give other players a short amount of time - ten minutes ot half an hour, the rules are vague - to forget about the game again . Whichever version is palyed, for the losers not all is lost: the moment that the Game is out of their head again, they are playing it once more.
In the UK, fanatics have developed several strategies to make their fellow players lose. They write "The Game" in big letters on the chalkboard in front of the class, they hide little notes saying that the finder of the note has lost. The ultimate strategy is, of course, to remind the competition of the Game as often as possible, without being reminded of it yourself.
But every victory is short, for it is always temporary. The ultimate victory does not exist, the Game never ends. Even for expert players, it is not known what the origins of the game are. On the internet, several websites are dedicated to finding those origins.
Those of you who were not paying close attention might have missed it, but there can be no misunderstanding about it: all those who have read this article, play the game now, whether you like it or not. Sorry.
Did the original Dutch really say "you loose"? Could someone please let us know just who translated this? Did the newspaper article give any sources for the article, or did they just make it up in thin air? Why is the supposed Game, rampant throughout the English speaking world, have to rely on a Dutch langauge article for verification? User:Zoe|(talk) 04:11, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
I assume that's a typo of "you lose", although obvioulsy it said it in Dutch. I believe User:Seqsea knows who translated it as he provided the translation. It doesn't look like the article gave any sources...my personal experience of newspaper articles is that they don't usually provide sources...it definately doesn't mean "they just make it up in thin air". No one is claiming The Game is "rampant throughout the English speaking world", just that it is notable. It has to rely on it for verification because it is the only reputable source yet found. Kernow 15:38, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
As a general rule, newspapers are very infrequent in citing sources for their information, unless direct quotes are involved. And "supposed Game"? Is the very existance of the Game now in question? Darquis 02:25, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
I do not know who originally translated it (they said someone on IRC), but I can attest for its accuracy in general. If you have a specific question, feel free to ask it. If I cannot make it out I know several native Dutch speakers that I can ask. Kotepho 03:02, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


Should the picture of the original article (linked above) be included alongside the article for those who don't subscribe to the paper? Darquis 18:12, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

No. Kotepho 20:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Why not? I think it has value in that it would allow people who cannot/will not register for that site to see it (thus setting aside the complaint that the only source requires registration)Darquis 02:25, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Because it is a copyright violation. Kotepho 03:24, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Image

I've put this image up if anyone thinks it would be suitable in the article. Image:Losethegame.jpg Kernow 16:31, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it would be. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 17:39, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
I feel like the most useful image addition to this article would be a photo capture of "I LOST!" grafitti somewhere, preferably in a notable location. It would help communicate the concept behind the game, especially helping to alleviate the immense confusion typically experienced by new readers. ~ PseudoSudo 19:30, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
How about The Game on a whiteboard at college? That's a trick used by some of my friends. Although, I really don't think this article needs an image. --Liface 21:11, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Getting better sourcing for the inevitable next deletion seems like a better use of one's time. JoshuaZ 21:18, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
Here's two such images:[1] Kernow 14:15, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Any idea what the liscences on these images are? JoshuaZ 14:48, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
The second one has a (c)2005 watermark; I don't feel as if the first is an especially good photo. ~ PseudoSudo 18:32, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh yeah, hadn't noticed the (c). The first photo is mine so I will put it up if someone wants. It does give a good example of Game strategies. Kernow

You lose!

How about putting this either at the top or in the Strategies section. Kernow 21:30, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe we should wait on that. Given how hard it has been to get this article past anything at all, we might not want to credibility with a picture of a toilet just yet. Other than that, seems good. JoshuaZ 21:39, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Rving deletion

Guys, the article has been deleted. Even if that deletion was out of process, the appropriate thing to do is leave the article in the deleted state until the deletion review is complete. JoshuaZ 06:30, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

If it's out of process, it should be overturned Will (E@) T 06:31, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
And there's a deletion review being held to determine whether it was out of process. If it is determined to be, it will be overturned, within process! It's not a foregone conclusion though, so why jump the gun? What harm occurs if you can't see this article for, what, another two days? A week even? Let the wheels turn at their pace. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:34, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I have no problem with an admin boldly reverting a currently-undisputed out-of-process deletion. ~ PseudoSudo 06:41, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Given that the AFD that just closed was closed as no consensus by one admin and then another admin speedied it based on supposed violation of a policy that many of the keep voters, as well as the closing admin, considered, I would suggest that it remain undeleted while the DRV runs, and that it can be deleted at the end of the DRV if the DRV determines the AFD closure was incorrect.-Polotet 06:45, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Y'know, thinking about it more, I could just about go either way. I still see no point in reverting over it. It matters so little whether the article is visible right now. Refraining from reverting each other back and forth is more important. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:55, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I'd agree that revert warring either way in this situation is silly and pointless and only creates bad blood.-Polotet 06:58, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
As a political matter, I think it makes more sense to keep it removed for now, since it will show that those supporting undeletion are following policy. JoshuaZ 06:59, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I actually cite WP:POINT on your reply, JoshuaZ. Actively ignoring an incorrect action to prove a point about the policy-abiding qualities of one side of a debate doesn't seem like a proper way to go about things. ~ PseudoSudo 07:49, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
It isn't WP:POINT, I have no intention of waving in anyones face "Look at us! See w follow policy unlike those other guys." Its more of a preemptive issue so no one can confuse an already muddled matter by saying that the proponents of the article are not following policy. JoshuaZ 14:45, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Link to Savethegame.org

Can we please develop a consensus on whether or not it should be included in external links? As it is now, it keeps getting put back in and then taken out. JoshuaZ 15:33, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

  • It seems to me that it would definitely fall under "self-reference" - same reason wikipedia is not mentioned in Jordanhill Railway Station article. I don't think it should be there. Jdcooper 15:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
    • That's my feeling as well. JoshuaZ 15:43, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
    • I feel the same, but if they want to remove all references to our article/AFD and act simply as a repository of information about The Game, then I have no problem including them as a generic "fan" site. —Seqsea (talk) 16:11, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
      • That's a point, it would be nice to be able to link to their "compiled list of references to the game", since it gives some kind of context to our article as well, but we can't really do that at the moment. Jdcooper 16:41, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Savethegame.org should be linked somewhere, even if it's just this talk page. If the request is for more sources, that page seems to be a legitimate way to find such. Whether it needs to be on the actual article, I'm not sure. Darquis 22:22, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Along the Same lines... I beleive that the answers.com link should most definately not be included in the external links section, since it is a mirror of the prior version of the same article (and says so in the bar right above the article). Gsham 21:35, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

    • I do not propose that any information from the answers.com link should be included in the article, since it is not a reliable source, but even so, it contains far more information than the wikipedia article, which is supposedly "the sum of all human knowledge", so if a user comes here looking for information, even if we do not give them the information they are looking for, we can surely direct them to a place where they can find it? Some people might care more about actual information than pedantic boredomcruft, and it is definitely an external website about the game. Jdcooper 15:30, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
      I disagree about linking to Answers.com's mirror of Wikipedia. First of all, it will probably update pretty soon, and then we'll have an entirely self-referential link. Secondly, we don't need to link readers to non-reliable sources - they can use google, too. -GTBacchus(talk) 15:37, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
      • But why should they have to? Are we supposed to make things as inconvenient as possible for users? If I need information, I come here first, which is what we want other people to do. We should make things as easy as possible for people. If not, why do we have external links at all? When it updates we can delete the link, but at the moment it serves an important purpose. Its not our problem that it is non-reliable itself, our problem is making the current wikipedia accord to WP:V, which it currently does. They know that by looking outside of wikipedia they are looking at sub-standard information, thats up to them. We are like a piece of liberal legislation, giving people the freedom to choose and make their own mind up :) Jdcooper 16:02, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
        • Although I don't really have an opinion on the answers.com link, saying they can use google is not a very good argument. Information about The Game is quite hard to find on google, simply because of its name. I will try and include the information found on answers.com on losethegame.com if that will resolve the situation. Kernow 16:23, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
          • I'm not buying it, about it being ok to link to substandard information. We delete links to substandard information all the time, and good job. The purpose of Wikipedia is to be an encyclopedia, which means a reliable, well-researched source, and the purpose of external links is to point readers to more reliable information. We're not "making things as inconvenient possible," we're just applying the same standards we try to apply in all our articles. We shouldn't think of academic standards as a pain in the neck that we have to find ways to work around; we should embrace them as what will make Wikipedia a respected source. Additionaly, it's not difficult to search for information about the game: you just google "just lost the game" and similar strings. I won't revert, but I'm utterly unconvinced. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:46, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
            • That's my point, its not substandard information, just because it doesnt have sources. I was being tongue-in-cheek when i described it thus. The old wikipedia article was a good summary of The Game, which is played widely, and which everyone agrees exists, but which also happened not to have any sources. Academic standards are not a pain in the neck, but the fact that we cannot find sources to verify something that is clearly true is. A Right Bloody Pain in the neck. For the moment we can help people out. Jdcooper 17:00, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
              • We can't cite our own articles. Answers.com is just our own articles repackaged with advertisements. It's not appropriate—there's a reason we deleted the old version. —Seqsea (talk) 17:17, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
                • Seqsea, the question at hand is whether to include the link under External links, not as a source under References. Regarding your edit summary, you should base your decision of its inclusion on your interpretation of WP:EL, not WP:CITE. ~ PseudoSudo 19:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
                  • Yes, thank you. You're right, WP:EL was the correct policy and not WP:CITE. That having been said, the implication with external links, or at least, the way I view them, is that what lives on the other side of those links is verifiable, correct, information that will enhance our own article. The first entry under "Links to normally avoid" on WP:EL is "Any site that contains factually inaccurate material or unverified original research." We deleted our article precisely because it was unverified original research, and linking to it under external links is the same as endorsing the information that was there. User:Jdcooper seems to want to include the link because our current article doesn't have enough information, which means that even though we've changed the heading from References to External links, we're still using the link as a means of saying, "The information at this link is correct." And since we wrote it, we're citing ourselves. —Seqsea (talk) 19:48, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
              • Jdcooper, "help people out"? What are you talking about, an link to information on how to identify a stroke when it's happening, or lists of toxic household products? Ah no, we're talking about a mind game. The goal is not to include all true information here; it's to write a good, reliable encyclopedia. We should really embrace the omission of information that isn't WP:Verifiable. That makes Wikipedia better. -GTBacchus(talk) 17:50, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
                • I am currently wondering what the purpose of an encyclopaedia is. Surely to inform people. That is what i mean by "help people out". By including this link as an external link, we are not including all true information, answers.com is. Fine, it is an old mirror of wikipedia, but it is not wikipedia, which has proven that it does not want this information here. Fine, I think that is a shame, but policy is policy. The least we can do is show people something on another source which informs them more than the sum of all human knowledge. External links are not wikipedia. WP:V does not apply to non-wikipedia articles, because it is a Wikipedia policy. The fact that we deleted it makes it not a wikipedia article. The site does not contain factually inaccurate material, it contains editorial-style analysis of a phenomenon, which is linked to constantly on wikipedia articles under "external links", so dont try and cite the bit about "unverified original research" in external links, because that is breached wholesale on major articles, far more major than this. The information at that link is correct, and since, as i stressed, we deleted it, we no longer wrote it. The individual contributors now become the authors. Furthermore, since it is not available anywhere on the wikipedia website, we are not citing ourselves. Now I am not going to revert, because consensus is clearly, and i believe misguidedly, against my opinions, and against the dissemination of valuable and relevant information, and i have reached my alloted reverts anyway, so whatever, its not worth getting blocked over, but i believe we are making a mistake, considering the volume of people that were directed to wikipedia via this article. I must repeat my belief that this is exactly the kind of information that sets wikipedia apart from other encyclopaedias, not that i suspect it will do much good. Understanding of the concept that certain articles are exceptions to blanket policies is clearly absent here, and so much the pity. Jdcooper 23:39, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
                  • Wikipedia isn't about being true, but being verifiable. And as far as Unverified Original Research being in other external links..my understanding of Wiki policy is that other articles violating policy aren't cause for another, but rather, all the articles should be fixed so as to conform to policy. So, to say that other articles do it is not an argument for this article to do it. Rather, it is an argument to fix those articles to meet Wiki standards. Nevermind the debate that can come from "is linking to a mirror linking to yourself".Darquis 02:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
                  • Most politics articles link to editorials, which are by their very nature POV, and often original research. Should they not do this? Of course they should, because they add more context to the article. The original deleted article on this topic was essentially an editorial, but not wikipedia fare, so was deleted. As long as it exists we can make use of it, because it adds further context to our article. To say that other articles do it, and well, is not only an argument that this article should do it, but that policy is wrong. Jdcooper 09:17, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
                  • I don't think you are understanding the issue here Jdcooper. The information in the answers.com article is the exact same info that was deleted from the article here. The reason it was deleted is because it was unverified. continuing to link to that information that was deleted is tantamount to an endorsement of that deleted information, which will only serve to tick off the raving deletionists who want to take the article down. beyond that, it is most definately self referential, because it is an earlier version of this same article. if people really want to see the information, there is a lovely link at the top called "history", where they can get at it, if they want. and your comment about editorial links on politics articles is irrelevant. Wikipedia does not allow Original Research, however (obviously) you can link to other sites that have original research. but answers.com is by its very nature an extension of wikipedia, and still bound by its rules. Maybe if you find this information on another site, it would be acceptable for an "external link", but as it is now, it's innapropriate. Gsham 22:34, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
                    • You can't find it in History, because it was deleted. Since it was deleted and cannot be found on wikipedia (including history), i view it as a separate site. And please do not patronise me by saying that i dont understand the issue, when i in fact do understand the issue, but simply disagree with you. Thanks! Jdcooper 01:34, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
                      • It doesn't matter how you view it. The fact of the matter is, it was taken directly from Wikipedia, and contains information that has since been removed as unverifiable. Linking to the mirror article is merely skating around the restriction imposed (that we verify whatever is written in this article)Darquis 02:27, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Grace Period and Cascade Loss

