Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Games Workshop Online Community


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was Keep. Cbrown1023 01:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Games Workshop Online Community

 * — (View AfD)

Aside from the "Worldwide Campaigns" material (which is discussed elsewhere), is nothing more than advertising links for fan websites. Fails WP:NOT and WP:WEB DarthBinky 16:13, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - one or two of the links provided in the article do assert notability; would suggest merging them into a more appropriate article (example - add the "The Last Alliance" link to the The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game article).--DarthBinky 16:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep. As outlined on the talk page, it is not an indiscriminate list of advertising links for fansites. The article outlines the official Games Workshop Online Community, the wider fan-based community and the Worldwide Campaigns run by the company (which are a part of the community). Games Workshop itself has encouraged fansites, especially in regard to "house rules" (1). However, to be included in the article, any fansites must first assert some form of notability, be neutral, and most importantly, be verifiable. Between the 23rd and 30th October, a number of articles underwent AfD:
 * ‎Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cheeseweb
 * Articles for deletion/The Dark Council
 * Articles for deletion/The Last Alliance
 * Articles for deletion/The Last Alliance Website
 * The result was to delete these articles, but the emerging consensus was that they be mentioned in this article or at War of the Ring Online Campaign where appropriate, by merging important information that could cite sources. This was supported both by the deletion nominator Angus McLellan and closing administrator Xoloz, with no objections.
 * Also, no site can be mentioned if it has fewer than 2000 members. The Lord of the Rings sites listed do not fail WP:WEB, as they outline their notability; for example, they demonstrate that they have won indepedant awards, been published in independant and verifiable sources, distributed through independent online websites and publication, been the subject of 'non-trivial published works', appeared on radio, run e-zines and online campaigns, and provided articles on the aspects of the Games Workshop hobby. Personally, I think the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game it long enough already regarding the online community, and that the detail which asserts notability with sources is best off here.
 * As for the Warhammer sites, they can undergo review individually and be removed or copyedited as appropriate. Also, the small sections given to them within each system (LotR SBG, WFB & W40K) could be merged into three single, more managable sections. --Grimhelm 16:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - the only website that asserts any real notability is the "Last Alliance" one, which has some citations. No other website listed does so - I don't believe hosting your own awards, having "comprehensive submission guidelines" or having a few members who have had a fan-submission published in White Dwarf makes a website notable.  It should also be noted that that "emerging consensus" was only for the Last Alliance site, because, as mentioned, notability has been asserted. --DarthBinky 16:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - it was also suggested for "Cheeseweb" and "The Dark Council". In regard to the One Ring, it is the oldest continuous forum site on the internet for LotR SBG, and the first to publish a fan supplement (on material which was later covered in an official GW supplement). It also runs campaigns and e-zines. --Grimhelm 17:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - running your own "e-zine" or online campaign does not provide notability, per WP:WEB- The content is distributed via a medium which is both well known and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster. (emphasis mine). Simply being the oldest website is trivial.  But I'm going to step back and let other editors comment.  --DarthBinky 17:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - Also, where is documentation of this "emerging consensus"?  All four of those AFD's resulted in speedy or regular deletions. --DarthBinky 17:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Ibid: The article itself must provide proof that its subject meets one of these criteria via inlined links or a "Reference" or "External link" section. Even if an entire website meets the notability criteria, its components (forums, articles, sections) are not necessarily notable and deserving of their own separate article. (emphasis and link mine). The subject of the article is not the individual sites, but the community on a whole, and how these site contribute to that notability. It should be noted that the "componenents" (eg. the mentioned fansites) do not have their own articles.