I understand the article is in DRV right now, but that doesn't mean we can't try to improve it in the interim. Previous versions detailed two areas of the game not covered in the rules.

Firstly, the Grace Period, which is necessary to play the game. Basically it's an amount of time (10-30 minutes seems to be the most popular variations on this) in which you cannot again lose the game. The reason I say this is necessary is because otherwise, if one were to abide by the rules of the game, constant announcement of loss would be necessary.

Secondly, there's the idea of Cascade Loss. This section covered two variations on The Game. The first variation which involves Cascade Loss occurs when one person announces their loss, thereby causing anyone aware of The Game to thereby lose as well (and thus announce it, or agree that they lost as well). The second variation involves the Grace Period. When one person loses, not only is their Grace Period initiated, Grace Period is initiated for all players of the game nearby. Depending on which you play, this also can lead to strategies (either wanting others to lose when you would not be around (so you don't get caught up in Cascade Loss) or wanting people to lose when you're around (so you are granted a Grace Period))Darquis 21:41, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

And if you can find sources that meet WP:RS for any of that, you are welcome to include it. JoshuaZ 21:47, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm going by the translation provided previously in this talk page. I have no idea as to the accuracy of said translation, but it does describe what I've suggested here.
"The player who loses the game by thinking about it, is obliged to state out loud that he lost. One version says that all other players in the vicinity lose as well, other versions give other players a short amount of time - ten minutes ot half an hour, the rules are vague - to forget about the game again . Whichever version is palyed, for the losers not all is lost: the moment that the Game is out of their head again, they are playing it once more."
Would that be good enough in this case? Darquis 22:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I would think so. JoshuaZ 22:31, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to hold off on that until I hear one way or the other whether the translation is accurate. Darquis 07:27, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was the first time you completely forgot it and it re-entered your head. It could be 10 minutes, or it could be 10 years. If you apply a set time to it I find just looking at the time causes you to loose the game.teckjunkie

Again WP:RS please people. JoshuaZ 21:57, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Regarding verifiability

The top concern of the many editors unsatisfied with this article is its verifiability. Being essentially a prime target for revert wars, and since this article has gotten so much attention, I assert the following:

  • Facts in Wikipedia articles are verifiable.
  • Verifiable facts come from reliable sources.
  • The Game has one reliable source, the De Morgen article.
  • thus, facts going into this article need to come from the De Morgen article.

So, any fact stated or directly implied from the De Morgen article is fair game for inclusion; any fact which is not is not acceptable. Anyone who wishes to challenge this is perfectly open to but please make sure you have read WP:V and WP:RS in full before doing so. This will change only when an additional source is found, at which I suggest to the lucky editor, in the simple spirit of pre-emptively stopping revert wars, to disregard WP:BOLD and post the source on this talk rather than under ==References==, pending the decision it is reliable. ~ PseudoSudo 23:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Very much agreed. JoshuaZ 23:44, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

How are we supposed to verify a Dutch newspaper article which requires you to register to read? User:Zoe|(talk) 04:09, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both require registration to be read, does that ruin there verifiability? Newspapers are inherently verifiable. JoshuaZ 04:16, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
The fact that it's a Dutch newspaper article also does not affect its ability to be verified: "foreign-language sources are acceptable in terms of verifiability" (WP:RS). ~ PseudoSudo 04:25, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Luckily, someone has taken a screenshot or photo of that article. You can see that here Darquis 06:40, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

"any fact stated or directly implied from the De Morgen article is fair game for inclusion; any fact which is not is not acceptable" - In that case the reference to the United Kingdom should be changed to England, as this is what the article states. This may cause some complaints from the numerous Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish players of The Game. If this article is to rely entirely on the De Morgan article for its information, I think we need to make sure the translation is 100% accurate. Maybe it is already (although, for example, I did change the original translation from 'Psychology 101' to 'Psychology for beginners', as it says in the article 'Psychologie voor beginners') . Also, any possible ambiguities in the translation should be documented. For example, most Belgians probably refer to the UK as England, hence a literal translation may not be best. Kernow 11:31, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Anything that's happening in England is happening in the UK; simple inferences and rephrasings are not forbidden by WP:NOR. I do agree that we should obtain the best translation we can, documenting where possible the compromises that are inevitable in translation. -GTBacchus(talk) 11:42, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
We don't have to use the same words as the article. We just have to have the same information. The difference between "Psychology for beginners" and "Psychology 101" is stylistic, the content is the same. —Seqsea (talk) 17:21, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
The difference between England and the UK, however, is not stylistic. My point is that what counts as "simple inferences and rephrasings" or "the same information" is a matter of opinion. Especially as these are, in turn, based on a translation. Kernow 18:30, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
If a bird sings in New Jersey, the bird is in the United States.
If a child is born in Auckland, the child is in New Zealand.
If a probe lands in the Fra Mauro crater, the probe is on the Moon.
If somebody writes something stupid on a chalkboard in England, both the writing and the chalkboard are in the United Kingdom.
This is not rocket science. Good grief. --phh (t/c) 20:39, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
So you think, based on the source, it would be suitable to include "The Game is played in the Milky Way". Kernow 22:00, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Yup, that accords to WP:V, and thats all that matters, right? Jdcooper 23:40, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
The thing that makes me mad about all this is we know that all these things are happening and we know The Game is huge and a large number of people play it, we know what countries it is played in, but we can't add any of it because of a "technicality". Just one of the weaknesses of Wikipedia, I guess. --Liface 00:13, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
"As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" (WP:V). Unfortunately not a technicality, but primary policy. ~ PseudoSudo 01:27, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Then its a primary weakness of Wikipedia. Jdcooper 09:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
No, it is a primary strength of Wikipedia, otherwise are minimal credibility would go out the door. This way, if soemone sees something here they at least can follow through and see what source it came from. Furthermore, if truth rather than verifiability were the standard, then the talk pages of every controversial topic would be treated even more like Usenet than they are now, and the articles would be having revert wars even more often. JoshuaZ 12:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Sure, but how about when the truth is undisputed? If you guys want another straw man to tear apart, may i direct you to Campus 14? That is another topic that definitely exists, is virtually unsourced, and unsourceable, but has been built through consensus and is a good standard article. Go get em! Jdcooper 15:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't see how this is unsourceable. "Following complaints from the local hospital about the number of students requiring medical attention, in 2001 the university officially banned students from taking part in the event." If there's a ban, there should be some record of the ban. I see here what appears to be a reference to an article in the Mail on Sunday of February 3, 2002. That shouldn't be too hard to check up on. Nottingham has its own newspaper and several radio and television stations; I can't imagine that none of the local media have ever covered this. Surely college students haven't completely lost the ability to go to the library and perform research (and they even get free Lexis-Nexis!). If there's anything left afterwards that's truly unverifiable, it's probably collegecruft that shouldn't be in the article anyway (not a huge stretch of the imagination, by the looks of the thing).
A downside of Wikipedia's growth and popularity is that they encourage the creation of little fiefdoms where low-traffic articles get "adopted" by small groups of people who fill them with things made up in school one day, and then when their efforts get noticed by someone outside the clique they become outraged at the suggestion that "their" article should have to meet the same standards as the one on, say, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Well, sorry. That's the way it works. --phh (t/c) 17:28, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia (which contain verified information). It is not whatever a large collection of the truth is. Certainly there can be an overlap, and there frequently is, but that doesn't mean that truth precludes verification. Darquis 17:13, 24 April 2006 (UTC)Darquis
Not rocket science, no (not very nice either =P). But the point being made here, I think, is less that the statement you're making is true, but more that it's not accurate, based on the information presented in the current source. If the translation states UK rather than England, that's one thing. But it's misleading to say the UK when the only verification we have says England. If the article says UK, a reader could come across it and incorrectly assume that other parts of the UK are engaged in The Game when we currently have no proof to support such claims. Darquis 17:17, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

JoshuaZ is of course right that some kind of verification is necessary to control what is put on Wikipedia. However, as we have seen from recent discussions, what counts as suitable verification is debatable. The point I tried to raise earlier is that even if we agree this source to be suitable, it is not such a simple matter as making "simple inferences and rephrasings" for the article, because what this entails is entirely a matter of opinion. As I said before, first we need a 100% accurate translation, as well as any possible ambiguities in this translation highlighted. Kernow 14:47, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Description sentence

Recent proposals of the initial sentence:

  • The Game is a social phenomenon, an anti-memory game, the objective of which is to forget its existence.
  • The Game is a meme that could be described as an "anti-memory game": its objective is to forget its existence.
  • The Game is an abstract mental game: its objective is to forget its existence.

A couple of pre-deletion versions for contrast:

  • "The Game" is a name commonly used for a social phenomenon in the English-speaking world based on the goal of thought suppression.
  • The Game is an abstract, self-referential, mental game in which the goal is for players to forget that they are playing.
  • The Game is the unofficial but ubiquitous title for a mental game that spreads as a self-perpetuating social phenomenon. The object of The Game is to forget its existence.
  • The Game, an unofficial title for a mind game played in a group environment, is a social phenomenon mostly prevalent in the United Kingdom, but also played in the United States, Canada, Australia and Ireland.

~ PseudoSudo 22:40, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't like any of them, maybe a merge between #1 and #2? --Liface 23:35, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
  • The Game is a game, the objective of which is to forget its existence. —Seqsea (talk) 02:06, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
  • The Game is an abstract mental game, the objective of which is to forget its existence.
  • There is no point in calling The Game a meme, the majority of stuff on Wikipedia is a meme. A meme is simply any idea or concept. I think what this refers to is a common misconception of the word meme, basically meaning a fad. The Game has some interesting memetic properties, but these should be described elsewhere in the article if anywhere. Whoever wants the meme version up should read the meme article first. Kernow 11:04, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


I think "social phenomenon" is much more appropriate. It's a shame that the only verifiable source we have completely fails to mention that the so-called game enjoys popularity not because of any actual challenge it presents to its players but because of its amusingly absurd nature. --AceMyth 13:55, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Our source simply says it is a game. It doesn't mention it's a meme, a mental game, an abstract game, or a social phenomenon. Therefore we should use "The game is a game." (I actually disagree with that. But it's the source, not me.) If only the article cited it's sources, we'd be in a much better position. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 14:00, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it doesn't mention meme or social phenomenon (and thus am in favor of keeping those out of the article as it stands (hell, what isn't a meme these days)) but I think that mental game (or memory game) is a conclusion that any reasonable adult with no expert knowledge could come to. Darquis 18:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
A meme refers to learned information stored within any human brain. Hence, everything on Wikipedia is, in some sense, a meme. For example, a cat isn't a meme, it's an animal, but our concept of a cat is a meme. Kernow 21:46, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Exactly! I'm not sure how relevant that tag is, or that saying something is a meme anymore. Darquis 23:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
"The Game is a memory game". The memory aspect is obviously inferred from the article, and is slightly more descriptive that just "is a game". Jdcooper 14:43, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Attempts to trace the origin of the game

Phew -- glad I've finally found what this is all about. It's been bugging me for ages. Anyway, there seems to be some people interested in trying to find the origins of the game. I would like to add this section to the page if that is OK with people. Though it seems everything about The Game on wikipedia has descended into some rather comical quibbling.

Section I propose to add -- I'm aware these are not verifiable sources but people seem to be interested in where this game sprung up and how long it has been played:

"Attempts to find the origin of the game

An early internet description claims the origin of the game is at the University of Kent, Canterbury in 2002 on the local usenet groups [2]. A weblog entry here claims to have been aware of the game since early 2001 [3]. A website has been set up to trace the origins of the game by asking who each person learned it from [4]."

Interesting note: the deleted article "Lost (game)" said the following:
"Invented at a theatre camp called French Woods circa 1999..."
The game "Lost" is basically the same, except it focuses on the word "lost" rather than "the game". Ashibaka tock 01:49, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Interesting -- seems like this thing has been going around for a while. What is the earliest internet post you can find which definitely refers to the game in any form? --Richard Clegg 01:55, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
How about this thread? (I think I just won the Game!) Ashibaka tock 02:24, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Pretty good. If that date is genuine it pushes the origin back to 2002. I can certainly find a usenet posting listing the rules then we can certainly say verifiably that the idea of the game has been around that long. --Richard Clegg 02:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
"I'm aware these are not verifiable sources". That sums it up. I didn't even look at the sources, because by your own admission, we can't use them. See WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:NOR if you have any questions. —Seqsea (talk) 02:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh -- but we can most certainly use them to say that the game as a concept is at least that old. --Richard Clegg 02:19, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

OK --- how about including this in "origins".

"The origin of the game is uncertain. It can be certainly said to have existed since December 2003 as this usenet post laying out the rules shows. [5]. Earlier claimed sources can be found on the internet. An article on www.everything2.com claiming to be from October 2003 lays out the rules [6]. A weblog entry purporting to be written in August 2002 claims to have been aware of the game since early 2001. [7]. A website has been set up to trace the origins of the game by asking who each person learned it from [8]. The earliest claimed entry on this is currently 1993, but of course this is completely unverifiable."

Since the usenet entry lists the rules and dates on usenet entries can be checked it is a reliable primary source establishing the idea of the game has been existence since at least December 2003. Of course this has no bearing on the silly deletion debate. I'm just interested in how the meme has spread and where it comes from. We can say with certainty that the meme has been in existence since December 2003. --Richard Clegg 03:17, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

  • From WP:RS --

    Posts to bulletin boards and Usenet, or messages left on blogs, are never acceptable as primary or secondary sources.

    Unless there's something reliable and verifiable to back it up, discussion of the origin of "The Game" falls under the category of original research, and doesn't belong in this article in any case. WarpstarRider 03:30, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Heh -- you're a very silly man. Anyway, I'm not interested in the deletion battle. I'm just interested in tracing the meme. Only an idiot would argue that the meme didn't exist from December 2003 at this point. Sorry if I wasn't using the word "primary source" in the wikipedia sense. I'm interested for its own sake rather than the daft deletion versus not deletion stuff. I just find how this meme has spread fascinating, I'm not particularly interested in the lawyer speak. --Richard Clegg 03:45, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Incidentally, where does it say that tracing where something originates is Original REsearch?--Richard Clegg 03:47, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
From WP:OR: "Original research is a term used on Wikipedia to refer to material added to articles by Wikipedia editors that has not been published already by a reputable source." Forum posts and Usenet are not reliable. This isn't about the previous AFDs and DRVs, this is about your proposal. While it's great that you're interested in doing extra research (and if you find a reliable source for the information, that's awesome), but we can't put your information into the article right now. —Seqsea (talk) 03:55, 27 April 2006 (UTC) (emphasis added, PseudoSudo 10:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC))
What I wrote has nothing to do with the deletion debate. Anything added to the article has to be backed up by verifiable information. The filling up of the article with original research like this is how the whole mess started in the first place. WarpstarRider 03:58, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
But everthing I wrote above was 100% verifiable since what I wrote was that those websites and that usenet posts exist and that the usenet post allows us to establish a date from which the meme definitely existed. You can't get more verifiable than that -- particularly the usenet post since it gives an explicit date at which time the meme was definitely in existnence. Ah... but I'm not really interested in these lawyer type games, I just want to know how old this idea is and where it started. I expect you will claim that it doesn't meet a wikipedia definition of verifiable. --Richard Clegg 04:04, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

As someone who has very little patience for this beyond-idiotic "game," I must confess I don't see much of a problem with using an ordinarily unreliable source under certain circumstances to establish the existence of something at a specific point in time. If I was writing about Linux, for example, I believe I should be able to use this Usenet post from Linus Torvalds as a citation to definitively establish that the Linux project had been created by October 5, 1991. If you think about it, the actual content of the post only contributes one word to the citation—"Linux"—as prima facie proof that the word existed when the post was written. The real meat of the citation is the date on the post, which we presumably trust Google to report truthfully. In other words, when provenance is all we care about, the true source isn't some random dude writing a message on tha Intarwebses—it's whoever's in charge of setting the clock on the server he posts to.

So if "Marnevel" wrote a post dated December 7, 2002 in which The Game is clearly described, the real question is not whether Marnevel is trustworthy (and whoever he/she/it is, he/she/it seems to have done something to get him/her/itself banned from the forum at some point), it's whether the forum software is accurately reporting the date on the post. For something like this I suggest that the proper course of action is to assume good faith until given a reason to do otherwise. But it should also be recognized that even if this is considered a valid source for the purposes of establishing provenance, it gives us, at most, one sentence: "The Game has existed since at least December, 2003," or words to that effect. --phh (t/c) 05:21, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Mainly agree with PHenry here although note that assumption does not come from WP:AGF which applies to users but really as treating basic usenet archiving as reliable sources for the time they were posted as simply common sense. (I'm not even sure how one would go about faking a time-stamp on one) JoshuaZ 05:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I just got an e-mail from the guy who wrote the original post I linked to above; he says he invented it in 1996 but is not interested in getting publicity, in order "to allow the mystique to continue". This is of course original research, but I thought it might be interesting to know anyway. Ashibaka tock 04:34, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, but forgive me if I am skeptical of his claim. JoshuaZ 04:37, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I'd be too if he were just some random dude who posted about it this or last year, but his post is earlier than any other I can find, and he claimed to be the creator in the post. Ashibaka tock 04:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Interesting. Thanks. Anybody object to me moving this text to the main page under "Origins"?
Sorry but can I just clarify which post is being refered to? Kernow 21:36, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry I've found it now. Kernow 21:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

"The origin of the game is uncertain. It can be certainly said to have existed since December 2003 as this usenet post laying out the rules shows. [9]. Earlier claimed sources can be found on the internet. An article on www.everything2.com claiming to be from October 2003 lays out the rules [10]. A weblog entry purporting to be written in August 2002 claims to have been aware of the game since early 2001. [11]. A website has been set up to trace the origins of the game by asking who each person learned it from [12]. The earliest claimed entry on this is currently 1993, but of course this is completely unverifiable."