 * As for consensus, it is clear from the editors' comments at the AfD's, and how no one objected. And only one was speedily deleted, for being a duplicate of one that went through regular AfD because one was actually a duplicate. --Grimhelm 17:20, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - all I see with this article is an attempt to circumvent the AFDs (note that both "Last Alliance" articles were speedy deleted) for these websites' articles by lumping them into this quasi-directory (and directories fail WP:NOT and WP:WEB).  The "Worldwide Campaigns" section is word for word out of the Games Workshop main article; other than that, this article is nothing more than a web directory (with nothing more than the arbitrary threshold of 2000+ members being the prerequisite for inclusion, it seems). The only comment I can find that supports the "emerging consensus" is from Xoloz in the "Dark Council" AFD- and it supports what I already suggested, that the little meaningful content in this article can be mentioned in already existing articles (in external links).  --DarthBinky 17:40, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - The article is not trying to circumvent the AfDs - note how "Cheeseweb" and "The Dark Council" are only mentioned in name, whereas their respective articles were considerably longer. The "threshold" is merely a guideline to quickly identify non-notable sites - they still have to assert notability and be verifiable. --Grimhelm 17:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Keep - I'm in the process of getting together a list of the "best" forums for Specialists Games, using the Moderators of the SG forum (of which I'm one), which in itself was one of the few GW forums to survive the cull. I could just pull out any old list, ut I'm trying to find the ones that are worthy of being mentioned. In my opinion, as an old-time GW gamer, it's the community outside of my own little gaming circle that keeps me interested. For example, without the biggest Bloodbowl forum (talkbloodbowl) I'd never got into tournaments, and wouldn't have met so manypeole that I consider as friends. Darkson - BANG! 00:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - WP:EL says that forums shoudl not be linked.--DarthBinky 00:55, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been added to the list of CVG deletions. PresN 06:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - Just because an article is useful does not mean it belongs on Wikipedia. --Scottie theNerd 19:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep As a gamer (who has never played Warhammer), I can say that this deals with a monumental game in the hobby game/ role-playing game world. It should stay and problems with the article should be fixed MiracleMat 08:14, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: there are already many articles about Games Workshop's games. The question is if this specific article is encyclopedic or not. --Pak21 13:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: This article is about how the Games Workshop has created an online community, and how it has influenced the company's games. For example, as Darkson has noted, GW's support for its specialist games is almost exclusively via its forums. The same is true of their Middle-earth naval ruleset, All at Sea, which aside from a few White Dwarf articles, is entirely on the internet. Of the 300000+ registered members of the Games Workshop website alone, not all of them post on the fora; many of them are there to receive newsletters or use the site's article resources. In regard to the community as a whole, the unofficial sites of the fanbase are just as important; for example, the articles produced by each respective site for the public, and the content featured in White Dwarf, are key hobby resources; also, the influence the community has had on the Worldwide Campaigns, and indeed in creating their own; and indeed the huge backlash by Tolkien purists against the company's rendition of the Knights of Dol Amroth. All these have impacted the hobby and the sales of the products. --Grimhelm 15:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: no, it's not. The article is about "the registered members of any internet fora or websites specifically for the Games Workshop miniature wargames" (or at least, that's what the first sentence says) and it is currently not much more than a directory of forums related to GW's games, very few of which appear to actually be notable. An article along the lines of "Influence of the fan community on Games Workshop's products" (preferably with a less clumsy title) would be encyclopedic if decent sources could be found, but this isn't. Cheers --Pak21 15:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: As I say, I will clean it up and "de-directory-ify" it. --Grimhelm 16:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete : while a couple of these forums may be notable per WP:WEB, the vast majority of them are not, Essentially, the only criterion for entry which seems to have been applied is "number of members", and assertions along the lines of "ex-Games Workshop employees are members" don't do anything to convince me of the notability of the rest. Any sites which are notable enough on their own can have their own articles, but this directory adds nothing useful, so remove it. Cheers --Pak21 13:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: That is not a reason for deletion - that is a strong motion for cleanup. The reason the notable ones don't have articles is for "forumcruft", etc. By limiting the length of entries, it helps avoid superfluous NPOV edits from anons - in fact, you could easily cut down non-notable material, and restructure it per some of the points I have outlined above. I would be willing to undertake this cleanup. --Grimhelm 15:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Userify for cleanup, and resubmit to AfD when done to give Grimhelm a chance to clean this up. --Pak21 17:01, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment (Cleaned Up). Thank you. I don't know what "userify" means, but I have done my best with these edits. I cut back on non-notable and non-essential material, and now the only links there are in a meaningful and relevant context to the community as a whole. I also ammended the lead as you suggested. There is still more I can do, but for now this is a better and more manageable foundation to work from - if you have any suggestions. Others editors may wish to review their decisions, and/or make recommendations: I am ready to help, and can offer further sources for anything mentioned if necessary. :-) --Grimhelm 17:41, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete. I'm not convinced that this is encyclopedic; why is this web forum particularly notable?  Does it have impact to people other than its members?  --Alan Au 09:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - Please see my two comments to Pak21. --Grimhelm 15:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Commment. It's better now after the edits, but I still don't see the broad notability.  Why would a non-community-member be interested?  Have these campaigns garnered coverage in any mainstream media?  Why would someone look this up on Wikipedia instead of just going directly to the GWO community site?  --Alan Au 18:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. Firsty, there are a broad number of sites within the community, as is stated in the article (hence having to cut out the site directory). The article covers how these sites collectively contribute to the community, and a lot of the information is spread across the internet. The "broad notability" of this community of sites is the influence they have had on Games Workshop miniature wargames; a non-community member would, for example, be interested in the hobby articles and rulesets available on these sites, or in how the community has influenced the production of miniature figures. (Eg. In one magazine, the community was mentioned as having "huge wealth of material"). It should also be made clear that the community is not a computer game, and the online campaigns are just an organising of miniature wargames collectively, to play out the effects of each game on a map (so these more similar to a chess tournament than to an online game - in fact, they were originally run by mail before the internet). This article is very important for the Games Workshop parent article (and also the parent articles covering its games and products), and you would not find out everything on the official site; this article covers the contributions of other sites to games such LotR SBG, WFB and W40K, and also the specialist games for which they are almost the sole resource. --Grimhelm 19:05, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment addressing Grimhelm's last comments:
 * Except, as already mentioned, most still fail WP:WEB for notability.