I know editing anything on this page is somewhat fraught but everything in that paragraph is provably true. Verifiable in the wikipedia sense or not this is a paragraph where each claim has a backup up -- we shouldn't subject this article to stronger standards than the rest of wikipedia. --Richard Clegg 10:37, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Remove the last two sentences. If it's completely unverifiable then it doesn't belong in the article. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 12:07, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I removed the last one sentence -- the link to the orgin tracing site is surely worth having as it expresses the meme nature and the network spreading nature of The Game which is the main reason I'm interested in it as a phenomenon. The sentence only mentions that the website attempting to find its origins exists. This is surely indisputable. If you disagree, however, then please feel free to take that sentence back out as well. --Richard Clegg 13:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I have removed it. Not becuase I dispute the fact the site exists, but because the site itself hasn't drawn any verifiable conclusions and thus is non-notable/fancruft. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 14:19, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
When you say the site hasn't reached any verifiable conclusions, you mean the information on it hasn't been published in a reliable source? It doesn't follow that this makes the site non-notable or fancruft. Kernow 21:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
No, I mean it's conclusions aren't verifiable. (And thus wouldn't be published by a RS, but that is a side-effect not the actual reason.) That doesn't make the site non-noatble (although it is) but it does make the information non-notable. Including non-notable information in an article becuase it may be intresting to fans of the subject of that article is loosly called fan-cruft. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 15:02, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
I completely agree that the site and the information are non-notable, and that it shouldn't be included in the article. However I don't see the logic in these claims:
"the site itself hasn't drawn any verifiable conclusions and thus is non-notable/fancruft"
"it's conclusions aren't verifiable" which makes "the information non-notable"
Although notabilty and verifiability often overlap, the fact that something is unverifiable does not make it non-notable, and visa versa. Just like the fact that something is verifiable does not make it notable, and visa versa. Kernow 20:26, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I changed the main page to include both the first internet mention and the first usenet mention. It's possible that someone could fake a date on a website. It would be impossible or at least very very difficult to fake the date on a usenet post since usenet has international distribution and is archived in many separate places. Hence I believe both dates should stay in the article. --Richard Clegg 12:53, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

This livejournal entry dates the game back at least as far as August 2003. While it's true that times on Livejournal entries can be changed, comment modification of any sort isn't allowed. (I guess someone in power over at livejournal could have changed it, but that sounds like a pretty longshot for a forgery.) 75.6.239.253

There are oxbridge.tat posts from April 2001 describing the Game; it's certainly not presented as 'new' there. Ewx 15:17, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

New source

Article about The Game here, I can't tell really what kind of site it is. Does this count as a blog, or does it count as a reputable source? Jdcooper 02:06, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

  • It's been brought up before. It looks like a blog, though one that seems to be written professionally (the copyright belongs to a corporation). I believe that on any other article this source would be sufficient to cite facts from, especially if these facts are uncontroversial, but not enough on its own to establish WP:V (that takes a published source, but thankfully we have one). But that probably won't fly given the Wikipolitical situation of this article, as it's being held to a much stricter interpretation of WP:RS than the rest of Wikipedia. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 02:39, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Forgetting Game

I believe that this article existed as Forgetting game before it became The Game (game). How do I access the history of the original Forgetting game page? Kernow 20:33, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Forgetting game was moved here. There's nothing in its deleted history but one redirect to this page. That redirect was created by the pagemove, dated 03:22, November 2, 2004. Then the page was deleted 17:27, March 22, 2006 by Sean Black, because this page had beed deleted, and why have a redirect to a deleted page? -GTBacchus(talk) 21:52, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
So are you saying that The Game (game) existed before the Forgetting game, and that someone added the Forgetting game as a redirect to here? I was under the impression that the first article about The Game was put under that title and then it was moved here. Has the Forgetting game page ever contained any infomation or was it always just a redirect? Kernow 16:13, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
What he means is that The Game (game) originated as the Forgetting game, but was moved here. When a page is moved, its edit history is moved to the destination page, and all that is left on the source page is the redirect. Timrem 16:45, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
That's right. Forgetting game was the first article that got written, but in November '04, it and its history were moved here, and all that was left there was a redirect with no history. That's how page moves work. All the edits in this page's history that predate the pagemove used to be at Forgetting game, which is pretty apparent if you look at them. -GTBacchus(talk) 16:52, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
OK, thanks for the help. Kernow 22:44, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Meme

I don't think that the article itself should mention The Game as being a meme, as we can't source it. I don't think we should have it in "See Also" because at this point, that would have as much value as "See Also: things you can remember" or "See Also: Human concepts" Darquis 07:14, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

As I said earlier, there is no point saying "The Game is a meme" because almost everything on Wikipedia is a meme. However, the concept of memes is that certain ideas will be told to other people when you think about them. In this sense, The Game is a very interesting meme. It could possibly be described as the simplest meme, as the only reason for telling someone else is that this is the objective of The Game. I liked the sentence in a previous version of the article that said something like "The Game is an example of a succinct meme." Does information like this really need to be sourced when it has to be true by definition? Surely this a case of it being obvious to any reasonable adult that knows what The Game is and what memes are. Kernow 16:11, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Hm. In that sense, I don't have any objection to it, as it's a special type of meme. So long as it's similar to how you just described it (thus giving it relevance) and not just mentioning The Game is a meme, by all means, go for it. Darquis 21:23, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
I do not doubt that The Game is a meme. That fact is not asserted in the single source cited. Therefore, the assertion that the Game is a meme, and especially that it is an interesting meme for any reason, is OR. It is almost certainly true, but it is OR. Dang it all, if this thing is really a phenomemon, someone credible must have written some analysis of it in a reliable source. Robert A.West (Talk) 17:00, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
The Game is a meme by definition. Please read the meme article. A meme can refer to any idea stored in a human brain, it has nothing to do with notability. If I invent the word "splunglefabble" it now also a meme because at least one person, me, knows about it. You are a meme with a fad/craze. 80.193.24.46 13:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

An outside perspective

I realise I am a relatively new editor and as such perhaps my comments aren't appropriate in such a hot debate but after sitting here reading through all the deletion discussions and reviews and the talk pages I really feel obliged to add my thoughts. Hopefully this objective viewpoint will make a positive, if minor, contribution to what seems to be a very heated, complicated and somewhat confused debate.

It seems quiet clear that as a result of strong feelings for and against this article there are now two hardcore 'sides' in this debate, both of whom show no signs of wanting to 'give up'. As a result, arguments are thrown in which have either been discussed and rightly dismissed already, refer to factually incorrect information, or refer to Wikipedia policy documents when they don't actually apply. This I believe is very dangerous for Wikipedia because there is a risk that the 'wants' of the side that cries loudest will take precedent over the consensus of the debatees such as JoshuaZ who are providing unbiased opinion, looking at the facts and basing their arguments on correct policy and procedure. I think it would be useful to step back for a minute and examine the arguments for deletion of the article, the counter-arguments, and what it all now boils down to.

Arguments for deletion:

1) "The Game is not notable and therefore doesn't merit inclusion."

2) "The Game is silly and childish and doesn't belong in an encyclopedia."

3) "The Game does not have any sources permissable by WP:V and should therefore not exist."

I will now summarise the key points in the deletion debate following each of these arguments.

1)

  • The notability of The Game can be shown by, amongst other things, the overwhelming number of clearly related (to The Game as described in the article) but unrelated (to each other) returns in a Google search for "just lost the game".
  • Wikipedia made The Game notable therefore the article should be deleted since Wikipedia should not create primary sources.
  • Whether or not Wikipedia made The Game notable is an arguable and unprovable statement and therefore should not be used to suggest the deletion of the article. Also, some sources point to the existence of The Game before existence of the article, therefore Wikipedia did not create the phenomenon.
  • The sources that prove Wikipedia did not create the phenomenon are not reliable sources.

2)

  • There is no Wikipedia policy which states that an article on a topic which some consider 'silly' should be deleted.
  • True, however, the Game is an unencyclopedic topic.
  • Again, just because something is considered by some to be in the domain of children's games, this does not brand it as unsuitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia.

3)

  • The Game is inherently sourceless and is therefore a special case. The fact that so many people play it as seen online should be enough verification.
  • WP:V is firm, non-negotiable policy and cannot be trumped, the article should be deleted.
  • An advert in MacAddict and MacWorld magazines referenced The Game.
  • The advert refers only to the Wikipedia article and therefore does not count. If a source is found in a major newspaper or magazine, then there will be no problem.
  • An article about The Game has been written in a major Belgian newspaper.
  • This article does not state its sources/the paper is not major/is Belgian, therefore this source does not pass.
  • The language is irrelevant, and if a verifiable source has to refer to a verifiable source, then no verifiable source can truly exist.
  • The newspaper article might have used Wikipedia as its source, as it resembles the original article in content, therefore does not count. The article therefore fails WP:V, and should still be deleted.
  • This is speculation and therefore should not be used as a reason to delete the article.


Finally, since this is a discussion, I'd like to add the conclusions I myself have drawn from what I've read.

1) It's really very clear that the game is notable based on web searches alone. So notability is not the issue. What is more interesting, is whether the notability is down to the existence of the article itself. Yes it is likely that The Game would be less notable now if it weren't for this article; from web searching it is clear that people have pasted links to this article in lieu of explaining the rules to people. But did this cause a spread of The Game which would not have existed without the article? It probably helped people spread it more easily, but did it cause the spread? These are two very different things. An article in an encyclopedia is supposed to be a reference point to which people can turn for more information about something once they have already heard of it. This is because encyclopedias are trusted as being reliably sourced. So would an 'article lacking sources' flag have been sufficient?

2) This doesnt seem to be a well thought out argument, seemingly just used as ammo for deletion. I'm sure millions of people have already said this, but if we accepted 'this is a silly/childish topic' as a reason to delete an article, this would pave the way for the deletion of a huge number of perfectly encyclopedic articles.

3) So, we arrive at the verifiabilty issue. Taking account of all the above, it seems that this whole debate boils down to one question: "Does this article satisfy WP:V now that it has been described in a major Belgian newspaper?" If this was a new article, without any prior history or huge noisy heated debate, I don't think there would be any question. The question, therefore, seems to boil down further to "should this source be excluded because it may have used Wikipedia as a source?"

To answer this we need to consider the following:

  • Why do we consider major newspapers as reliable sources? Is it because we assume, as we have to, that any major newspaper that wishes to remain respectable will ensure the verifiability of its own content, so WE don't have to verify it ourselves through our own research? In other words, perhaps we have to assume that as a major national publication, this paper would not publish an article which used a single Wikipedia entry as its source, especially one which even at the time of publishing was flagged as unsourced and rife with controversy.
  • Assuming we accept the above, should we concern ourselves with the possibility that the popularity of The Game implied by the article is conceivably a product of the presence of the Wikipedia article? Well, concern ourselves we should, because it gives lessons for the future about allowing articles such as this to survive for so long without sources. Should we delete the article now because of this? Again, let's turn to Wikipedia policy. Is there a policy statement which says that an article which satisfies all inclusion criteria should be excluded from Wikipedia if Wikipedia in the past had some influence in the notability of the topic?

So, in conclusion I think all of this boils down to this last question. I'm not an expert Wikipedian so I can't answer it. All I can offer is that if there was another Wikipedia, and this article was created for the first time now, with its current notability AND reliable source(s), then I see no reason why it would be unacceptable, and as such, I think we should put past troubles aside and keep it. Wiw8 22:50, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Well done mate - great analysis - totally agree. DJR (Talk) 16:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Interesting analysis, you may want to put a note on the Deletion Review that you have made such an analysis, and put a link to here or put a copy of this on the talk page of the deletion review. JoshuaZ 16:57, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Nice try, but I'm not buying it. The issue about the newspaper as a reliable source satisfying WP:V is still valid and highly pertinent. Two questions hang over that: one, is this in any way a reliable source; and two, has that source obtained its information from Wikipedia. Those questions must be answered to satisfy point three of the verifiability policy criteria; "The obligation to provide a reputable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to remove it." In the absence of any evidence of the reliability of the newspaper article, I still think this article has to go. Kinitawowi 17:26, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
And the reason it's not possible to say whether any of the information comes from Wikipedia is because the article doesn't say where it got any of its information at all. Even news articles that rely entirely on anonymous sources at least say they rely on anonymous sources, which allows the reader to choose whether to give the sources credence or not. This one doesn't say… anything.
Actually, I suppose this raises an interesting question: what to do when a reliable source publishes an article that completely fails to meet the standards we expect of reliable sources? If De Morgen were to make a habit of publishing unsourced, unverifiable articles on topics with which few people are familiar, it would clearly cease to be a reliable source and become more like the blind-items column in Movieline. To my knowledge, that hasn't happened yet, although if that is their intention they've made an excellent start at it. So does that mean we should just let this article slide because the publisher has earned sufficient trust to be given the benefit of the doubt every once in a while? Or should we note that that this story bears the earmarks of having not been subjected to the normal newspaper editing process, and assume in the absence of evidence to the contrary that it may have slipped through the cracks in the quality control procedures and should therefore be considered unreliable? --phh (t/c) 18:30, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Kinitawowi:
"one, is this in any way a reliable source" - What reason do we have for doubting this? De Morgan is a major Belgian newspaper.
"two, has that source obtained its information from Wikipedia" - There is no evidence to suggest this and it would be impossible to establish without contacting the journalist who wrote the article. I think it highly unlikely that the editors would allow an article in a major national newspaper to be based solely on an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
phh:
What you seem to be saying is that, because you don't believe the information given in the article, it is wrong. That rather than your opinion being wrong, a major Belgian newspaper is wrong, even though you have no evidence to support this claim.
Many people seem to be claiming that for a source to be reliable, it needs to cite reliable sources. This view is fundamentally flawed, please read the article on infinite regress. Kernow 23:01, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I am not saying the information in the article is wrong, and I am not saying I don't believe it. If this were about what I personally believe to be true there wouldn't be much of a controversy here. Unfortunately, I'm not always going to be around to vet articles for readers—and even if I were, what reason would anyone have to trust me? The point of WP:V and WP:RS is to create a reference that requires as few leaps of faith as possible from the reader. Ideally a Wikipedia article should never say "trust me" to the reader at all--every assertion of fact, or at least every potentially controversial assertion of fact, should be backed by a reliable source. It's the job of the reliable source to ascertain the accuracy of the information before printing it… otherwise it's not a reliable source and we can't use it. If a source is reliable, by definition, it can be assumed to have used reliable sources itself, so we as consumers of the information shouldn't have to follow the chain of custody any further than that.
Did this newspaper ascertain the accuracy of this information before running the story? Well, we don't know, because it doesn't say where the information comes from, in violation of every journalistic tenet known to man. Media organizations put their credibility on the line every time they use anonymous sources, or sources that are otherwise not available to the general public, which is why we expect them to be reliable before we'll trust them. If this article had anonymous sources, it would be an improvement. Instead, it doesn't have any sources at all, so we're forced to rely upon De Morgen's credibility as a newspaper for evidence that the anonymous reporter didn't simply make it all up. Essentially, it's asking us to trust us, but it's not holding up its end of the bargain by telling us why it's asking us to trust us instead of just giving us sources that we could theoretically check out for ourselves. That's the dilemma. --phh (t/c) 16:24, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Origins

Here's a Google cache of Jamie Miller's claim that he created The Game in 1996 (posted 21st October 2002). [13] Kernow 16:39, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The name of "The Game"

  • Note: I've changed the name of the section, as this seems approriate, also including further justification for it not being called The Game (game), as there was a game running through one of the episode series of the TV series "The Name of the Game", which might also be called The Game (The Game). If there's objection to the title change, please revert it.

Could we have a general discussion over what it should be titled? I dislike "The Game (meme)" since 1) meme is a vague term that has multiple different meanings. 2) We have no WP:V source to call The Game a "meme" 3) The justification that "it's not the most common use of "the Game" as a game; and it's not verifiable as a game" doesn't hold water since at present we don't have any other articles that are called "the Game" that need that spot and the De Morgen article does describe the Game as a game. JoshuaZ 16:55, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The De Morgen article seems to require paid registration to read, even if I knew Dutch. (Perhaps it's not paid, but the registration page is also in Dutch.) Forgive me if I don't trust your interpretation of colloquial Dutch, as "game", "sport", and a few English synomyns may correspond to the same or different Dutch words. Perhaps The Game (memory) might be best, if there really were any verification of the existance of the concept this article represents. The Game (game) should be rejected, not only as a name for the article, but as a redirect source. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:19, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
As for specifics, quoting from the article, itself....
The Game is an interesting example of a meme. Its rules represent the fundamentals of memetic replication.

— Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:22, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm missing something here. The existence of this article is currently predicated on treating the De Morgen article as reliable (otherwise the article probably shouldn't exist). Given that, the article refers to The Game as something, a dutch word which means something like "game" or "sport" and certainly does not mean "meme" and we have no source to call The Game a "meme." I would think that a source beats no source. What am I missing? JoshuaZ 19:27, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I have two objections. The Game (game) is a bad title, regardless of whether it really exists. At best, it should be a disambiguation between the first grouping of items from The Game disambiguation page. If you object to (meme), how about (memory), as I suggested above. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 19:43, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm ok with "The Game (memory)" JoshuaZ 19:50, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
My apologies about the quote from the article. That was written after I moved it, so it doesn't support the move. OK -- should we move it again, and fix the double redirect from The Game (game)? — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:00, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
As far as "meme" goes, there was a discussion as to what value, if any, that term has in this article. What I mean is that meme could literally refer to any article on Wiki in one sense (since every article involves our current ideas or concepts of the subject). The reason meme was included is because it was felt that any adult with non expert knowledge could ascertain that it was a meme. The article, or the translation we have (see also, the screenshot of said article, since registration (particularly paid) seems a bit much to do) doesn't say meme at all. In fact, I would question the article's translation if it did; I doubt that's a term in the dutch lexicon.
As far as the title, I'm not understanding why The Game (game) needed changed. Was there a strong need for the disambiguation page (if it exists yet, I've not checked) Darquis 20:31, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
The Game (game) is the proper name of a partial disambiguation page of those articles called The Game which are about games. There were three in the main article The Game, so The Game (game) is improperly named. In terms of notability, I feel the game is only notable as an example of a viral meme, rather than as a game, so The Game (meme) seems more appropriate. However, I'd accept The Game (memory), provided that the redirect in The Game (game) is changed to a disambiguation page. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:43, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Having multiple disambiguation pages seems redundant. I would suggest just having it redirect to The Game. JoshuaZ 22:02, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Joshua, I think having a second disambiguation page from The Game would be overkill. I also don't think that the college football The Game should be titled as such, but that's another matter entirely. Darquis 01:53, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, please read the meme article before discussing memes, because it would seem there is a serious misunderstanding of what a meme is. To quote myself from the Description Sentence section above:

"There is no point in calling The Game a meme, the majority of stuff on Wikipedia is a meme. A meme is simply any idea or concept. I think what this refers to is a common misconception of the word meme, basically meaning a fad. The Game has some interesting memetic properties, but these should be described elsewhere in the article if anywhere. Whoever wants the meme version up should read the meme article first.
A meme refers to learned information stored within any human brain. Hence, everything on Wikipedia is, in some sense, a meme. For example, a cat isn't a meme, it's an animal, but our concept of a cat is a meme."

The relevance of The Game to memes I added to the article:

"The Game is an interesting example of a meme. Its rules represent the fundamentals of memetic replication."

PHenry removed the word "interesting" saying "'interesting'? not so much." I was not saying The Game is interesting, full stop. I was saying that The Game is interesting as an example of a meme, for the reasons I put in the proceding sentence, because "Its rules represent the fundamentals of memetic replication." If you can think of a better way of wording this then please change it. However, all that PHenry has done is left a completely redundant sentence. It might as well say "The Game is an example of an idea."