 * There is no proof that "the online community" has actually influenced model production. That's a big assertion that would require some reference to back it up; I haven't seen such yet. Same goes for the claims about the website that affected Orcs during Storm of Chaos- you have no citation that proves that that website actually influenced it in the way this article claims.  In fact, there are absolutely no secondary sources to this article, and it shows- the descriptions of each website read more like advertisements than neutral commentary.
 * Your example is flawed because that magazine was White Dwarf, which is directly tied into this- it's a primary source, and it wasn't referencing "the community" as a whole, it was referencing exactly one website (The Last Alliance).
 * Again, none of those sites are notable- not a single one of them would survive an AFD (the only one that could, TLA, has already failed), which is what I meant earlier- this "article" is nothing more than an attempt to avoid an AFD for each website by collecting them into a quasi-directory and claiming it's an article about a "community". Yes, it's slightly better now that it's not just a big list of websites, but not much better.  --DarthBinky 03:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: As mentioned above, this is not about the individual websites. It is about how a group of websites have influenced a company and a hobby. In the Warhammer section, we now have only two mentioned in passing, and mererly to illustrate the point. I also added two references to the statement about sales as you asked - and one of them is a secondary source. I would improve this more, but with it so close to AfD closure already I'm not sure if it would be worth the efferot. Grimhelm 07:58, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * comment: I beg to differ. It is about the websites.  There's no content to the article besides discussion of the websites.  There's no secondary sources proving its assertions- yes there's the single secondary source, but it doesn't support what the article states (it is a financial statement saying that GW had a shortfall in 2005, but it doesn't mention the online community's effect at all, making it worthless as a reference).  As I said in my last comment, not one of the assertions are backed up. --DarthBinky 12:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: But this is collectively, and not individual random advertising as you assume. For example, you said: "Same goes for the claims about the website that affected Orcs during Storm of Chaos- you have no citation that proves that that website actually influenced it in the way this article claims. In fact, there are absolutely no secondary sources to this article, and it shows- the descriptions of each website read more like advertisements than neutral commentary." What website do I claim affected the Orcs? Anyone who took part in that campaign was part of the community, and the article merely states that the community influenced the campaign. It does not credit it to one website, and the two sources given are the secondary GW sources (in this context GW was reporting on the progress of a campaign played by the fanbase). Also, there are no "descriptions of each website"; any websites cited are only mentioned as sources in relevant context to the community and the hobby as a whole - not a directory of advertisements as you claim. And for the financial statement, that was the year Games Workshop started releases non-film related material, to which many Tolkien purists had an adverse reaction. I have given a source of a reaction to the release and one on the sales that coincided with that time, but if I did some more searching I could easily find additional sources. And even now, that still only leaves one assertion that you dispute. --Grimhelm 17:52, 12 January 2007 (UTC)


 * keep and interpret some of the comments as keep. This is documentable enough, and clearly notable as a fan site, and counting members and examining their credientials is not the way to find out. DGG 02:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep A large adequate article.  Culv  e  rin  ?   Talk  09:25, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. This fails notability guidelines, and there is nothing here of use as an article.  It's simply a dumping grounds for links and fan reactions, which are not what WP is for. MSJapan 04:26, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
 * keep A well written and useful article. Grobtak 22:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.