For those of you that don't know what a meme is, replace "meme" with "idea". The term meme is used to refer to the evolutionary properties of ideas. Kernow 23:24, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Ik kan een woordenboek gebruiken alhoewel mijn Duits en Nederlands zeer slecht zijn. In Dutch, spel means game and spelen means to play. As such the title of the De Morgen article says "The Game, the simplest game in the world". Spel doesn't mean sport, as sport means sport. I don't really care what you name the article though. Kotepho 03:45, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Poll on the name of "The Game"

Suggested method. Gather potential names for one week, and "vote" (by some mechanism) for one week. Of course, if a name develops a clear consensus before then, I may just move it. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:51, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Potential names:

  1. The Game (game)
  2. The Game (meme)
  3. The Game (memory)
  4. The Game (memory game)
  5. The Game (forgetting game) (echoing the original name here on Wiki)

My take at the moment:

1. Strong, sow it with salt, NO
2. Preferred by me, but probably unacceptable to some
I next prefer #5, since I just came up with the idea, but could live with any of 1-5 other than 1. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:53, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Either 4 or 5, with an ever-so-slight lean toward 5, only because it really is more a test of forgetfulness than of rememberness. —Seqsea (talk) 15:02, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Basically agree with Seqsea on this with a preference to 5. Strong dislike of 2 since all thoughts are memes. JoshuaZ 17:50, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there something else that needs The Game (game) title, and if so why does it take superiority to this article? As I have said, calling The Game a meme is completely redundant. Why have we changed it from (game)? The claims that The Game is not a game are clearly flawed. I'm not really sure why the name of the article should be decided by a vote, whereas everything within the article needs to be sourced. The Game is a game, the source says The Game is a game, why not The Game (game)? Kernow 15:30, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
That's a matter for AfD/VfD/DRV, not here, although I agree with you. :) — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:27, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Considering it's not complete bollocks, no to both. --Liface 18:28, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Object to the first one only in so far as we might need to change the title later if an English source is found. And share implied perplexedness(if that's a word) over why it has gotten so much attention here. JoshuaZ 19:12, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Just zis Guy you know? You do not seem to realise you are included in the "obsessive interest" this article supoosedly attracts. Maybe you should consider whether it is your opinion that is "complete bollocks" rather than everyone elses. Kernow 20:10, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
It's like this: the article was deleted through process as unverifiable from reliable sources. After an intense campaign whihc included setting up a website to save the article, one source has been found - and that is not in English. Does it not strike you as slightly odd that this supposedly global phenomenon, which is reportedly common in the UK and the US, lacks a single reliable English-labnguage source even after all that searching? As a wannabe policy wonk I'd say it's fundamentally unverifiable. And that is why I want it gone. All we need to change my view is a few reputable English-language references, preferably in peer-reviewed sources. I don't think that arm-waving ever beats policy as a reason to keep or delete an article. Just zis Guy you know? 15:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
If I understand WP:V and WP:RS correctly, language of sources does not alter their acceptability. A lack of English sources goes to notability, not verifiability. JoshuaZ 15:55, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I like number 5, (forgetting game). Simply (game) is not very descriptive, (meme) may not be applicable, and since memory causes you to lose, I don't like numbers 3 or 4. Timrem 18:59, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
  • The Game (memory game) as first choice, followed by The Game (forgetting game), The Game (game), then The Game (memory). ~ PseudoSudo 08:42, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Logistics of the renaming

Is there a tool which can use "What links here" to bulk rename the links to The Game (game) to whereever we decide it should go, as it's not going to end up a simple redirect to this article. It's either going to be a subdisambiguation page or a redirect back to The Game. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:51, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. If The Game (game) is moved to The Game (foobar), there's no reason the former should not directly point to the latter. I saw your comment, Arthur, about how The Game (game) is the proper name for a disambig page on types of games named as such, but there's simply not enough of them to merit the creation of such a page. Anyone who types 'The Game (game)' into the search box will have the sole intention of finding this article; if they were looking for anything else they'd go through 'The Game' to find it. ~ PseudoSudo 08:09, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
When (not if) this article is renamed, I'm going to redirect The Game (game) back to The Game. That seems to be the consensus, although I'd rather delete it as a misleading redirect. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 12:31, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Honestly not trying to incite flames, but please don't try to correct my sentence structure in bold font. You yourself included The Game (game) as choice 1 for potential article titles in the section above. Rather than disregard my comment and take an authoritative stance on the matter, could you respond to the point I was trying to make?
In addition, unless I'm missing something, the demonstration of consensus you speak of refers strictly to JoshuaZ's comment above, 'I would suggest just having it redirect to The Game', followed by a note by Darquis about how a disambig page is a bad idea. ~ PseudoSudo 21:21, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Why rename? Because it's misleading. Any game called "The Game" would fit in The Game (game) — as there is clearly more than one (see the first section of the disambigbuation page The Game for a partial list, referring to a single game as The Game (game) is misleading. When the article is moved, I'd propose the automatic redirect for deletion, if there was any chance of logic here. As there isn't, I'll just redirect it to The Game. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 04:18, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Extraordinary Claim w/o Extraordinary Evidence

The claim that any game or meme has worldwide scope is an extraordinary one. In the case of Chess, there is no reasonable doubt, and many sources are available. In the case of Monopoly the claim is somewhat dependent on the manufacturer's sales figures, but as it is a publicly-held corporation, those are subject to audit. In this instance, we have one article from Belgium. The claim that the Game has worldwide scope strikes me as odd in the face of such a paucity of sources. I therefore felt it appropriate to properly label the claim as a claim, not a fact. Robert A.West (Talk) 21:11, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

I think that "worldwide" is a reasonable interpertation of the translation of the article. Unless we have reason to doubt it's veracity, it is saying that there are players in multiple countries on multiple continents. Darquis 05:49, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
The issue is not that the article claims a worldwide phenomenon: the issue is that if this claim is true, the assertion should exist in multiple sources. The lack of other sources casts doubt upon the claim accordingly. Suppose a single newspaper claimed that a certain person had won the Nobel Prize, and no other newspaper mentioned it? Would you take that claim seriously? I wouldn't. Now, it may be that other major media will mention The Game soon enough, in which case it would be appropriate to remove any qualifying text. As it stands, to present the claim of worldwide distribution as consensus, as opposed to a single-source claim, would be IMO misleading. Robert A.West (Talk) 16:47, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't think the example fits, because there is a difference between a game that can't really be marketed (like, say, Monopoly or Chess) and a series of awards that have decades of history and are incredibly well noted.
I think think that hte problem with looking for other sources making the same or a similar claim is no other acceptable source has written about this. If you consider the subject, it's not exactly material that's something a newspaper would typically write about. Hopefully we'll see something soon, but in the interim, I'm not sure we should exclude material that does exist in the article. Darquis 06:26, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I hope I said nothing about exclusion. I merely advocate that the source be named explicitly, as it currently is. Robert A.West (Talk) 23:50, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Strategy

This article now appears to be massively improved (most particularly in that it now acknowledges that it is a meme, not a game). The "strategy" section still looks like original research and cruft, I think it should go. Just zis Guy you know? 21:20, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Can you please explain how it isn't a game? -GTBacchus(talk) 21:22, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm also curious, since the De Morgen article seems to call it a game. Presuming that source meets WP:V, it is therefore citably a game. And meme just has too many different meanings (by many definitions any thought is a meme). JoshuaZ 21:41, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Just zis Guy you know? Please read the meme article. Calling The Game a meme is completely redundant. If your still not clear, read my last comment to the The name of "The Game" section above. As for The Game being a game, this seems clear to me, but before you explain to us why you think its not a game, please read the archived discussions where I have spent hours discounting a number of supposed reasons. The strategy section is based on sourced information. Kernow 23:33, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
JzG: as the author of the strategy section, I challenge your claim against its verifiability; the section is 100% derived from source (italics are from Talk:The Game (meme)#Translation):
The Game has no set rule defining a "winning" player (The ultimate victory does not exist, the Game never ends.), but participants can measure their performance by comparing how often they lose relative to their opponents. Thus, strategy in these games consists of attempts to make one's opponents lose while minimizing one's personal losses. (The ultimate strategy is, of course, to remind the competition of the Game as often as possible, without being reminded of it yourself.) Students in the United Kingdom playing The Game have been reported to leave messages on blackboards and pieces of paper for other players to later come across. (In the UK, fanatics have developed several strategies to make their fellow players lose. They write "The Game" in big letters on the chalkboard in front of the class, they hide little notes saying that the finder of the note has lost.)
Perhaps a footnote would be in order to make this clear to the reader? ~ PseudoSudo 01:20, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Since you assert the stragtegy section is not original research, please cite the reliable sources from which it is taken. It never ends? Bollocks. It ends when you decide to stop "playing" it. Simple, really. Just zis Guy you know? 08:43, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Bit confused; I just did cite them. The italics are quotes from the De Morgen article. By a footnote, I meant a <ref> tag in the section.
See, that statement you made (It never ends? Bollocks. It ends when you decide to stop "playing" it.) is classic original research. You challenged a quote from the source, claiming something different that seemed intuitive to you (and quite understandably so!). However, being blunt, that is exactly the type of thought that we need to steer clear of in this article, as unless every fact stated can be backed up by a quote from a reliable source, it will end up in the state it was in when it was first deleted. ~ PseudoSudo 10:20, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I see. So the "fact" that it never ends is verifiable, whereas the ide that one can simply decide not to play is OR. Once again this article turns my understanding of policy on its head; a worldwide phenomenon predominantly of the US and UK, vbut without a single English-language source, a single mention in a single newspaper sufficient to fulfill WP:V and WP:RS despite the lack of references in the article itself (was it culled from WP? Is this in fact self-referential?). The game never ceases to surprise. 62.73.137.190 12:12, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
As I believe we have already pointed out, the country list in the De Morgen article matches no version of the Wikipedia article. This would be strong evidence that it is not based on the Wikipedia article. JoshuaZ 14:06, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
The list of countries is actually almost verbatim. In our article we had "The Game has been heard across the English-speaking world, especially in the United Kingdom and the USA - most evidence suggests that The Game's origins lie in these two countries. It has spread across Europe, and as far afield as Australia, Brazil, Japan and Israel." That's the exact same list, with the exclusion of Israel. —Seqsea (talk) 15:55, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Ever

I've been sitting and thinking about this for about a half hour, and have come to a terrifying conclusion. Feel free to talk some sense into me if I'm missing the big picture or something, but:

If the Belgian article is under contestation as verifiable because it doesn't offer reliable sources itself, and the extremely capable and for-some-reason-not-busy-with-other-stuff Wikipedians including myself can't find ANY other traditioinal sources, not even one, how would an article in the New York Times be able to be cited as verifiable either? What would it use as its sources that we would consider reliable? And taking that one step further.... how will The Game EVER become traditionally verifiable? Old, sturdy sources aren't going to be found, it's just a fact- anything usable is going to come from new articles being printed in reliable sources.

Basically... what is it going to take for this article and others like it, that don't have go-to sources or known origins, and are this inherently memetic, to be considered veriafiable and allowed to stay? If 10 years from know I log on to Wikipedia and no trace of this phenomenon can be found, I think it'll be a sad day. Isn't an reexamination of policy maybe in order here?--128.227.95.149 23:20, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

  • That was me, by the way.--Hawkian 23:23, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, here's what it would look like, in the ideal case:
You start with articles like those in the Belgian paper, and the one in Insert Credit. Those are primary sources, as are all the blogs and usenet postings. A bunch of those get written, and indexed, and stored away. At some point, some kind of sociological reasearcher comes along and wonders about The Game. She digs up those primary sources, evaluates them using her scholarly expertise, and gets her research published by a known reliable publisher. That makes her a secondary source, who is trustworthy because she is qualified to analyze primary sources and put them in a proper academic context, because her publishers demand that she be qualified in that way. We, the tertiary source, base our confidence in our information on the trustworthiness of the secondary sources we cite. The only reason we can justify keeping the article now is that the one source cited, although a primary source, comes from a respected publisher. -GTBacchus(talk) 04:32, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Insert Credit

I'd actually like to get a discussion going about the Insert Credit source.

If we can put aside the fact that this article is being used as a Wikipolitical football, what's wrong with this source? It's not somebody's personal blog. It belongs to a corporation (Audmark Inc.) Sites like this are cited legitimately by Wikipedia articles all the time. I'd like a better explanation of how this site fails WP:RS, not just a terse "no blogs please". rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 23:29, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Here's the link in question, which I deleted, with the terse edit summary. I figured if someone said something.... and here we are. I actually hadn't seen the section above where this came up before, but now I have. Insert Credit is a gaming review site. I think the blog-like appearance is to make it "hip", and "edgy". Looking more closely... I'd say it's borderline, as far as WP:RS. It seems well respected among gamers, and their regular writers apparently get published in Wired sometimes, or at least someone said so in a blog. I have no idea whether they apply basic journalistic standards there. I'm pretty sure they do at De Morgen.
Reading through Wikipedia:Reliable sources, I see a definition of "primary source" that both our sources seeem to fit closely. Check out the sentence in bold - We may not use primary sources whose information has not been made available by a reliable publisher - De Morgen passes, but who is the reliable publisher in the case of Insert Credit? Audmark, Inc.? Who are they? Ah, a marketing firm in LA. That's practically synonymous with integrity. That leaves us with one usable primary source, and one questionable one. Although it's not consistently enforced, we claim that all our articles should be based on secondary sources. In practice, we use a mixture of secondary and primary sources, and sourceless material, and we try to keep it on some sort of gradient where the sourcing gets better, not worse, over time, and where unsourced material is eventually removed. This article is starting out pretty low on that gradient, and I don't see that Insert Credit moves it up. On the other hand, you're right: it's not a blog.
What does it take to verify the existence of a concept? A couple of people talk about it, out loud? Since the discussing of it makes it exist, that's not in question, but there is some question of whether we're being used to help it bootstrap itself into further existence, and we are. To some degree, as Wikipedia grows, this sort of thing is unavoidable, but we should try to minimize it, by being somewhat scrupulous about just how much we want to lower the bar for memes. If The Game is "viral", as Insert Credit claims, do we really want to become the biggest vector so far for spreading it? (Have we already?) -GTBacchus(talk) 03:19, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
We should be more worried about spreading the Gospel of Hermes than something that exists because someone says it exists like this game/meme/whatever. Kotepho 03:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
"Worried" - I hope none of us is losing any sleep over it. I just don't think we should turn Wikipedia into a free-for-all for memes. We're susceptible of that. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:47, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
People aren't going to go and make a bunch of meme articles just because this one gets kept (slippery slope fallacy. I'm impressed by how well this situation is being handled, actually, and I'm happy with the new article. --Liface 05:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
a) Slippery slope is not always a fallacy - cigarette use, for example, is a very real slippery slope. b) I'm not invoking slippery slope here. I'm saying, hey, let's go ahead and take pride in being an encyclopedia with some standards about what we accept as a reliable source. Why lower the bar? -GTBacchus(talk) 15:24, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for looking into the background of Insert Credit. This leaves me with about the same opinion as when I first saw the site - it won't give this article much extra verifiability, but it is a source we can cite facts from so that we're not just parroting one newspaper article. The facts we'd be citing would be uncontroversial. I could understand an objection if Audmark had some conflict of interest where reporting on The Game in a biased or erroneous matter would help them market something, but that's pretty implausible.
Also, I don't think this is a primary source for our purposes. I don't want to describe in the article what some non-notable writer for Insert Credit thinks about the game; I want to report the same facts about the game that he reports and cite his article, making it a secondary source. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 04:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
From the linked article, apparently written in 2004:

Another patron, an older gentleman, stood with the dim lights of recognition in his eyes. Turning, responding without sadness or anger, he stated, “I haven’t thought about the game in 12 years.”

12 years? Even charitable sources don't have this thing extending back much past the late 1990s. Are we to believe that some random dude encountered in a pub has been "playing" since at least 1992? And then there's the guy who supposedly learned about the Game in the jungles of Borneo.
Doesn't it seem that a more likely explanation is that the writer is putting us on just a bit, and that regardless of the reliability of the Web site in general, maybe we shouldn't trust this particular article to tell us the truth about anything? --phh (t/c) 15:01, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
I think we should leave it out for now. I wouldn't be surprised if The Game were that old, but the Borneo comment and the unamed person making the claim leave a lot to be desired. (We should however, remember that the article exists in case another AfD occurs). JoshuaZ 15:13, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The writer, if he's not outright lying (which Insert Credit (jokingly?) encourages in its articles), is certainly just repeating hearsay, and no journalist would use something some guy's girlfriend says a guy said to her in a bar, as a source for anything serious. (Everyone's always the most honest when talking to girls in bars, y'know.) Since The Game is what it is, urban legend-type sources are just going to be as far back as you can trace it, and that's why I say the Insert Credit article is a primary source. The author is claiming to be an "eyewitness", in the sense of actually knowing people who play the game, and having actually heard these legends about it. The only difference with the Belgian article is the De Morgen people are actually respected news publishers. -GTBacchus(talk) 15:24, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Ok, after reading their staff guidelines, there is no way this constitutes a reliable source. The De Morgen article is (in my mind) borderline reliable but this is ridiculous. Publications that encourage their writers to at best rely on anecdotes and to lie when it makes things funny cannot be considered reliable for any serious purpose. At best a line could be added noting something like "humorous origins of the game have been suggested, including a possibly fascetious claim that the game originate from the jungles of Borneo" and then I'd have a WP:N issue with mentioning that. JoshuaZ 15:33, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I'm convinced it's not a reliable source. Before knowing about the staff guidelines, I figured we'd have the common sense to sort out the facts from the humor, but the "lie when it makes things funny" part does in fact make everything too dubious to use. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 16:37, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Big deal - plenty of Wikipedia articles don't have verifiable sources. The game exists, it is fact, it should be here on Wikipedia. But of course we can't have any respect for those who are more informed in an area - Wikipedia works by the principle of the majority view of truth - no matter how ignorant the majority are. zoney ♣ talk 11:01, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
No, Wikipedia is not a democracy and does run off of majority. JoshuaZ 13:23, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I think the point is that those plenty of wikipedia articles should have verifiable sources, and so should this one, regardless of other articles. I agree that it is really frustrating, and i would still view this article as a special case where policy is concerned, but community consensus is community consensus. Jdcooper 11:09, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Hah! "Community consensus"? It's merely consensus among a select few. And the article is already a special case in the amount of scrutiny it has received. Plenty of material on Wikipedia is left well alone despite being unverified. I know of hundreds of articles about ordinary things that have not one reference whatsoever - just because they seem more mundane, or people believe the content more easily, they are left alone. zoney ♣ talk 17:42, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Please feel free to add the {{unreferenced}} tag to any article that fails to cite sources. It's true that we have a lot of unsourced content here, but we're working on it, and trying to continually improve the sourcing in our articles, and either back up or remove anything unverified that goes beyond common knowledge. The need to improve many articles is hardly an argument for letting any particular article slide. -GTBacchus(talk) 18:58, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to point out that I'm not arguing for the deletion of this article (far from it!). I wanted to know if we could cite the article from Insert Credit, and now I've been shown a good reason why not. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 03:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Further explanation needed

Could someone add some more explanation of how the Game works, for slow-brainers like me who don't understand it? For example, it seems like someone playing the Game would always be thinking about it. So she would constantly be in a state of losing, or would lose many times a day. Also, anyone writing a note on a blackboard would be in a state of losing as he wrote it, and every time he thought about it afterwards. When he learned of someone seeing the note and losing, he would lose himself. Is all this correct? If not, someone should explain further in the article. Thanks Cam 14:25, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Yep, you seem to have got it down. Some of my friends lose 10-12 times a day, which is getting close to the max if you're playing with 30 minute time limits. --Liface 15:43, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I lose the game a lot because this page is on my watchlist. QmunkE 15:49, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
It seems ridiculous at first, but eventually your brain habituates to The Game and you begin to lose less. For example, I just read this discussion, then went and watched some TV and then lost. One day you'll lose and realise you haven't lost for years. I went for over a year without losing about a year ago. Kernow 18:00, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Winning

In the rules me and friends use, we agree that you totally win the game when you forget about the game entierly. Should this be added, or not? Homepie22:34, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

  • No. Only the basic rules (those started in the reference) can be in the article. "Unofficial" variations used by small groups are unverifiable, and will be removed. WarpstarRider 23:48, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
  • The whole point of The Game, even outside the encyclopaedia-related reasons per WarpstarRider, is that you cannot win, because once you realise you have won you have lost. That is why The Game is even a thing at all. Jdcooper 01:36, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Can you not win something without realising it? Generalmiaow 20:55, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, unless the objective of the game is to not realise it, which it is here. Jdcooper 01:12, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't see how the fact that it is the objective of the Game is not to realise that you've won precludes you from winning it without realising it. A common point made about the game is that if you never hear about it again, you've won. (A friend wishes to have "I won" engraved on his headstone) 85.134.178.77 09:51, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with this edit?

I've seen it reverted at least twice now, but it's supported by the last couple of sentences in the Belgian article, isn't it? -GTBacchus(talk) 00:56, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

  • It's redundant, since the first sentence after the bulleted list says "There is no end to The Game". WarpstarRider 01:10, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
    Hmmm... a game having no end is one thing; a game that you're automatically playing just by knowing about is quite another. No? -GTBacchus(talk) 01:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
    Then again, that's not quite what that edit says. -GTBacchus(talk) 01:14, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


surely you personally lose the game the first time that you remember you are playing it and fail to pronounce i have lost the game you can start playing again soon. this logic works for those beginning to play, it seems that people may embark on several gamespans over the course of their gaming. i recently lost the game in a situation in which saying shit i lost the game would have been ridiculous, did i step out of the game? i think so

No, you just broke the rules of the game is all. That doesn't take you out of it..to make a comparison, if when no one is looking, I take a few grand from the bank in Monopoly, I've broken the rules (and am cheating). I can still play the game, though. So at most, you're still playing The Game, you're just cheating. Darquis 03:28, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

SaveTheGame.org

So why isn't this link in the external links? I read over the discussion above and we seemed to agree it was notable as a "fan site", also having a very linkable "compiled list of sources". -- Alfakim --  talk  14:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

It is a pretty good resource, but it is inherently a self-reference, as it was set up in response to the ongoing status dispute of this wikipedia article, so we can't link it. Jdcooper 15:17, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Where's The Game Played

Can someone tell me how to see the IP addresses of registered users? I've set-up a forum post to try and confirm the IP locations of players to map the spread of The Game. I was hoping to use the Wikipedia history to get an idea of how The Game spread over the last few years. Kernow 13:25, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The IP address of a logged in user is only availble to a very small group of people under very specific circumstances - usually only for vandalism tracking as far as I know. The wikimedia:Privacy_policy has a full explanation. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 13:55, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

IP Addresses

A lot of people are adding places where The Game is played, which are being removed as unverifiable. Can we not use their IP's to verify their location? See above for the IP's I've verified so far using the losethegame.com forum. Kernow 21:35, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

That would be orginal research. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 21:41, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Similar to hand gesture game?

This game seems related to a similar game in which the object is to get someone to look at your hand as you make the "OK" hand gesture (often held with the "ring" on the top, like this). If someone looks at the hand gesture, they lose. Does that game have a name? --Lph 14:23, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

It's called the "Circle Game", supposedly made popular by Malcolm in the Middle. I don't exactly see how it's related, though. --Liface 15:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! I see there's even an article about it. I guess to me they seem related in that one of the ways to make your opponent lose is by getting them to look at something (in one case a hand gesture, in the other case, say, a Post-it note saying "You Lose!"). And in that they are the kind of games that could go on for weeks, with each player trying more and more elaborate ways to trick the others into losing. --Lph 16:23, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
That is true, but you can lose this game even if you are just sitting alone at home (or wherever). Also, this game doesn't just go on for weeks, it goes on forever. Timrem 18:48, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Despite its reported prevalence this is the only mainstream report of The Game.

This keeps getting reverted but I don't think it's in the style expected of an encyclopedia, so I'm fine with leaving it out. --Liface 18:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it's original research. You'd have to do a survey of things made up at school one day and see how many mainstream articles you can expect. Ashibaka tock 16:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
I think it's original research because it requires you to fidn out what other reports of the game there are, decide which qualify as mainstream, etc. Plus, the sentence seems to be pushing a specific POV, at least to me. I'm gonna delete it.Darquis 00:28, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, then. Find one. It is an anti-memory game, and I've stood in the middle of Boston supermarkets and shouted "I lost the game!". Try it sometime. But get ready to run, because people get angry. And then check that German...or...Dutch magazine. I forget which. User:Asuka Seagull 22:17 20 August 2006 (EST)

BBC comment

BBC news magazine refers to the game (with a link to this page) - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4638900.stm#thursdayletters (letter from Adrian Lovell, Thursday 26 Jan 2006). This was how I was introduced to the game, and I've been playing it ever since (thanks Adrian - I think!). Should this be listed, or is it a self reference?  Tivedshambo (talk) 08:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

losethegame.com

Without judging whether this site is reliable or unreliable, unless and until we get a better source, I suggest we at least use this one. :-) Kim Bruning 14:11, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Attempted modifications

I'm trying to add some simple changes to the article based on the external site losethegame.com which seems to be the only external site with a large number of players and people who ultimately decide on the rules. The wikipedia article currently (incorrectly states) that once someone is told of the game, they start playing. This is utterly not true:

" Everyone is playing the game. They always have been and always will be. Participation in a game requires neither consent nor awareness of its existence. Only when someone has told you about The Game does it become possible to lose, unless you independently create The Game. The creator of The Game was the first person to realise he was playing, and therefore the first person to lose. " You must specify title = and url = when using {{cite web}}..

Therefore the first rule should be "The player is always playing the game". Since this article states "after someone has been told of the same, the following rules apply", then only rules 2 & 3 apply anyways, because rule 1 applies in all cases (even someone that has not been told of the game).

I don't understand why someone reverted these changes by mocking losethegame.com, because it is the ONLY external source with information on the game, and I thought Wikipedia has a strict rule against no original research or new material. Since I was only citing a source, reverting my changes and saying "this isn't true" is akin to saying the reverter somehow knew better? Based on what sources? --74.56.245.89 14:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

  • This IS original research. Whether it's being conducted on an external site or not, if it can't be verified, it can't go in the article. And I can't see nonsense like "The Game has existed from the dawn of time" ever being considered verifiable information. WarpstarRider 14:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
  • It's about the quality of the external source. The Wikipedia:Reliable sources discusses what sources are useful to us. Wikipedia is, after all, an encyclopedia - an attempt to collate reputable academic work from elsewhere. All research is original at some point - the point is that wikipedia cites other people's research, rather than doing our own. In citing other people's work, though, we have to be careful not to treat something as useful just because it's on the web: we cite reputable academic journals, news sources, etc. Losethegame.com is a great site, but it's a fansite, not a useful source. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 15:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with what you're saying, but please show me "reputable academic journals, news sources, etc." currently cited in this article. The only source is a newspaper which doesn't contain most of the information presented in this Wikipedia article. My point is that this article was written by someone with 0 sources, and only after was the newspaper link added (which doesn't explain all the things presented in this Wiki article). All I'm trying to do is actually add sourceable material. So again, currently, the page has 0 good or bad sources. I am trying to add 1 "non reputable academic" source, but is that really worse then having 0 sources to back the stuff up? --Ionescu007 21:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Are we looking at the same article here? That newspaper article is the only reason this Wiki article even exists right now. This article was written specifically to include only the information that was used in the newspaper source, after all the deletion debates. WarpstarRider 22:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I say Ionescu007 has a go. I don't think better sources exist. Kim Bruning 08:33, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Just because there aren't more reliable sources doesn't mean we can start adding in stuff from random fansites. This is what caused the whole deletion fiasco in the first place. WarpstarRider 09:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps the deletion debates were silly. Kim Bruning 14:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
You are correct that the deletion debates were silly, but until all of Wikipedia's contributors agree that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia based on verifiable information and stop trying to incorporate factoids based on their truthiness we seem doomed to either repeat the silliness or abandon the goal of creating an encyclopedia. --Allen3 talk 14:39, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Before the deletion debates, the article was an absolute mess. It was filled to the brim with unverifiable nonsense like what's being suggested at the top of this section, and it was taken to AfD over and over because not a bit of it was backed up by reliable sources. The newspaper article that was found is the only reliable source we have, and so it's the only thing this article can be based on until more (reliable sources) are found. A fansite for The Game doesn't qualify.
This has all been discussed numerous times throughout this talk page. WarpstarRider 14:44, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Right, so there's a fansite for something that's nn/doesn't exist. <blinks twice> Hokay. Well, I'll leave you to it then :-) Kim Bruning 18:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
There's a fansite for one of my friends. He's also non-notable. --Liface 21:21, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Is he claimed to be non-notable because he doesn't exist? ;-) Kim Bruning 14:15, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
No, he's claimed to be non-notable because not enough people care about him to a warrant a Wikipedia article. Look, I'm a fan of The Game just like you and I voted keep on every deletion nomination. Wikipedia has these rules to prevent vanity articles from being created and kept. We have to play by the rules here. --Liface 15:45, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I am not a fan of this game, and I helped write many of those rules by now. So as you might imagine, I'm sitting here scratching my head a bit as to why they don't seem to be working out ok here.  :-) Kim Bruning 15:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I run losethegame.com and, although I have kept the information as accurate as possible, it definately doesn't fit the criteria for Wikipedia because I could just make anything up if I wanted. What I do wonder about though is whether some of the early forum posts about The Game can be used as a source. I think this has been discussed before but I don't remember anyone reaching a sensible conclusion. It is not as if we are saying "Someone in a forum said the sky is green so let's use that as a source". What we are saying is that "The Game existed with these rules at this date". For example, the "The Game has always existed" was how The Game was described in Jamie Millers 2002 post way before the De Morgan article was printed. I guess this all depends on whether the forums might have been edited since the entry was made. I received an email from someone claiming to know the person who wrote the De Morgan article and they say that they explained The Game on Dutch radio. Could this be used as a source if I can find evidence of it? Kernow 12:20, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Radio sounds like a good plan for me. Man, if only this hit the US airwaves. --Liface 18:03, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Special example of a meme

Yet again someone removed the "special" from "The Game is a special example of a meme". Kinitawowi asked "What's so special about it?"

This probably stems from confusion over what a meme is. Many people use the term "meme" to refer only to "fads" or an idea which spreads quickly. In fact, any idea is a meme, any information that can be stored in the human brain. Anyone that actually read the meme article would be aware of this. Why The Game is a special example of a meme is clearly stated in the sentence, because it's rules are the fundamental rules of memetic replication. The word is necessary because otherwise the sentence is meaningless. Every game is a meme. Hopefully people will read this before editing the sentence again. Kernow 18:17, 4 September 2006 (UTC)